On May 5, 2025, the Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN) hosted a webinar to celebrate the launch of Dr. Ola El-Taliawi’s book, “The Politics of Refugee Policy in the Global South.”
Shifting the focus from sensationalist rhetoric about mass migration to the North, The Politics of Refugee Policy in the Global South provides a comparative analysis of Lebanon’s and Jordan’s responses to the Syrian refugee movement, one of the largest displacements in modern history.
This publication is available as an open-access publication and can also be purchased on the McGill-Queen’s University Press website as part of the MQUP Refugee and Forced Migration Studies Series.
Moderated by James Milner, Project Director of LERRN, and accompanied by esteemed panelists Jasmin Lilian Diab and Gerasimos Tsourapas, El-Taliawi presented her research study examining the complexities of refugee policymaking in the Global South. Emphasizing the need to understand refugee policymaking processes in the Global South as distinct from those in the Global North, she articulated how her inquiry was shaped around three questions:
- How do we analyze and understand how governments in the Global South respond to mass refugee movements?
- How have the governments of Jordan and Lebanon responded to Syrian mass displacement over time, and what has influenced their policy decisions?
- What explains variations in policy outputs between them, despite similarities (in contexts & displacement features?
Reflecting on the results of this study, El-Taliawi shared how the book follows Jordan and Lebanon’s evolving responses to Syrian displacement over 11 years. Her analysis revealed that both countries moved from non-restrictive policies (2011-2013) to semi-restrictive approaches (2014-2022), shifting focus from refugee assistance to host resilience. While Jordan and Lebanon converged on policies regarding entry, exit, and prohibiting local integration, they diverged on policies related to stay (registration suspension) and livelihoods (encampment). Drawing from these trends, El-Taliawi was able to categorize variation in host government behavior through four distinct strategies: Contain, Capitalize, Accommodate, and Politicize—each reflecting varying levels of constraints and government involvement.
Panelists later shared their praise for the publication, with Gerasimos Tsourapas noting how El-Taliawi’s robust methodological approach contributes to the book’s depth of empirical knowledge. Calling it a “timely, sophisticated intervention”, Tsourapas also emphasized the unique manner in which El-Taliawi foregrounds the agency of Global South states by treating refugee policymaking in the Global South as a distinct arena, rather than as a deviation from Northern norms. He offered thoughtful remarks on the subject, stating that “the book reminds us that the global south is not marginal to all of this, it is the main stage of this story of global displacement”.
Jasmin Lilian Diab characterized the book as “a much-needed corrective to the euro-centric bias” in refugee studies, and commended El-Taliawi’s expertise in evidence collection and the contribution that her works make to methodological conversations about policy creation and analysis. Diab highlighted how the book forces us to rethink these foundational assumptions that position the Global South as passive recipients of displacement, and stressed the importance of framing when shifting the gaze to the Global South and examining it on its terms.
In her closing remarks, El-Taliawi called upon scholars, activists, and humanitarians to move forward by engaging with humility, correcting historical injustices, and welcoming new inputs. Given the current critical moment in global refugee governance, this publication highlights the importance of utilizing previously overlooked public policy analytical tools to examine refugee issues and confront today’s realities.
To listen to the full webinar, follow the link below.
This report was prepared by Lilly Neang, LERRN Knowledge Mobilization Officer.