ASPECTOS GENERALES

As stated in the previous section, democratic leaders often have greater audience costs compared to non-democratic leaders. Often, voters see migration, both forced and voluntary, as

economic and cultural threats, and express their discontent through routine elections by voting pro-immigration and asylum supporters out. In Section 2.5.1, the case of Tanzania states the country once had an open-door policy towards refugees, especially for other African refugees. However, Tanzania became more resistant in hosting refugees as the country began to

democratize. Therefore, it was hypothesized that as levels of democratization increase in a host state, asylum rates in that state will decrease. The results are supported for the base model, signatory host states, and non-signatory states. No statistical significance is found for contiguous states. However, increases in democratization slightly increased asylum rates for non-signatory host states. The findings for this hypothesis are perplexing given the results for autocracies and democracies. At first glance, it seems almost contradictory. Therefore, it is imperative to thoroughly analyze these results. In the previous hypothesis, refugee status increased for autocratic non-signatory states, but decreased for democratic non-signatory states.

As mentioned, autocracies and democracies were coded based on Polity IV scale where a score of between +6 and +10 is coded as a democracy and -10 and -6 was coded as an autocracy. Polity measures for electoral constraints on government leaders compared to Freedom House, which instead measures civil liberties. Although Polity IV is not a perfect measure for regime- type, how Polity IV measures regimes is appropriate for this study compared to Freedom House. However, this research did not analyze a regime type known as “anocracy” which is often coded between -5 and +5. These regimes are neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic. Anocracies contain both democratic and autocratic characteristics, and are often unstable. Therefore, refugee and forced migration studies will probably benefit from analyzing regimes in transition, and anocratic states. In Chapter 2, research that analyzed forced migration and democratization are qualitative or case studies mainly focused on African states. The research cited in Chapter 2

show that as African states became more democratic, refugee host states became more resistant in accommodating refugee populations, and often engage in mass deportations, especially around election years.

However, as mentioned, the dataset is limited and asylum rates are not provided during the Cold War years when most African states began to transition to democratic regimes. The true effect of regimes in transition will greatly benefit refugee studies research if asylum rates were provided for years before 2000. Nevertheless, one explanation regarding the differences between democratization and the regime-type variables may be the result of pooling the scales in autocracies and democracies, and leaving the scale unrestricted for democratization. In the case of non-signatory states, refugee status recognition in autocracies increased on average, and decreased on average for non-signatory democratic states. In contrast, refugee status recognitions increased in non-signatory states as democratization increases. However, after further analysis within the data, there were only a handful of non-signatory states in which Polity IV scores increase over time. One such case is Pakistan. In 2000 and 2001 Polity IV designated Pakistan a score of -6, an autocracy, and between 2002 and 2006 Pakistan scored a -5. Pakistan then

received a score of +2 in 2007, and +5 in 2008 and 2009. Between 2002 and 2009, Pakistan was considered to be an anocracy under Polity, and was coded as a democracy between 2010 and 2012 with a score of +6, and in 2013 with a score of +7. For the years provided in the dataset, Pakistan’s Polity score consistently increased. For some cases, asylum rates increased alongside Polity’s score. With Iranian asylum-seekers, refugee status recognition rates consistently

increased between 2009 and 2013. Asylum rates for Iraqi asylum-seekers increased in Pakistan around 2006, and similarly for Somali asylum-seekers around 2005. According to UNHCR’s asylum-seeker database, there were over 12,000 Afghan asylum-seekers pending asylum status,

with an extra 2380 asylum-seekers applying for refugee status in 2004. In 2004, less than 4 % of Afghan asylum-seekers received refugee recognition. Refugee recognition rates begin to

dramatically increase for Afghans around 2007 and in 2011. For the most part, Pakistan and Afghanistan have frosty relations. However, as previously mentioned, Pakistan began mass deportations of Afghans in recent years. Pakistan amended its constitution in 2010 and became a parliamentary system. Therefore, while the data may claim that increases in democratization for this non-signatory state also increased asylum rates for Afghans, due to the current wave of mass deportations, this particular case should continue to be monitored in the future.

Despite the non-signatory states, most of the models support the hypothesis that increases in democratization lead to less asylum granting. It supports past qualitative works that suggest less democratic states were more likely to provide asylum, and asylum rates decrease as states began to democratize. These results also add to the international relations debate that coding for regime-types often seems more complicated (see for example, Munck and Verkuilen 2002; Plümper and Neumayer 2010; Treier and Jackman 2008). However, the overall results support the literature that claimed that as states democratize, they become less likely to grant asylum. Future studies should continue to focus on how regime types, or regimes in transition, differ in asylum granting particularly in comparison to signatory and non-signatory host states.