Research
Dissertation
Security Cooperation on Migration in the Age of Right-Wing Politics
Working Papers
Rojas Venzor, Jesus E. "Foreign Policy Co-optation: Managing Right-Wing Challengers Through Migration" [JMP]
Online at IGCC Working Paper Series
The electoral rise of right-wing populism has reshaped domestic political competition across Western democracies. Democratic governments have simultaneously developed bilateral arrangements to control migration, often involving authoritarian partners with questionable legal and human rights practices. In this paper, I present a novel dataset on the emergence of these agreements across five continents and over the last thirty years. I then develop a theory of foreign policy co-optation that explains when and why governments appropriate flexible foreign policy instruments central to the narrative of the opposition to reduce their electoral threat. I show that bilateral security Cooperation Arrangements on Migration (CAMs) are most likely to emerge when incumbent governments are challenged by right-wing populist parties, especially from left-of-center governments. The findings suggest that right-wing populist pressure paradoxically enables executives to manage electoral opposition through foreign policy, highlighting the need to revisit assumptions about the domestic sources of international cooperation and migration policy.
Rojas Venzor, Jesus E. "The Political Right’s Exception: Foreign Aid for Migration Management" RR at PSQ
How do right-wing executives shape foreign aid policy once in office? Conventional wisdom suggests that rising conservatism limits international cooperation, especially when global commitments fail to advance partisan goals. From this perspective, right-wing governments are expected to curtail foreign aid and retreat from international engagement. This study argues instead that right-wing executives engage with the international arena when delegation is decreased and the issue area is relevant for their electoral platform. In the case of migration, rather than delegating migration control to multilateral institutions or NGOs, governments prefer direct aid to origin and transit countries using flexible financial incentives to externalize border enforcement. This strategy allows them to project toughness on migration while avoiding domestic political costs, retaining the most amount of delegation. This pattern is especially pronounced among far-right parties seeking flexible tools to signal control. Drawing on data from twenty-seven Western donor countries and seventy-six recipients between 1990 and 2013, alongside a falsification test, I find support for this theory. Findings reveal that right-wing executives are instrumentalists in practice. They actively employ foreign policy tools to fulfill partisan promises and manage domestic pressures, highlighting a strategic, outward-looking dimension of modern conservatism.
Works in Progress
Rojas Venzor, Jesus E. "Understanding Bilateral Security Cooperation on Migration"
Rojas Venzor, Jesus E. "Tripartite Repatriation Agreements in the Global South, Evidence from 1983–2025"
Rojas Venzor, Jesus E. "The Network of Security Cooperation on Migration"
Rojas Venzor, Jesus E. and Wendy Wagner “Dangerous Conditions: Right-Wing Votes and Domestic Terrorism Using Localized Data”
Other Writings
Rojas Venzor, Jesús E. Hardline Migration Policy Risks Eroding Democracy. IGCC Blog, IGCC, July 17, 2025.
Rojas Venzor, Jesús E. More Data and More Perspectives Are Still Needed. IGCC Blog, IGCC, February 25, 2025.
Wong, Tom K., Gabriel De Roche, and Jesús E. Rojas Venzor. There’s No Migrant Surge at the U.S. Southern Border. Here’s the Data. The Washington Post, March 25, 2021.