Strategic Behavior in Refugee Repatriation

The authors present a game-theoretic analysis of negotiations involving two players: the government of a country of origin and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in which the latter represents refugees, countries of asylum, and donor countries at the negotiating table. Ordinal preference orderings of outcomes allow the authors to represent the attitudes of governments in countries of origin toward their refugees as well as the urgency of repatriation for countries of asylum and donor countries. For alternative configurations of preference orderings, the authors analyze repatriation negotiations using classical game theory and the theory of moves, which assume different rules of play. They find the theory of moves is better suited for understanding efforts to achieve repatriation agreements in actual refugee crises and conclude with reflections on the difficulties of reaching repatriation agreements in recent years.