Refugee Protection as a Public Good: What Benefits Do States Derive?

While a growing number of refugees is in need of humanitarian protection, most states are reluctant to admit them. For more than two decades, scholars have thought to understand this intricate challenge of international governance through the prism of collective action theory and the concept of refugee protection as an international public good. However, the specific benefits that states gain from refugee protection and that are assumed to constitute the public good remain surprisingly vague and under-specified. In this Reflection, we make three contributions to address this issue. First, we take stock of the literature and assess the evolution of the collective action theory in asylum governance. Second, we identify and conceptualize legitimacy, security, reputation, and development as four types of benefits that states derive from refugee protection. Third, we discuss the limitations of the dominant rational-choice approach and contend that the nature of refugee protection in the international realm is the product of international and domestic politics based on the contestation of interests and norms. These insights result in a series of recommendations for future research of refugee protection as a collective action problem.