Mae MacDonald

Book Overview

Research on the international refugee regime has focused largely on failures of cooperation, particularly wealthy states’ reluctance to admit refugees. Yet in the Global South, where 71% of the world’s refugees are hosted, the regime has achieved a striking degree of cooperation and expansion. Created in 1951 for a narrow group displaced by World War II, it now supports more than 40 million refugees through a global system of international protection and assistance.

The book asks why this system has endured and expanded despite conditions that make cooperation difficult. For host countries, refugees can impose economic, security, and political costs and often remain for decades, while enforcement of international refugee law is weak. For donor countries, the benefits of financing refugee protection are often distant and diffuse, and contributions to UNHCR remain largely voluntary. Why, then, have host and donor states sustained and expanded the refugee regime in the Global South?

I examine this question using new cross-national and historical data, micro-level evidence from refugee-hosting countries, and archival and interview evidence from donors and international organizations. I have constructed two original datasets from archival records: the Global Refugee Return Dataset, covering 293 origin-asylum dyads from 1980 to 2023, and a new dataset tracing UNHCR financing from the early years of the regime to the present. I combine these data with surveys, experiments, administrative data, interviews, and four years of fieldwork across East Africa.

More broadly, the book uses the refugee regime to study how international cooperation is built and sustained around global problems concentrated in poorer countries, and what happens to those arrangements as foreign aid and political support for international institutions decline.

Abstract

When do refugees return? Existing research and the design of the international refugee regime both imply that refugees remain abroad while home is unsafe and return as conditions improve. Yet using a novel global dataset, I show that most returns occur not after peace but during ongoing conflict. To explain this puzzling pattern, I argue that many refugees return not because they want to go home, but because coercive host-government policies or armed conflict make remaining in asylum infeasible. Existing quantitative research has largely missed this driver because it studies stated intentions in individual cases rather than realized behavior, and because standard UNHCR data systematically undercounts forced returns. I introduce the Global Refugee Return Dataset, covering 293 origin-asylum dyads from 1980 to 2023 and constructed from archival country reports, with new measures of realized return and forced-return policies. Severe forced-return policies are associated with nearly three times the annual return rate observed in their absence, including while conflict continues at home. In aggregate, asylum-side shocks coincide with substantially more return than post-war periods, largely because far more refugees are exposed to them. These findings recast refugee return as a constrained choice, shaped not only by where refugees want to live, but by whether they can remain in asylum.

Working paper · Peace Science Society presentation

Abstract

In 2025, U.S. aid cuts drove the fastest contraction of foreign aid on record. These cuts threaten the cooperative arrangement underpinning the refugee regime, in which low- and middle-income countries host most refugees while high-income countries finance assistance. As host communities lose aid-related jobs, services, and infrastructure, does citizens’ willingness to host refugees decline? I examine this question in Kenya using two nationwide surveys, a high-frequency panel and vignette experiment near Kakuma camp, and 52 interviews with local leaders, all conducted as the cuts unfolded. Support for hosting declined in refugee-hosting areas as economic losses and insecurity grew, driven by households that lost camp-based benefits. By contrast, national support remained stable, and exploratory evidence suggests that humanitarian concern limited backlash. Yet because refugee policy often responds to pressures in hosting regions, continued cuts may weaken the local foundations of asylum in the countries that host most of the world’s refugees.

Working paper · IPL Working Paper Series · IPL series page · World Bank-UNHCR JDC presentation

Abstract

Does expanding business networks foster the economic and social integration of refugees in cities in low- and middle-income countries? We provide unconditional business grants and we randomize 8,000 refugees and hosts from 10 nationalities into weekly networking groups in Nairobi and Kampala. The groups vary in their nationality composition and meeting setup to induce ‘strong’ or ‘weak’ and same or mixed nationality ties. We find three main results in this Randomized Controlled Trial. First, cash grants improve business performance, economic outcomes, and life satisfaction. A novel finding is that cash alone improved business networks: recipients’ networks grow organically and become more diverse. Second, the networking intervention increases business engagement, collaboration, and learning, but none of the networking groups produce systematic additional gains in economic, social or psychological outcomes on average. Third, neither cash grants nor networking groups improve social cohesion, suggesting that livelihood interventions alone are insufficient to strengthen refugee-host relations.

IRC Re:BUiLD project website · Draft available upon request.

Abstract

Most of the world’s refugees live in low- and middle-income countries, where debates center on integrating those already present rather than admitting new arrivals. Yet existing research focuses largely on admission in high-income countries. We provide one of the first nationwide assessments of attitudes toward integration in the Global South, drawing on a survey of 3,326 Kenyans fielded after a reform was passed but before implementation, with embedded experiments varying policy dimension and refugee group. Support for integration is high, but citizens are less supportive of allowing refugees to leave camps than granting economic inclusion or creating integrated settlements, and support varies significantly by refugee nationality. Opposition is driven primarily by fears of crime, terrorism, and the spread of conflict. Ethnic kinship and close contact predict support, while economic factors matter little. These findings suggest that integration is politically feasible, but insecurity associated with free movement remains the largest concern.

Working paper · IPL Working Paper Series · IPL series page

Abstract

Does foreign aid retrenchment reduce U.S. soft power in aid-dependent countries? Standard accounts of foreign aid imply that withdrawal should damage a donor’s reputation most where dependence on its assistance is greatest. Yet following the 2025 U.S. aid cuts, attitudes toward the United States remained comparatively resilient in Sub-Saharan Africa, the region most exposed to U.S. assistance. We argue that this pattern reflects misattribution: many citizens do not hold the United States solely responsible for the withdrawal, instead blaming their own governments and often believing that corruption or misuse of aid prompted donors to pull out. We test this argument using original surveys and pre-registered experiments in Kenya and Malawi. Across both countries, responsibility for the cuts is divided between the United States and domestic governments, and attribution varies systematically with partisanship. A detailed information treatment in Kenya that identified the United States as responsible and made the local consequences of the cuts concrete reduced warmth toward the United States. By contrast, simpler blame cues in Kenya and information about the global scope of the cuts in Malawi did not shift attitudes or attribution. These findings help explain why support for the United States can remain high even after major aid retrenchment: many citizens either do not know that U.S. assistance has been cut or interpret the withdrawal through domestic political beliefs about corruption and government responsibility.

Pre-analysis plan · Draft available upon request.

Abstract

How does U.S. foreign-policy retrenchment affect geopolitical competition in the Global South? A common assumption is that policies that damage perceptions of the United States create opportunities for China, leading citizens to substitute away from one great power toward the other. I test this expectation using multiple research designs that exploit distinct U.S. foreign-policy shocks. I analyze panel surveys in Kenya conducted around the 2025 U.S. aid cuts and an increase in gas prices associated with the Iran war, cross-national survey data fielded around U.S. tariff announcements, and a nationwide survey experiment on U.S. aid withdrawal. Across these settings, negative U.S. foreign-policy shocks reduce favorable attitudes toward the United States but do not increase support for China. Instead, attitudes toward China also deteriorate. The findings suggest that foreign-policy shocks can generate a broader backlash against major powers rather than geopolitical substitution, complicating accounts in which U.S. retrenchment straightforwardly translates into gains for China.

Work in progress.