Lebanon’s refugee policy of no policy: International political geography: a future without borders?

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Lebanon’s refugee policy

of no policy.

BA project. International political geography: a

future without borders?

Donna Middelkoop Carolina Macgillavrylaan 2920 1098 XK Amsterdam Donna.middelkoop@gmail.com +31655398453 6/30/2014 Supervisor: Dr. D. Vigneswaran Word count: 8634

This thesis aims to investigate the determinants of refugee policies of host states. The theory of Jacobson (1996) is tested through the case study of Lebanon, which is a deviant case. Indeed, one would expect this country to have a strict refugee policy because of its history and the thesis of Jacobson. This study finds that due to internal political conflict on national level that led to paralysis in decision making, Lebanon had a relatively generous refugee policy in the period of March 2011 to April 2014. This is not in line with Jacobson’s expectations that bureaucratic decisions, local absorption capacity and national security considerations would influence refugee policy. International relations did seem to have a paralyzing effect on Lebanon’s refugee policy, as well as internal political divisions on the national level. Further research must be done during the further development of the Syrian crisis.

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1. Introduction

June 20th_{2014 was international refugee day and for the first time in the post-World War II era}

there were more than 50 million people displaced worldwide (UNHCR website, 2014a). The current crisis in Syria has been a significant cause for reaching this figure, displacing almost six million people within Syria and 2,5 million to the adjacent countries of Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon (idem). Studying mass displacements is not a new phenomenon in the field of social sciences. Much literature is written on the causes of these mass influxes of refugees to host countries (for example, Cernea 1990; Weiner, 1998; Bates, 2002). However, much less literature is written on how host states react to these flows in their refugee policies and what the determinant factors are in their policies. The main question this thesis will investigate is “What determines refugee policy of host states?” This is an important topic to investigate as the livelihoods of the 50 million displaced is affected by government policies. As will be explained later, host states (seen as the neighboring country of first refuge) are fundamentally different from most Western states of last refuge and research on these host states will contribute to our understanding of their motives and incentives in making their refugee policy. However, this thesis does not have a focus on exploring this difference between Western and Southern states. Instead, the determinant factors of refugee policy in host states will be investigated by exploring the case of Lebanon.

This paper is constructed as follows. First, existing literature in analyzed and shortcomings are discussed. Second, the methodology of this research is explained. The case of Lebanon shows us that there is still a gap of knowledge of how these processes work. Researching the case of Lebanon is useful as it is a deviant case, which is an explanatory form of analysis that can help us form new explanations. After all, from the academic literature that is described in the theoretical framework, one would expect that Lebanon has strict refugee policies. What we have seen (until recently) is that this has not been the case. On the contrary, Lebanon is said to have relatively the most generous refugee policy compared to Syria’s other neighboring countries. To investigate the underlying mechanisms that have led Lebanon to a relatively open refugee policy, this thesis will make use of a literature study. Different reports from NGOs, international organizations and national and international newspapers will be used. Using this data, this thesis will outline how the Lebanese state is acting in a different way than what one from the written literature on this topic would expect. In doing so this thesis will add some new insights to the existing literature on host

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state’s refuge responses and will contribute to formulating a more concrete and operationalized theory.

2. Theoretical Framework

This chapter provides a theoretical background on the question what factors determine refugee policies of host states. First, the debate in the literature about the dominant actor in refugee policies is outlined. In this paragraph it is also outlined how ‘host states’1_{are categorically different than}

other states. Although international organizations such as the UNHCR still play an important role in steering refugee policy, I argue that states, and in specific host states, are still the most important actors in forming refugee policy. Second, I will discuss the most important factors influencing refugee policy, in which the theory of Jacobsen (1996) will play a dominant role. Third, building on this, a deeper explanation is given of how ethnic tensions could influence refugee policy.

2.1 International refugee regime vs. the host state

This paper uses a realist perspective that argues that states are still the dominant political actors within the international system. According to some, state power is declining due to increasing globalization. The power to control borders would be diminishing in this process as well. In this section the debate is outlined shortly and it is argued that the state is still the dominant actor in controlling refugee flows.

When talking about a host state it is important to categorize what kind of states we are talking about. In this research the focus lies with non-western underdeveloped states. I believe that there is an important difference between Western states, where only relatively a few refugees eventually arrive, and the neighboring states of the country of origin, which are the countries of first asylum or first place of refuge. This dichotomy sketches at least important differences in situations that might even be considered as different categories of countries, because of the following reasons. Firstly, Salehyan & Gleditsch (2006) note that countries located in instable regions are categorically different than countries which are not, as they have to deal with different issues. For example, those countries have to be wary of the possibility that the conflict might spread to their country (Salehyan & Gleditsch). Secondly, the circumstances of refugee shelter are

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different. For example, in Western countries such as the Netherlands shelter is organized by the state. In contrast, in countries like Pakistan, Iraq and Tanzania the Red Cross and UNHCR have been the main providers of camps and settlements. Thirdly, although I would argue that both developed and underdeveloped countries could restrict the refugee flow, the impact and effectiveness of the restrictions is very different between first refuge countries and final destination refuge countries. Neumayer (2004) finds that European countries can influence the refugee flows by a more restrictive policy. However, neighboring countries are often overwhelmed by the great amount of refugees. During the 1970s and 1980s most refugee migration occurred in the third world, as these countries sheltered 96% of world’s refugees (Hein, 1993). This means that the developed world only had to deal with 4% of world’s refugees. It seems obvious that the amount of refugees determines by large state responses, as with small refugee flows there would be more room for an ethical perspective on their treatment than there would be with large numbers, which would require a more realist approach. The latter relates to the fact that these countries have to deal with major negative impacts as they already have greater environmental and security related problems (Jacobsen, 1996). Furthermore, these governments have different refugee policies than Western industrialized countries because of different economic, political and military factors (Jacobsen, 1996). What these impacts exactly are will be discussed later on. Fourth, host countries located in developing countries often deal with protracted refugee situations, in which refugees face a long residency in a host country and no outlook for permanent residence applications. In Western countries, the duration of residency is more clear and regulated by law and executed by law.

Hein (1993) argues that the literature on refugees’ status has very much focused on the ‘international refugee system’ in which a network of national, international and UN relief agencies manages refugee problems. Barnett (2002) argues that the international refugee regime is gaining more power as international borders are crumbling down. Hyndmann (1999) states that there has been little attention to power relations within and beyond the boundaries of major organizations that manage migration and refugee flows. This becomes evident in the discourse of the international refugee regime. This discourse has shifted from the “right to leave”, to the “right to seek asylum”, to the “right to remain” during the post-Cold War period (Hyndmann, 1993). This shift is driven by the most dominant players in the international refugee regimes, namely the donor governments of the North. The enforcement of this shift has resulted in the increase of the

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importance of ‘safe spaces’. These are places just outside or near the border of the refugees’ country. These refugee camps are becoming increasingly permanent, as international assistance is more and more located in the regions of conflict. According to Hyndmann (1993) this is part of ‘geo policing of migration’ of the North. This migration control of Western states away from the border is also acknowledged by Guiraudon & Lahav (2000), who state that Western states have reconstructed their borders to local, transnational and private actors. According to Hyndmann (1999) this changing geography of forced migration has challenged the sovereignty of host states.

Since 1951 the UNHCR has the mandate to assist and protect refugees and to arrange permanent solutions for their displacement (Hyndmann, 1993). The UNHCR is becoming an increasingly important actor in these power relations regarding the organization of refugees. Although the mandate of the UNHCR to provide for the protection of refugees and increasingly for humanitarian aid transcends international borders, but host states still maintain the power to strategically react to mass refugee flows (Long, 2013). Over the past decennia many states have closed their borders in order to mitigate or stop these mass exoduses. Although Hyndmann (1999) emphasizes the threatened sovereignty of host states, Western states often have respected these closure strategies, or even encouraged them. For example in the case of Pakistan, where the US advised the Pakistani government to close its borders in order to prevent terrorist threats (Long, 2013). The UNHCR has little power in this playing field as they face the dilemma of choosing between humanitarian action, protest or political diplomacy, as they are 98% financially dependent on state donors (Hyndmann, 1999). This illustrates that the main actor in refugee control has remained the state; as they can close their borders, expel refugees and push for refugees to stay in the region of origin.

2.2 Factors affecting refugee policy in host countries

If the main actor in refugee policy is the state, we must investigate the written literature and its theoretical gaps on how the state reacts on refugee flows2 and what the motives are behind these

2_{Mass influx or flow comprises the sudden movement of refugees from one country into the other. This is}

consistent with Jacobson’s (1996) definition as “[...] mass refugee inflow occurs when, within relatively short period (a few years), large numbers (thousands) of people flee their places of residence for the asylum country.” This can be caused by environmental disasters, famine, prosecution or civil war. The concept of refugee is therefore also rather broad defined as anyone fleeing from the previous mentioned causes. This

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refugee policies3 of states. According to Weiner (1992) every state has an unique relationship with refugees which represents its larger function of reproducing the social order. Loescher (in Basok, 1990, 724) argues that ‘the formulation of refugee policy involves a complex interplay of domestic and international factors at the policy-making level and illustrates the conflict between international humanitarian norms and the sometimes narrow self-interest calculations of sovereign nation states.’

Jacobsen (1996) identifies, next to the above mentioned international refugee regime, two other sources that put pressure on the host government, namely the local community and the refugees themselves. From these two pressures there can be four broad factors affecting refugee policy categorized: bureaucratic choices made by the government, international relations, the absorption capacity of the local host community and national security considerations.

Bureaucratic choices are affected by the rate in which refugee agencies are institutionalized. In the case of countries where refugee policy is an important issue institutionalization is likely to be high (Jacobsen, 1996). When refugee policy is already institutionalized, Jacobsen (1996) expects refugees to have a better treatment, as the personnel in these institutions have a vested interest in regulating refugee flows.

Second, the host country’s relations with international actors are another important factor (Jacobson, 1996). Especially sending countries can have special relationships with host countries varying from using refugee flows as means of power that can work in both directions. For example, granting refugees a status could embarrass the sending country and recognizes that the sending country is persecuting their own people. On the other hand, sending countries can create refugee flows in order to destabilize other countries.

The third factor described by Jacobson (1996) is the local absorption capacity, which is divided in economic capacity and social receptiveness. Put simply, the local absorption capacity is the willingness and ability of the local host community to receive large amounts of refugees. Economic capacity is determined by land availability, employment and infrastructure. Refugee flows can have great impact on a country’s economic capacity. For example, according to Dowty

scope of the definitions is widened. In this manner an opportunity presents itself to generalize about the findings of this study.

3_{The broad concept of refugee policy is our dependent variable and is in line with Jacobson’s (1996)}

definition of actions or (inactions) taken by the government and other state institutions that include specific refugee policies, military responses, unofficial actions and policy implementation.

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& Loescher (1996) minimum wages will decrease in the host country when refugees are competing for jobs and the increase in demand for scarce goods will create inflation. There are several factors that attribute to social receptiveness. The cultural meaning of the word “refugees” is important as well as the community’s historical experience. Moreover, ethnicity, kinship and beliefs about refugees play an important role. However, Jacobson does not line out how these last factors play a role in different societies. According to Dowty & Loescher (1996) in ethnic diverse countries with consequential societal and a weak central government with little consensus on legitimacy, large flows of refugees can upset the internal balance and endanger the current system.

Fourth and in overlap with the previous, Jacobsen (1996) identifies national security. National security has several dimensions, including environmental and social concerns that incorporate the threats to the quality of life of the host country’s citizens. Moreover, state is to defend itself from both external threats and internal threats. Security threats can affect refugee policies as the army becomes more influential in the country and thereby less constraint by accountability. The containment of security threats would become more important, rather than safeguarding refugees (Jacobson, 1996). These security threats could even lead to the denial of refugees and expulsion. In line with this, Dowty & Loescher (1996) argue that refugee flows can become political forces that challenge the legitimacy of the state. Jacobsen (2002) later argues that refugee flows in Africa gave governments the opportunity to strengthen their grip on the periphery of the state.

Jacobson (1996) has provided a potential useful theoretical framework to assess the different factors that influence refugee policy; international relations, local absorption capacity, bureaucratic choices and national security. However, Jacobson only provides some anecdotal evidence to support her theory and she is not clear under which circumstances which factors are most important. It also remains unclear how states respond to these factors. This increases the need to extend this theory further on both the theoretical and empirical side, as it remains unclear which of the factors are most important under which circumstances, or how one could measure such policies. Moreover, she does not operationalize the mentioned factors that affect refugee policies of host states.

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Although there is a vast literature on the origins of ethnic conflict (for example Newland, 1993: Posen, 1993: Lake & Rothchild, 1996: Vanhanen, 1999), the link between refugees and ethnic conflict or tensions is not much researched, but as this section will argue, the former can have a significant effect on the latter. Jacobsen (2002) states that there is only a thin air of theory and academic insight and little academic evidence of the impact of refugees on state-society relations in refugee hosting areas. Long (2013) is one of the few that did some empirical research on border closure of host countries. According to Long (2013) border closure is often motivated by the possible demographic impact of refugee flows, especially when the host country has existing tensions between minorities. Although Long (2013) does offer a general explanation of why states close their border, she does not address exactly what the impact is of refugee flows on existing tensions between minorities or ethnic groups.

Lohrmann (2000) argues that ethnic affinity is a major factor in determining the perception and treatment of refugees by the receiving country In most countries that are ethnically divided ethnic conflict arises (Vanhanen, 1999). Moreover, the more a country is ethnically divided the more political and other interests are channeled along ethnic lines (idem). According to Lake & Rothchild (1996) most of the time ethnic groups live peacefully together. However, when a fear of future developments emerge, ethnicity becomes one of the major fault lines between groups in society. State weakness is an important condition under which ethnic violence can emerge as the perception of anarchy calls upon strategic interactions and preemptive strikes between different ethnic groups.

Salehyan & Gleditsch (2006) find a causal relationship between refugee inflow and internal conflict. In their research they find that refugees from neighboring countries significantly increase the risk of civil conflict for receiving areas. Although they hypothesize that the underlying mechanism for this is the alteration of the ethnic balance in a country, resulting in discontent among different groups, they did not investigate this potential causal relationship, nor is it clear how the state acts upon these tensions.

In a more controversial paper Berber (1997) argues that refugee camps often have been places where militant groups are developing their strategies and recruiting new members. Moreover, rebels would create refugee flows or famines in order to attract more aid which feeds these rebel groups resources. Ethnic hatred can be used in order to turn refugees into radicalized

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militants and refugee camps could become sites of which attacks are launched internally to the host country or externally.

Refugees can have great impact on countries that are divided into racial, ethnic, religious or other groups, as a great inflow of refugees can pressure the social balance of these countries and even threaten stability (Loescher, 1992 in Milner, 2011, p 271). In Macedonia this became clear when the government refused to accept Kosovar Albanian refugees in 1999 because it was said that his refugee influx would alter Macedonia’s ethnic balance (Milner, 2011, p. 271). This was also the case in Turkey with the influx of Iraqi Kurds, in Pakistan with the influx of Sunni Afghans and in Baluchistan with Pashtun Afghans (idem). In this study of South African refugees in Southern African host countries, Maluwa (1995, p. 672) found that refugees may cause inter-communal tension within the receiving state through hostile ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic forces within the host population.

Taking these risks of refugee influx into account, one must expect that countries with ethnic tensions would act rather strict and protective when dealing with large inflows of refugees. However, this has not been the case in Lebanon as will be explained in the case selection. The next section deals with the methodology used in this thesis.

3. Methods

3.1 Jacobsen’s theory as framework for analysis

In this paper the framework of Jacobsen (1996) is used in order to determine which factors affect the refugee policy of host states. Jacobsen proposes four hypotheses. 1) Bureaucratic choices affect refugee policy, 2) International relations affect refugee policy, 3) local absorption capacity affects refugee policy and 4) national security considerations affect refugee policy. This research will test these presumptions in the case of Lebanon. These aspects are investigated separately in order to assess their significance. Jacobson’s analysis is specifically valuable because it evaluates short term impacts and responses, which is in the case of mass influxes is a very appropriate. However, there are also shortcomings to this analysis, as these four different factors have a lot of overlap. In order to mitigate this overlap, the history of Lebanon first will be described in the

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analysis, in order to explain some aspects of the country that are relevant for all four factors, such as the structure of the state and the most recent political developments.

3.2 Operationalization

De time period that is covered in this thesis is between the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in March 2011 and April 2014 (the moment of beginning to write this thesis). The dependent variable refugee policy is measured by the legal-bureaucratic response and the admission and treatment of refugees. The independent variables are more broad and therefor there is a broad operationalization of them. Bureaucratic choices are the political system itself and are measured through the existing legal framework and governmental bodies and institutions regarding refugees. The local absorption capacity is measured through economic indicators and quantitative data on social tensions. The national security is measured and explained through the development of conflicts and potential military threats. Finally, international relations are measured by examining the existing transnational and bilateral issues between the host state and the sending state.

3.3 Case selection

This thesis will conduct a qualitative case study. Due to of lack of time, only one case is selected. In this section it will be argued that Lebanon is a deviant case when compared to other neighboring countries and therefore a critical case for testing the above outlined theory.

Lebanon has been exceptionally generous in its response to Syrian refugees with an open door policy, while Egypt, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan have limited their policy to Syrian refugees (Sanderson, 2013). Iraq closed its borders since October 2012 (HRW, 2014a). The authorities of Jordan have denied access to certain groups fleeing from Syria, including Palestinian and Iraqi refugees, undocumented people and single males of fighting age (HRW, 2014a). Also, in late May last year the daily count of refugees crossing the border to Jordan plummeted from over 1500 to 300 or less. According to refugees Jordanian officials had closed the border or implemented strict refugee policy (HRW, 2014a). Turkey has prevented tens of thousands of refugees crossing the border, installing them in refugee camps at the Syrian border (HRW, 2014a). Lebanon is the last neighbor of Syria keeping its open border policy, although there have been Palestinian refugees denied access in last August (HRW, 2014a) and in May 2014 several Palestinian refugees were

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deported (HRW, 2014b). However, regarding the literature on ethnic conflict, refugees and states refugee policy in reaction to this, Lebanon seems a deviant case as defined by Gerring (2002). Lebanon seems like a deviant case because it is abnormal from what the above described theoretical framework would expect. Lebanon has a highly heterogeneous society and a history of civil wars fought along sectarian lines. In the past, Lebanon has dealt with national security threats because of the inflow of Palestinian refugees (Dowty & Loescher, 1996). The Palestinians eventually became a political force and the existence of the large population of Palestinian refugees eventually contributed to the break out of the civil war, which in turn resulted in the breakdown of the government and the domination of the neighboring Syria regime (Kamrava, 2007). When looking at the historical problematic relationship with Syria, one would expect, taking these two facts into consideration, that Lebanon would be one of the first to close its borders to Syrian refugees. But in fact, it did not.

Exploring this case would add causal explanations to the established but small theory on host state responses to refugee flows. Gerring (2002) states that the purpose of a deviant case usually is to probe for new explanations. As explained above, the case of Lebanon is a deviant case, as it does not act the way one would expect. Therefore, taking Lebanon as a case study will provide us with new lines of explanations for host state responses.

3.4 Data

For this thesis data is gathered from texts rather than from interviewing people or by doing ethnographic research. Doing interviews brings the necessity to be in a position of exclusive access to these people. Furthermore, when doing interviews, it can take time before there is the necessary trust established between the correspondent and researcher, as the topic often is a sensitive political issue. Also, there will be a subjectivity bias. Moreover, it is not easy to detect the contextual factors from conversations that led to certain decision making by talking from hindsight.

Ethnographic research can be very valuable when describing a specific kind of phenomena and revealing hidden dynamics. However, when investigating causes of certain outcomes that might lie in the past, ethnographic fieldwork is not the proper instrument to identify these causes. Moreover, one can make conclusions about the micro environment that is researched for the most part. For my research I’m looking at the broader developments in Lebanon that led to certain

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political decisions. Also, ethnographic fieldwork it uses a fair amount of time and money which are not available in this bachelor project.

Instead of the two research techniques this thesis will make use of a broad set of literature that can be divided in reports from NGOs and international organizations and newspapers. The value of reports from NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and International Crisis Group is that they do intensive studies in the field and speak with many relevant actors. They are mostly used to describe the independent variables. Newspapers from Lebanon are used such as Naharnet and the Daily Star Lebanon, but also international news sources like Al Jazeera, Reuters and BBC news. These are very useful to find certain statements from government officials and are more up to date than most reports. Also, this research methods are very viable in the short period of writing the bachelor thesis and does not hinder the research in terms of barriers of language or accessibility.

4. Analysis

4.1 History of Lebanon

Lebanon is a multi-confessional society. Since the formation of the Lebanese state in 1943, communal identity based on religion is more important than a common Lebanese identity for Lebanese citizens (Haddad, 2010). As a consequence, religion plays an important role as a basic structure of society in the political structure of Lebanon. This had been the case for a long time, as under Ottoman rule religious orientation was the basis of social and political obligation. Moreover, this consciousness of identity leads to hostile orientations to other religious communities. When talking about Lebanon, one often uses the word ‘sect’ which emphasizes not so much the element of religion as its social and political functions in which religion becomes a reference for different social groups (idem). These different sects in Lebanon comprise roughly of three Muslim sects (Sunnis, Shiites and Druze) and three Christian (Maronites, Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholics). Especially the Sunnis, Shiites and Maronites have played an important role as political actors throughout the history of Lebanon.

The national pact of 1943 after independence was an unwritten agreement of two leaders of the Maronites representing the Christians and the Sunnis representing the Muslims respectively (Krayem, 1997). In this pact the future of Lebanon was outlined by three main issues. First,

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Lebanon should be seen as a neutral, independent and sovereign state with an Arab character. Second, Lebanon would not seek unity with Syria and the Arab World or have special bonds with the former colonizer France or the West. Third, there would be a confessional structure in which Christians and Muslims would be a 5:6 ratio represented in the government. Also, the president, prime-minister and speaker of the house would be Christians, Sunni and Shiite respectively (idem). This meant a dominant role for the Maronite sect as the Maronite president was given the executive authority, but was not held accountable. These agreements were the basis for the civil war that broke out in 1975 (Kamrava, 2007, p. 329). The parliament had been very weak in power and the Maronite president very powerful. In the precedent decades, the demography of the country had changed significantly, as birthrates were high under the Muslim population. The majority of the Shiite population lived in severe poverty and was discriminated. Soon they felt excluded from the political decision making and economic development of which the Christians had profited. Moreover, in previous years there had been a high influx of Palestinian refugees after 1970. These Palestinian refugees began to organize themselves in Lebanon as the PLO and conducted guerrilla attacks in north Israel, upon which Israel stroke back on Lebanese targets. When the civil war broke out in 1975, the different identities of sects were further deepened (idem).

In October 1989 the Ta’if agreements were made in an attempt to end the civil war that had exhausted all parties (Kamrava, 2007, p. 240). The powers of the Maronites were reduced and the powers of the Sunnis were increased. The civil war ended in 1990 when Syria managed to win its battle with the only remaining fighting Maronites. The Syrian army had remained until 2005 when it had to withdraw under international pressure. However, the Ta’if agreement did not differ much from the earlier agreements that led the country into a civil war. The country’s government still does not have full authority in the whole of Lebanon as Shiite Hezbollah acts as a state within a state and is backed by Iran. In 2006 Israel launched a war against Hezbollah as retaliation against its strikes (Kamrava, 2007, p. 330).

Since 1976 Lebanon has been weaved with Syria, when Syrian president Hafez Al-Assad sent troops to back the Maronite forces’ fight against the PLO (Salem, 2012). When the Sunni prime minister Hariri was assassinated in 2005, a great uprising against Syria’s presence emerged and the March 14 coalition was constructed that comprised of Sunni (especially the Sunni Future Movement), Christian and Druze parties who pressured al-Assad to leave Lebanon. In the

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other smaller Sunni, christen and Druze parties who did support the Assad regime. At the end of the war in 2006 between Hezbollah and Israel, the parliament did not meet for almost two years and the March 8 coalition challenged the legitimacy of the government that was led by the March 14 coalition (Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Transformation Index [BTI], 2014). From 2007 the country did not have a president. In 2008 these ongoing conflicts erupted to violent clashes. While the army and security forces did not want to intervene because of a potential deepening of the conflict, Hezbollah sought their change to organize, train and equip itself military and were soon superior (BTI, 2014). In May 2008 a national unity government was formed and parliamentary elections were held in June 2009 of which the March 14 coalition had a small majority. It took five more months to form a government and another year to let it fall when the largest Druze party took the opposite side of the 8 March coalition. Five more months later, a government of the March 8 coalition was formed, but it collapsed in March 2013, because of a lack of unity about the position of the country in relation to Syria (BTI, 2014). In February this year a new government was finally formed, that aimed to form national unity in Lebanon. With regards to the Syrian refugees, it is relevant to briefly outline the developments concerning the refugee flow. The Syrian refugees that have entered the country since the eruption of the Syrian civil war have been distributed geographically along sectarian lines (International Crisis Group [ICG], 2012). The Sunnis are located in predominantly Sunni regions, Alawites are settled in predominantly Christian regions and some in Shiite areas. About one third of the refugees settled in the North of Lebanon, another third in the Bekaa Valley in Eastern Lebanon and 17 per cent in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, 14% in South Lebanon. The largest share of sects is from the Sunnis who comprise of an estimated 95% of the refugees (idem). However, this percentage is based on registrations by the UNHCR and a lot of minorities such as Alawites and Christians don’t register, which biases these official numbers. In April 2014, there were 1.04 million refugees in Lebanon (figure, 1).

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4.2 Bureaucratic choices

As mentioned before, legal-bureaucratic decisions affect subsequent refugee policy decisions (Jacobsen, 1996, p. 661). As Lebanon has a history with Palestinian refugees, it is relevant to investigate the legal and bureaucratic framework in order to understand the development of these institutions from the influx of Syrian refugees onwards.

The establishment of the Ta’if agreement marked the beginning of legal discrimination of the Palestinians in Lebanon, as it was stated that “there shall be no fragmentation, partition, or settlement of non-Lebanese in Lebanon” (Knudsen, 2009). After the civil war the main objective was to facilitate post-war reconciliation and the rejection of permanent settlement of Palestinian refugees illustrated the political importance for Lebanon’s national interests and how the settlement of refugees now became unconstitutional (idem). This development was in line with an important earlier statement made by Lebanon in 1951, when the state did not ratify the 1951

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II period was marked by increasing marginalization of refugees in Lebanon. Lebanon signed, among other Arab states, the Casablanca protocol in 1961 which sought a solution for the status of stateless Palestinians, under the condition that Palestinians could not leave and re-enter the country (idem) and restricted their rights to work. In post-war Lebanon the executive power was also the judiciary power and served political sentiments against the settlement of Palestinians, who were seen as a major cause for the civil war. Subsequently refugee’s rights were limited during the 1990s and discriminatory institutions established (idem). HRW (2013) reported that Palestinians are increasingly rejected at the border. Security officials told them that they could not enter Lebanon because they were Palestinian. However, it remained unclear whether this was part of a new kind of policy.

Before the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, Lebanon still had not ratified the 1951 convention on refugees. According to the UNHCR (2013) Lebanon did not have legislation or administrative procedures in place to address the specific needs of refugees and asylum-seekers, who are vulnerable to detention and deportation for illegal entry or stay. Article 32 of the Lebanese law of Entry and Exit from 1962 states that foreigners who illegally enter the country can be imprisoned for one month to 3 years, fined and deported, although in the past the UNHCR has stepped in many times in order to prevent this from happening (Alef, 2013).

A new assistance framework was set up in order to deal with the Syrian refugee influx. The ministry of internal affairs was responsible for dealing with the Palestinian refugees, but now there is a governmental body been set up, the High Relief Committee [HRC], which is affiliated to the prime-minster and a collaboration with the UNHCR, NGOs and the ministry of Social Affairs. This body has not been very effective as a government official stated that many refugees did not register at the UNHCR, which collaborates with the state. Also, the state has no means to monitor the movements of refugees: “We simply have lost control” (ICG, 2013, p. 8). In November of 2013 the chief of the HRC was prosecuted for embezzlement of public funds pushing the image of the HRC further downwards (Naharnet, 11 November 2013).

Next to this assistance framework, other institutions play an important role in refugee policy as well. Many of these institutions are tangled in the system of different sects. The General Security is in charge of border crossings, ports and airports and would have strong ties with Hezbollah (Salem, 2012) and thus could undermine the political decisions made on a higher level by the March 14 coalition.

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In the summer of 2013 there were several problems emerging at the border. Border officials denied access to people with minor scratches on their ID cards, while their photo and names were still very readable (HRW, 2013). Moreover, border officials imposed one-year ban entry’s for no clear reason on refugees that tried to cross the border legally or ask bribes to let refugees cross (idem). HRW does recognize that the number of denied refugees is relatively small to the amount of refugees who are allowed to enter.

It’s clear that the bureaucratic choices in Lebanon potentially could affect refugee policy negatively. Indeed, as described above, there are some cases reported by HRW of unofficial actions taken by border policy. But overall, it seems that the legal framework and governmental institutions have not impacted refugee policy significantly at times of the Syrian refugee influx, although for the Palestinians there seems to be a different kind of policy at the border.

4.3 Local absorption capacity

With regards to the local absorption capacity it’s difficult to pinpoint certain moments in time that are significant for this factor. However, a crucial point with regards to the local absorption capacity was the publishing of a report by the World Bank in 2013, which estimated the costs of the large refugee flow in Lebanon. This paragraph will examine the effects of this report on refugee policy. Also the latent conflict between the Syrian refugees and Lebanese population is discussed.

An assessment of the World Bank (2013) at the request of the Government of Lebanon shows that the conflict in Syria will have an impact of real GDP growth and will push 170.000 Lebanese into poverty and double the unemployment rate. It’s projected that the refugee population will reach 1,6 million by the end of 2014. This is 37% of Lebanon’s population. This large influx of refugees increases the demand for public services, damaging Lebanon’s structurally weak public finances. Also, the influx of refugees has impacted the already weak social services sector and created social tensions among refugees and Lebanese communities (World Bank, 2013). With regards to health services, the refugee inflow has impacted this sector heavily. Due to overcrowding, a lack of water and sanitation infrastructure and poor environmental conditions, the chance of an outbreak of infections is great. On the other hand are hospitals crowded and there is not enough personnel or resources to cope with this demand for medical care (idem). With regards to the educational system the government has been very generous to refugee children, as they can

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access educational services (idem). However, it puts a great strain on the government’s budget, although some international donors have financed education for refugees partly. With regards to the infrastructure of Lebanon a decline in the level and quality of water supply and sanitation systems and waste management is visible (idem). These factors altogether would have increased the government expenditure by billions of dollars and would have widened the fiscal deficit even more (idem).

This World Bank report was made on the request of the Lebanese government. How did the government react to this report? Following the report, the World Bank proposed loan agreements(Daily Star, 16 November 2013). In December 2012 the government of Lebanon proposed a plan “Response of the government of Lebanon to the crisis of Syrian displaced families” which outlined the needs and monetary requirements (UNHCR, 2012). Keeping in mind that his plan was established relatively late, as Lebanon was already hosting more than 150.000 refugees (idem), it took even longer to set the plan in progress as the executive government was paralyzed by negotiations over the formation of a new government. (ICG, 2013). Another factor that halted the implementation of the new policy was an internal division within the government (idem). The powerful pro-Syrian and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and President Michel Suleiman opted for a bar on the refugee influx, while prime-minster Mikati wanted to help rather than stop the refugees. According to an anonymous government official, this lead to governmental parties burying their heads in the sand, rather than assessing the problem of the local absorption capacity and even worsening it (idem). Another strain was the composition of the government that at the time comprised of the pro-Syrian regime March 8 coalition. This did not encourage Western donors to help raise the estimated $180 million dollars that was needed in order to execute the plan of December (idem). In November 2013, the Lebanese government promised to survey unlicensed Syrian businesses in a reaction to many complaints of the host population about unfair informal competition (Daily Star, 25 November 2013).

Although most refugees got help from local communities upon arrival, as refugee camps have not been established, over time many Lebanese changed their perspectives about Syrian refugees that has become quite negative. A national survey conducted in 2013 shows that the Lebanese host community considers Syrian refugees as a threat to national security and stability (Christophersen, Thorleifsson & Tultnes, 2013). Two thirds of the respondents of different sects fear that the Syrian conflict will spill over into Lebanon (idem). Moreover, from the same survey

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it became clear that Syrian refugees are perceived as a cause of increased unemployment and a detoriating Lebanese economy. Also, there is limited trust from the Lebanese population towards Syrians. According to a local leader in the town of Akkar the relationship between Syrians and Lebanese are affected by economic problems, cultural differences and the troubled history with Syria (ICG, 2013). The minister of social affairs seemed to echo these perceptions, as he stated that “The refugee crisis is the biggest challenge facing Lebanon. It’s becoming a huge burden on the political, demographic, security and societal levels” (BBC News, 9 April 2013). The minister of interior Mr. Charbel stated in April 2013 that the crime rate in Lebanon has increased by 50% and that this relates to the influx of Syrian refugees (idem).

It’s clear that the local absorption capacity has been reaching its limits for a long time. In April the number of refugees in Lebanon exceeded one million, which is almost one quarter of the population (UNHCR, 2014c). However, this has not lead to a different kind of government policy. Jacobsen’s hypothesis about the local absorption capacity seems not to be true in the case of Lebanon.

4.4 National security

National security is a very broad category to research and has some overlap with international relations and the aspects of ethnicity in the local absorption capacity. With regards to the latter, the latent conflict between different sects in Lebanon is viewed as local absorption capacity concerns, whereas a tangible conflict is regarded as influencing the national security. The relationships with international actors will be discussed in the subsequent paragraph. For now, the internal conflict and strife that might have led the government to changes in refugee policy are explored.

The Lebanese state is not truly sovereign, as it does not have a monopoly of force within its territory and does not fully control the country’s border (Salem, 2012). This is related to the fact that 50% of the Sunni population does not have confidence in the central government (Christophersen et al., 2013). Moreover, the Lebanese state’s security services are influenced by the country’s political factionalism. For instance, the army has a positive image in all of Lebanon, but the army intelligence does not, as according to some, it has close ties with Hezbollah. And as mentioned before, the General Security would have close ties to Hezbollah.

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The Syrian conflict has had spill-over effects in Lebanon. Although the Syrian refugees are not always directly linked to these conflicts, it is important to describe how this spill-over effect evolved over time. Until May 2012 Lebanon had been relatively calm, except for a few early incidents4. In May 2012 violent protests erupted in Tripoli when an officer of the General security close to Hezbollah arrested a Sunni anti-Syrian activist. In all of North Lebanon a revolt from the Sunni population against Hezbollah emerged (Salem, 2012). In October 2012, the chief of the Internal Security Forces is killed in a car bombing, presumably by Shiites (Blanchard, 2014). After a month of violence in June 2013, a car bomb placed by Sunni extremists explodes in Beirut in July (Blanchard, 2014). Violence continues and in November 2013 two suicide attacks strike the Iranian embassy in Beirut. Until the time of writing this paper, the violence and suicide attacks seem to intensify. In the meantime, the border regions of the Eastern Bekaa valley have not only served as refugee for Syrian citizens, it also served as transit zones and safe havens for Syrian opposition fighters (BTI, 2014).

According to Jacobsen (1996) even if refugees do not actually engage in the domestic quarrels of their hosts, governments often perceive them to be a threat and impose greater controls by for example, establishing refugee camps, certainly when there are ethnic struggles. Remarkably has been the strategy of no camps on which the government tries to hold on to5. With the national security issue that arose from the Palestinian refugee camps in decades before, wherefrom a large guerrilla resistance movement developed, refugee camps for Syrian refugees is a sensitive issue for both the Lebanese population and the government. Another concern is to mitigate the polarization between pro and anti-Assad parties in Lebanon, as the resurrection of refugee camps could be seen as a political statement against Assad. The government also tries to separate the refugee crisis from the factionalist conflicts that arose in 2012 and 2013. The minister of Social Affairs, Abu Faour stated “As you all know differences over the situation in Syria have emerged in Lebanon, but we have reached consensus at cabinet that the case of Syrian refugees should be treated as a humanitarian cause, not a political one. The Lebanese state must therefore perform its duties in full to assist and harbour the refugees in Lebanon.” (Naharnet, 3 December 212).

4_{In June 2011 there were some deadly sectarian clashes when there were rallies supporting the Syrian} uprising. (Al Jazeera, 7 July 2011). In February 2012 there were deadly fights between Sunni and Alawite Muslims (Al Jazeera, 13 February, 2012).

5_{Next to this domestic security threat, a diplomatic reason is also relevant, as the March 8 coalition within} Syria does not want to damage the image of Assad by organizing camps for refugees of his terror (ICG, 2013).

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However, due to security considerations, the government decided in 2013 to postpone the elections, making a clear refugee strategy even more difficult.

For Hezbollah, the current one million Syrian refugees pose a great threat, as the majority of the refugees are Sunni and resentful of Hezbollah’s military history in their country (ICG, 2014). A senior security official stated that the presence of Syrian refugees could become a greater danger than the Palestinians as there would be real risks of politicisation (idem, p. 21). Syrian refugees are more and more targeted in attacks from the host population resulting from socioeconomic grievances (Yacoubian, 2014). In return, Syrian youths organize themselves in gangs and radicalizes. Relations are built between armed factions in the Syrian population and Islamists factions from Palestinian refugee camps (idem). This means that not only for Hezbollah the predominantly Sunni refugee influx pose a threat, but as well for the national security of the country as for a certain number of these refugees could potentially become politically active and exacerbate and polarize sectarian tensions even further.

4.5 International Relations

As it has become clear, the conflict in Syria has an enormous impact on Lebanese politics and society. The factor of international relations has great overlap with the national security dimension, as it has become clear that the spill over of the Syrian war into Lebanon affects national security, as pro and anti-Assad militias are fighting each other. In this relatively short section an additional focus will be between the international relations between the government of Lebanon and Assad’s government.

With regards to refugees it is said that the settlement of refugee camps is a disputed issue as the March 8 coalition does not want to damage the image of Assad (ICG, 2013). For a long time it has been clear that the March 8 Movement of which Hezbollah is the most dominant player was supporting the regime of Assad. Hezbollah was accused of helping Damascus and in October 2012 it acknowledged that the resistance movement was active in Syria, but only at border areas to assist and protect Lebanese Shiites at the border against rebels (ICG, 2014). In May 2013 Hezbollah admitted that it also sent fighters to Syria. The US state that Hezbollah has been active in all kinds of places all over Syria (idem). Meanwhile, the March 14 coalition officially disassociated itself from the Syrian conflict and the reluctance to set up refugee camps was certainly part of this (ICG,

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Also, as mentioned earlier, the dominance of Hezbollah in the government of Lebanon has led Western donors to refuse to fund the government’s refugee program proposed in December 2013. This refusal also has to do with international tensions between the USA and Iran. Hezbollah is often seen as a proxy of Iran (ICG, 2014). This has led to a lack of funding for Lebanon’s refugee plan set up in October 2013.

Many have argued that Lebanon’s future is intertwined with that of Syria. Until now, Lebanon’s refugee has been affected by the Syrian crisis in the sense that it is careful and tries to mitigate the diplomatic tensions between Syria and Lebanon. However, as it will become clear in the discussion section, the recent developments that happened after the researched period of April 2014 might shed some more light on the effect of international relations on Lebanon’s refugee policy.

5. Conclusion and discussion

In this bachelor thesis the question of “What determines refugee policy of host states” is investigated. It can be concluded that the refugee policy of Lebanon has been a policy of no policy as between March 2011 and April 2014, no coherent plan or policy has been implemented in Lebanon. With regards to the four factors that Jacobson (1996) stated to be determinant, one can conclude the following. The bureaucratic choices in Lebanon could affect refugee policy negatively, but in general this has not been the case. It even seems that it did not influence refugee policy at all. As for the local absorption capacity, it’s has become clear that although on every level it has reached its limits, the government did not make any significant changes in its refugee policy. Also, the national security situation is worsening, but this issue has not been linked to refugee policy either. So it can be concluded that the first three factors were not determinants in Lebanon’s refugee policy. These are important findings, as it necessitates further research on under which circumstances they would play a determining role.

International relations did seem to play a role as the lack of international funding has been pivotal. Many Western countries oppose Hezbollah as dominant player in the Lebanese government and therefore don't fund the Lebanese government. Also, the relationship with Syria is complicated and has paralysed Lebanese politics. The pro Assad March 8 coalition and anti-Assad March 14 coalition do not agree on how to solve the Syrian crisis. An example of an important consequence is that there is a reluctance to build refugee camps in Lebanon. In this way

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international relations did impact Lebanon’s refugee policy, namely the policy of no policy. The internal political division is also where we can find a major gap in Jacobson’s theory. Jacobson does not expect the government to suffer from internal division, which has impacted greatly the Lebanon refugee policy. This study thus provides an important contribution to Jacobson’s theory: internal divisions on the national level that are intertwined with international relations and sectarianism can lead to a refugee policy of paralysis. This in turn gives us important explanations that can be applied to other host states, and in specific host states with great politicized ethnic diversity.

At the time of writing this thesis there was a major development that complicated Jacobsen’s theory and this thesis. Very recently the Lebanese refugee policy has developing rapidly6_{and this is most likely not in favour of Syrian refugees. These sudden developments are}

remarkable, as for more than three years Lebanon was a deviant case, because it did not behave as the theory of Jacobsen (1996) expected. Although it was clear that the existence of a non-policy was strongly related to Lebanese Syrian relations - as the establishment of refugee camps was a sensitive issue – it was less evident that a turning point could occur. The sudden change in refugee policy might be explained by the increasing victories as Assad is gaining territory previously owned by the rebels (Sayigh, 2014). At the same time, Lebanon has entered a power vacuum as the parliament did not succeed to find a successor for President Michel Suleiman for the fifth time (Reuters, 24 May, 2014). In any case, Jacobson’s theory did not discuss any potential turning points in refugee policy. This gives reason to conduct more research on such potential turning points in

6₃₁st_{of May 2014 the ministry of interior asked refugees in Lebanon to refrain from entering Syria,}

otherwise losing their refugee status. According to the ministry this is aimed at persevering security and to avoid escalation between Syrians and Lebanese (Daily Star, 31 may 2014). The next day, social affairs minister said that only refugees coming from unsafe zones would be classified as refugees. (Daily Star, 1 June 2014). On June 2nd_{the interior minsters stated that Syrian travelling back to their country would be}

stripped of their refugee status (he also noted that this was in line with the 1951 convention on refugees, which Lebanon did not sign). On the same day the minster of social affairs stated that Lebanon wants to establish refugee camps in Syria as “Our budget, political differences over the crisis in Syria and the size of Lebanon does not qualify us to house more than we already have” (Daily Star, 2 June 2014). The minister of social affairs stated a few days later that Lebanon will only accept refugees from the near border stating that the refugee crisis no longer is a humanitarian problem, but a political one that all Arab countries face (Daily Star, 4 June 2014). Next, the March 14 coalition stated that refugees who voted for Assad during the Syrian elections should leave Lebanon, as they would not have fled from prosecution otherwise. A week later, minister of foreign affairs Bassil, who has close ties to Hezbollah, stated that he would never allow

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refugee policies

There were some limitations in this bachelor thesis. This thesis was meant to give causal explanations of Lebanon’s refugee policy. The academic literature written on the topic was quite vague and the dependent and independent variables were defined quite broad and overlapping. This hampered the operationalization which was quite broad as well, making the analysis consist of broad lines of explanation, instead of precise. This gives way to further research on the specific mechanism of how refugee policy is affected by certain factors.

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Lebanon’s refugee policy of no policy: International political geography: a future without borders?