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A Nationalist Backlash to International Refugee Law: Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Turkey

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  • Kevin L. Cope
  • Charles Crabtree

Abstract

How do international laws affect citizens' willingness to accept refugees? In full and partial democracies, citizens' attitudes can influence national policy. A growing literature suggests that international institutions can influence citizens' attitudes on foreign policy issues, and therefore lead to policy change, but those studies are almost entirely confined to domestic human rights and U.S.‐based respondents; none consider refugee policy. Using data from a survey experiment administered in September 2017 via face‐to‐face interviews with 1,335 citizens of Turkey, we investigate how international norms affect citizens' willingness to accept refugees. Our findings are surprising: reminding people about the government's responsibility under the Refugee Convention to accept refugees triggers a backfire effect, decreasing support for accepting them. This effect appears driven by respondents who support the incumbent AKP Party and by lower‐educated respondents. We therefore provide evidence that international refugee law—and perhaps international institutions generally—can trigger a political backlash, undermining the very policies that they promote.

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  • Kevin L. Cope & Charles Crabtree, 2020. "A Nationalist Backlash to International Refugee Law: Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Turkey," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(4), pages 752-788, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:empleg:v:17:y:2020:i:4:p:752-788
    DOI: 10.1111/jels.12269
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    Cited by:

    1. Kevin L. Cope, 2023. "Measuring law's normative force," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(4), pages 1005-1044, December.
    2. Elena Kantorowicz‐Reznichenko & Jarosław Kantorowicz & Keren Weinshall, 2022. "Ideological bias in constitutional judgments: Experimental analysis and potential solutions," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(3), pages 716-757, September.

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