The movement of people across borders has always shaped the course of history, but in the twenty-first century, migration has become a defining force in international relations. Refugee crises have tested the solidarity of alliances and the capacity of international institutions. Demographic pressures—aging populations in some regions, youth bulges in others—create structural forces pushing and pulling migrants across frontiers. Most troublingly, migration has been weaponized, with states deliberately engineering refugee flows to coerce their neighbors. In an era of unprecedented human mobility, the governance of migration has become inseparable from questions of sovereignty, security, and the very foundations of political order.
Definition and Core Concept¶
Migration geopolitics refers to the intersection of human cross-border movement with international power dynamics—how migration affects state interests, how states attempt to manage and manipulate migration flows, and how migration pressures reshape domestic politics and international relations. It encompasses several distinct but interrelated phenomena: refugee crises and asylum systems, economic migration, demographic transitions, diaspora politics, and the increasingly common practice of weaponizing migration.
At its core, migration geopolitics recognizes that human movement is not merely a humanitarian or economic phenomenon but a strategic one. States have fundamental interests in controlling who enters their territory; large-scale unauthorized migration threatens this control and can destabilize domestic politics. Sending countries have interests in remittances, diaspora influence, and sometimes in exporting discontented populations. Transit countries occupy pivotal positions that can be leveraged for political and economic gain. These intersecting interests make migration an arena of strategic competition.
The concept also captures migration’s role in shaping the domestic politics that drive foreign policy. In democracies across Europe and North America, immigration has become among the most polarizing political issues, reshaping party systems and influencing elections with international consequences. Migration is thus simultaneously a cause and consequence of geopolitical developments—conflicts create refugees who then shape the politics of receiving states.
Historical Development¶
Large-scale migration has accompanied human history, from ancient nomadic movements to the mass emigration from Europe to the Americas in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The modern international refugee regime emerged from the catastrophes of the twentieth century—the displacement of millions by two World Wars, the Holocaust, and decolonization. The 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol established the principle that persons fleeing persecution have a right to asylum, and that states bear obligations toward those who reach their territory.
For decades, this system functioned adequately if imperfectly. Refugee populations were generally contained in regions of origin, with Western countries accepting resettled refugees in manageable numbers. Economic migration was channeled through guest worker programs and immigration systems. The assumption underlying migration governance was that states maintained effective control over their borders and could choose whom to admit.
The post-Cold War era brought new migration pressures. Conflicts in the Balkans, Africa, and the Middle East produced refugee flows that strained regional capacity. Globalization increased economic migration as improved transportation and communication enabled movement and maintained connections. Smuggling and trafficking networks grew more sophisticated. Borders became more porous despite efforts at enforcement.
The 2015 European migration crisis marked a turning point. Over a million asylum seekers reached Europe, many fleeing Syria’s civil war but also conflicts and instability across the Middle East and Africa. The European Union’s response exposed deep divisions—between frontline states bearing initial reception burdens and northern states as final destinations; between welcoming positions and restrictionist backlash; between European solidarity rhetoric and nationalist reality. The crisis energized populist movements across Europe, contributed to Brexit, and demonstrated migration’s capacity to destabilize politics.
Since 2015, migration has remained a defining issue in European and American politics. The EU externalized border control through agreements with Turkey, Libya, and others that kept migrants outside European territory. The United States under successive administrations grappled with Central American migration, employing policies ranging from family separation to “Remain in Mexico” requirements. Migration crises recurred—Afghanistan’s fall, Venezuela’s collapse, ongoing African movements—each testing governance systems and political tolerance.
How It Works¶
Migration geopolitics operates through several mechanisms:
Push and pull factors drive migration flows through combinations of conditions that make origin countries unbearable (conflict, persecution, economic collapse, environmental degradation) and destination countries attractive (safety, economic opportunity, family connections, established diaspora communities). These factors operate at different scales and timelines—acute crises create immediate displacement; chronic conditions produce sustained flows.
Transit countries occupy strategic positions in migration geography. States along migration routes—Turkey, Mexico, Libya, Morocco—can facilitate or impede movement. This positioning creates leverage: transit countries can demand compensation for enforcement, threaten to open flows, or actually release migrants toward destination countries. The EU’s dependence on Turkish cooperation to stem migration gave Ankara significant bargaining power exploited repeatedly.
Weaponized migration occurs when states deliberately engineer or facilitate refugee flows to pressure adversaries. The concept, analyzed extensively by scholar Kelly Greenhill, recognizes migration as an asymmetric weapon available to weaker states against stronger ones. By creating or enabling displacement, states can impose costs on adversaries who must either accept unwanted arrivals or violate their own humanitarian principles through forcible exclusion.
Demographic pressures create structural migration incentives. Wealthy countries with aging populations and labor shortages need workers; poor countries with young, growing populations cannot provide adequate employment. This demographic mismatch drives economic migration regardless of policy preferences. Japan, South Korea, and European nations face the choice between accepting more migrants and accepting economic decline; African and Middle Eastern nations must either create jobs or export workers.
Diaspora politics extend migration’s effects across generations. Migrant communities maintain connections to origin countries, sending remittances that exceed development aid, engaging in homeland politics, and sometimes serving as channels for sending-country influence. Diasporas can also generate friction when receiving-country politics involve origin-country conflicts.
Domestic political effects amplify migration’s geopolitical significance. Large-scale migration can trigger backlash that reshapes political landscapes, empowering nationalist movements and pressuring mainstream parties toward restriction. These domestic political shifts then affect foreign policy—toward greater unilateralism, skepticism of international institutions, and sometimes hostility toward sending regions.
Key Examples and Case Studies¶
The EU-Turkey migration deal of 2016 exemplifies migration governance’s geopolitical dimensions. Facing continued arrivals and political pressure, the EU agreed to provide Turkey billions of euros, accelerate EU membership negotiations, and grant visa liberalization in exchange for Turkish enforcement against irregular migration to Greece. The deal reduced flows significantly but gave Ankara leverage repeatedly exploited—Turkish President Erdogan threatened multiple times to “open the gates” when dissatisfied with European policies. The arrangement subordinated migration governance to a difficult bilateral relationship, raising questions about sustainability and the ethics of externalization.
Belarus’s 2021 hybrid attack on Poland and Lithuania demonstrated weaponized migration in action. Following EU sanctions over its disputed election and crackdown on opposition, Belarus deliberately facilitated migrant flows toward EU borders, flying in would-be asylum seekers from the Middle East and funneling them toward Polish and Lithuanian frontier crossings. The EU and affected states characterized the operation as “hybrid warfare”—using migrants as instruments of pressure without conventional military action. The crisis tested EU solidarity and exposed tensions between border security and humanitarian obligations.
Venezuela’s exodus has created the largest displacement crisis in Latin American history, with over seven million Venezuelans leaving their country since 2014. The economic collapse and political crisis under the Maduro regime produced a refugee flow that strained neighboring countries, particularly Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador. Unlike Middle Eastern refugee crises, Venezuelan displacement received less international attention and assistance, illustrating how geography and politics affect responses to comparable humanitarian situations.
The U.S. southern border has remained a persistent migration challenge driven by Central American instability, climate impacts on agriculture, and the pull of American opportunity. Successive U.S. administrations have employed varied approaches—enforcement, deterrence, externalization of processing, attempts at addressing root causes—with limited success in reducing flows or achieving political consensus. The issue has become highly polarized in American politics, contributing to electoral outcomes and complicating relations with Mexico and Central American nations.
Climate-driven displacement is emerging as a major future driver. Rising seas threaten Pacific island nations and low-lying coastal areas; desertification and changing rainfall patterns make regions uninhabitable; extreme weather events trigger acute displacement. Current international frameworks, designed around persecution-based refugee definitions, provide inadequate protection for climate migrants. Estimates of potential climate displacement range into the hundreds of millions by mid-century, suggesting migration pressures that would dwarf current challenges.
Geopolitical Implications¶
Migration geopolitics carries profound implications for international order:
Sovereignty and control are fundamental stakes. The capacity to control borders and determine who may enter territory is a core attribute of sovereign statehood. Large-scale unauthorized migration, particularly when weaponized by adversaries, challenges this control and can delegitimize governments in the eyes of their populations. States that cannot manage their borders face political consequences.
Liberal international order strains under migration pressures. The post-1945 order combined human rights principles, including refugee protection, with state sovereignty and border control. When these principles conflict—when exercising sovereignty requires violating humanitarian norms—the system faces fundamental tensions. Migration crises have contributed to populist challenges to liberal internationalism across Western democracies.
Alliance cohesion is tested by unequal migration burdens. Within the EU, frontline Mediterranean states and Germany (as primary destination) bore disproportionate costs of the 2015 crisis while Central European members resisted burden-sharing. NATO allies face different exposures to migration pressures, affecting their assessment of southern threats versus eastern ones. Unequal burden-sharing strains solidarity.
Regional stability is affected as migration pressures accumulate in origin and transit regions. States hosting large refugee populations face economic burdens, social tensions, and potential security risks. Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey collectively host millions of Syrian refugees, affecting their domestic politics and regional postures. Instability can cascade as pressures in one country contribute to outflows affecting neighbors.
Demographic futures will be shaped by migration patterns and policies. Countries that successfully integrate migrants may maintain economic dynamism despite aging native populations; those that reject immigration face economic decline. The demographic competition between regions—Europe and Africa, Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia—will be mediated significantly by migration flows.
Criticisms and Debates¶
Migration geopolitics generates intense debate:
Humanitarian versus security framing divides approaches fundamentally. Human rights advocates emphasize migrants’ dignity, asylum seekers’ rights, and the moral obligations of wealthy societies. Security-focused analysts emphasize sovereignty, control, and the legitimate interests of receiving populations. These frames lead to incompatible policy prescriptions—open versus closed borders, rights versus enforcement, international versus national determination of admission.
Root causes versus border control debates address where resources should focus. Some argue that sustainable migration management requires addressing conditions that drive displacement—conflict, persecution, economic collapse, climate change. Others contend that root cause approaches are ineffective or impossibly expensive, and that border control and deterrence offer more realistic paths to managing flows.
Externalization ethics raise questions about migration governance arrangements. Deals that pay third countries to prevent migration—the EU-Turkey agreement, U.S. arrangements with Mexico—may reduce flows but at the cost of offloading responsibility to less capable and sometimes abusive systems. Critics argue that externalization violates refugee law principles and enables human rights abuses; defenders contend that managing migration requires cooperation with transit countries.
Integration challenges affect whether migration brings benefits or costs to receiving societies. Successful integration produces economic contributions, cultural enrichment, and demographic renewal. Failed integration can produce parallel societies, economic marginalization, and social conflict. Determining which outcome occurs—and what policies promote integration—remains contested.
Weaponization responses divide analysts on how to address deliberately engineered migration. Some argue that giving in to weaponized migration rewards coercion and invites repetition; others note that the victims are migrants themselves and that humanitarian obligations persist regardless of who created the crisis. Finding responses that protect migrants while not incentivizing weaponization poses genuine dilemmas.
Future Outlook¶
Several factors will shape migration geopolitics in coming years:
Climate displacement will increase substantially. As climate impacts intensify—rising seas, desertification, extreme weather—populations in vulnerable regions will face displacement pressures. Current governance frameworks are inadequate for climate migration; new approaches will be necessary but politically difficult to achieve given existing resistance to migration.
Demographic divergence will widen. Sub-Saharan Africa’s population may double by 2050 while Europe and Northeast Asia age and shrink. This divergence creates structural migration pressure that no policy can fully contain. Societies that adapt—through managed migration, integration, and development cooperation—will fare better than those attempting pure exclusion.
Weaponization will likely continue as states observe its effectiveness. The Belarus example demonstrated that relatively weak states can create crises for much stronger neighbors through migration manipulation. Other actors may attempt similar tactics, particularly where conventional options are limited.
Technology will affect enforcement as surveillance, barriers, and processing systems become more sophisticated. But technology also enables migrants through communication, navigation, and coordination. The arms race between enforcement and evasion will continue evolving.
International cooperation may improve or fragment. The 2018 Global Compact for Migration represented an attempt at cooperative governance; its implementation remains uneven. Whether states pursue coordinated approaches or retreat to unilateral measures will significantly affect migration outcomes.
Conclusion¶
Migration has become inseparable from geopolitics, shaping domestic politics, testing international institutions, and providing states with new instruments of pressure and coercion. The movement of people responds to forces—conflict, persecution, economic desperation, climate change—that respect no borders, while the political systems that must respond remain organized on national lines. This mismatch between transnational flows and national governance creates persistent tension.
Managing migration effectively requires acknowledging its geopolitical dimensions without losing sight of its human core. Migrants are not merely strategic assets or threats but people seeking safety and opportunity. Policies that treat migration purely in security terms may achieve short-term control while generating long-term costs—human suffering, destabilized transit regions, radicalization, and damage to the principles that define liberal societies.
The coming decades will see migration pressures increase as climate change, demographic divergence, and persistent instability in many regions continue driving displacement. Societies that develop sustainable approaches—combining border management with legal pathways, integration support, and cooperation with origin regions—will navigate these pressures more successfully than those pursuing fortress strategies. Migration governance has become a test of statecraft that few governments have passed.
Sources and Further Reading¶
- Kelly Greenhill, “Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy” (2010) - Foundational analysis of weaponized migration
- Alexander Betts and Paul Collier, “Refuge: Rethinking Refugee Policy in a Changing World” (2017) - Critique of current refugee system and proposals for reform
- UNHCR Global Trends reports - Annual data on forced displacement worldwide
- European Stability Initiative reports on EU migration policy and the EU-Turkey deal
- Migration Policy Institute analyses of U.S. and global migration trends