EU Migration Deals: Unpacking the Link Between Border Externalization and Autocratic Migration Policies

This paper theorizes the link between border externalization policies of the European Union (EU) and autocratic migration policies in refugee hosting states in the Middle East. It thereby draws on the extensive literature and rich empirics examining the concluded EU-Turkey (2016) and EU-Lebanon (2024) deals, which have resulted from the EU’s border externalization policies and Lebanon and Turkey’s position as transit migration states. In particular, it seeks to highlight how the EU, a democratic, supranational organization, engages with two states that are increasingly considered illiberal and showcase autocratic elements in their everyday politics and migration policies. Building on the understanding that the EU seeks to contain migrants and refugees in the so-called Global South through border externalization policies and the provision of political and economic rents, the paper explores the consequences of these border externalization policies in condoning and supporting autocratic migration policies (e.g., ad-hoc migration policies, non-policies, practices of refoulement) in both countries. While the existing literature has often focused on how refugee hosting states have sought to blackmail the EU, this paper instead focuses on the EU itself and argues that it effectively outsources autocratic migration policies to refugee hosting transit states in the Global South through provision of political and economic rents. Thus, it highlights how democratic countries in the Global North enable and condone autocratic migration practices in the Global South. Methodologically, the paper relies on a comparative case study approach, comparing the two migration deals the EU concluded. In doing so, it will analyse autocratic migration practices employed in the respective refugee hosting countries and how they relate to the migration deal and employ critical discourse analysis to showcase how the EU reacts to autocratic migration practices in the respective refugee host countries. In addition to relying on rich empirical studies conducted on the EU’s engagement with both respective countries, it draws on a variety of primary sources in English (press releases, policy reports, reports by human rights organizations, funding reports) to trace the EU’s position vis-à-vis autocratic migration practices before and after concluding both migration deals.