The political economy of refugee vulnerability

Despite lacking political power themselves, refugees’ vulnerability has been converted into value by those with power, writes Yohannes Woldemariam.

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Refugees possess little formal political power. Most cannot vote in the countries where they seek protection, command no armies, control few economic resources and rarely influence public policy. Yet refugees have become one of the defining political issues of the twenty-first century. Elections are fought over refugees, governments negotiate migration agreements to send them to third countries, armed groups recruit among displaced populations, and criminal networks profit from their insecurity. The paradox is striking; those with the least power have become central to political struggles across the world.

Most analyses of displacement begin with humanitarian need. They ask how refugees can be protected, how assistance can be improved or how international institutions should respond. These are essential questions, but they overlook another; that refugee vulnerability has itself become politically valuable.

Governments, armed organisations, traffickers, bureaucracies and political entrepreneurs repeatedly transform vulnerability into military manpower, criminal profit, electoral mobilisation, bureaucratic authority and diplomatic leverage. Refugees rarely gain through displacement. Others derive power from refugee vulnerability.

Wars, persecution, state collapse, environmental shocks and economic decline create populations with limited legal protection, few economic opportunities and almost no political representation. These conditions produce humanitarian crises and opportunities for exploitation.

Armed organisations are often the first to recognise that opportunity. Although most refugees reject violence, insurgencies and militias require a relatively small number of recruits to sustain prolonged conflicts. Camps and displaced communities therefore become contested political spaces where armed actors compete for influence, recruits and logistical support. Refugee populations have been drawn into conflicts in Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and across the Horn of Africa. Displacement becomes not only a consequence of war but also one of the mechanisms through which war reproduces itself.

The same vulnerability creates opportunities for organised crime. Human trafficking flourishes not simply because people migrate but because insecurity creates profitable markets. The experiences of Eritrean refugees travelling through Sudan, Libya and the Sinai illustrate this dynamic. A detailed Human Rights Watch investigation into the trafficking and torture of Eritreans in Sudan and Egypt documented kidnapping, torture, ransom demands, forced labour and sexual violence against refugees whose lack of legal protection made them especially vulnerable. Criminal networks did not create that vulnerability; they monetised it. Restrictive migration policies can intensify these incentives by reducing legal pathways while increasing dependence on smugglers and traffickers.

Refugee vulnerability also shapes domestic politics. Their political importance derives not from their participation but from their usefulness to others. Political actors invoke refugees as “the other” to mobilise voters, channel public anxiety, and offer simple explanations for unemployment, housing shortages, crime or pressure on public services.

South Africa illustrates this dynamic. Periods of economic hardship have repeatedly coincided with xenophobic rhetoric and violence directed at refugees, even though unemployment and inequality are rooted in deeper structural problems. Similar patterns have emerged across Europe and North America, where refugees and asylum seekers have become an increasingly powerful electoral issue. Refugees gain little from these debates. Others gain politically by presenting them as symbols of broader social and economic anxieties.

State policy

The political economy of vulnerability increasingly extends beyond national borders. Wealthier states now seek to externalise refugee management by shifting asylum processing, border enforcement and deportation beyond their own territories. Refugee protection itself becomes an object of international negotiation.

Britain’s Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda exemplified this trend. Under the arrangement, asylum seekers arriving in the United Kingdom would have been transferred to Rwanda, where their claims would be considered and where those granted protection would remain. The UN Refugee Agency’s analysis of the UK–Rwanda arrangement concluded that it ran against principles of international solidarity and responsibility sharing. The British government has subsequently abandoned the policy.

The European Union’s migration and asylum policies reflect a similar trajectory. Cooperation with countries of origin and transit increasingly combines development assistance, border management, anti-smuggling measures, returns and migration control. Responsibility for managing refugee movements is consequently shifted beyond Europe’s borders, often towards countries with fewer resources and weaker asylum systems. Migration management becomes an instrument of foreign policy as well as a response to humanitarian need.

The United States has pursued the same logic more aggressively through third-country deportation agreements. Under the Trump administration, people have been sent to countries with which they have no citizenship or meaningful connection. Human Rights Watch documented U.S. arrangements involving Eswatini, Ghana, Rwanda and South Sudan, while raising concerns about detention, due process and the risk of further removal. These initiatives differ from the British proposal in their legal form, but they reflect the same broader trend: refugees are increasingly managed through bargaining with other governments rather than through domestic asylum institutions alone.

Such arrangements create advantages for states on both sides. Recipient governments may obtain financial assistance, strengthen diplomatic relationships or deepen security cooperation. Wealthier states reduce the domestic political pressure associated with asylum and deportation. Refugees and deportees have almost no influence over these negotiations. Once again, vulnerability becomes the medium through which others pursue political and strategic objectives.

Considered separately, armed recruitment, trafficking, electoral politics, bureaucracies and international diplomacy appear to belong to distinct fields. Taken together, however, they reveal a common mechanism. Refugee vulnerability is repeatedly converted into military, criminal, electoral, bureaucratic and diplomatic value.

Recognising this pattern changes how displacement is understood. Political analysis must examine the incentives that emerge once vulnerability becomes valuable.

As climate change, authoritarianism and protracted conflict continue to displace growing numbers of people, this distinction will become increasingly important. Durable solutions require more than stronger borders or expanded humanitarian assistance. They require sustained efforts to confront the political and economic conditions that uproot people in the first place.

Refugees remain among the least powerful actors in international politics. Yet their vulnerability has become an increasingly valuable resource for others. Understanding displacement therefore requires more than a humanitarian perspective. It requires recognising the political economy through which insecurity is transformed into value and by whom. Until those incentives are addressed, refugee crises are likely to remain conditions that governments manage rather than problems they resolve.

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