Jesús E. Rojas Venzor

Bilateral security cooperation on migration between Western democracies and illiberal states continues unabated by international, democratic, or humanitarian norms. Such agreements, which I denote as Cooperation Arrangements on Migration (CAMs), provide funding, training, military resources, personnel, and information to illiberal partners. This bilateral cooperation is domestically and internationally costly as it could strengthen autocratic regimes, create coercive codependencies between states, and place migrant lives at risk. At the same time, the rise of right-wing populist parties permeates legislatures and drive mainstream governments to adapt. These two phenomenon drive the main question of this project: under what conditions do Western democracies enter into security cooperation arrangements on migration with non-democratic states? I contend right-wing populist (RWP) parties drive illiberal cooperation on migration as attention is taken away from normative concerns to tangible outcomes for mainstream governments in Western democracies. Rise in RWP party presence in the legislature drive mainstream governments to coopt CAMs from RWP challengers to remain in power and fracture the opposition. Although a global phenomenon, I center my initial analysis on 11 frontier states of European Union. I employ a multimethod research approach consisting of a novel data collection of CAMs between Western democratic frontier states and their regional partners from 1990-2023, alongside case studies illustrating my theory. This project seeks to provide a novel data source for rigorous research and to expand our understanding of cooptation strategies for contentious foreign policy development under a polarized political landscape.