Limited political benefits for transit countries who manage migration

Abstract

This article asks whether transit countries that participate in migration management efforts with their more powerful neighbors achieve significant concessions or change on policy issues. Does their cooperation yield benefits well beyond the costs of hosting and policing migrant populations, and do their occasional efforts to blackmail destination countries by “weaponizing” migrant populations produce concessions or policy changes that were otherwise out of reach? The article examines recent attempts to use migration for political leverage by Turkey, Morocco, Mexico, and Indonesia to better understand what these transit countries may have gained for their cooperation. These exploratory case studies suggest that transit country strategies that involve the use of migration for diplomatic leverage seem to have only limited effectiveness. While transit states achieve payments for their border control efforts, they seemingly never fundamentally alter the behavior of destination countries on major bilateral issues.