Research
Dissertation
Security Cooperation on Migration in the Age of Right-Wing Politics
My dissertation investigates when and how Western democracies engage in bilateral security cooperation on migration as domestic political challengers rise, despite these partnerships often undermining international, democratic, and humanitarian norms when engaging with non-democratic states. I conceptualize these partnerships as Cooperation Arrangements on Migration (CAMs). CAMs involve provide funding, training, military resources, and intelligence to partners to manage migration flows toward their own borders. Although frequently justified on pragmatic grounds, such cooperation, through issue linkage or ad hoc bargaining, opens the door to coercive migration practices under conditions that often erode liberal standards. I argue that the rise of right-wing populist (RWP) parties fundamentally reshapes the domestic incentives behind these partnerships. As RWP parties expand their presence in legislatures, they heighten the salience of migration as a polarizing political issue and pressure mainstream governments to deliver concrete security outcomes. In response, mainstream parties strategically adopt CAMs from RWP challengers to remain in power and fracture the opposition, shifting political attention away from normative concerns toward tangible results. The central empirical chapter of this dissertation, which serves as my main job market paper, directly investigates this dynamic. It draws on an original dataset of CAMs formed between ten European frontier states and their regional partners from 1990 to 2023. Using count models to estimate the domestic drivers of CAM formation, I show how domestic political pressures shape both the frequency and structure of these partnerships. Additional qualitative work, including network analysis, is used to examine how these arrangements cluster, spread, and reshape regional cooperation patterns. This project provides a new empirical foundation for studying migration cooperation and advances our understanding of how co-optation strategies under polarized political landscapes drive states to adopt contentious foreign policies. By linking internal party competition to international migration governance, this dissertation reveals the political origins of security cooperation with non-democratic states and placing migrants at risk
Working Papers
Rojas Venzor, Jesus E. "How Right-Wing Populism Incites Cooperation: The Logic of Foreign Policy Co-optation on Migration" [JMP]
Why would mainstream governments enter into security cooperation arrangements on migration, particularly when these policies risk convergence with non-democratic actors? I focus my analysis on bilateral, security-related Cooperation Arrangements on Migration (CAMs), which provide resources and support to partner states to control migration abroad. This paper presents a theory of foreign policy co-optation that suggests when and why Western democratic governments appropriate flexible foreign policy instruments important for the narrative of the opposition. These effects are especially pronounced for governments most challenged by right-wing narratives, rather than ideologically adjoining governments. This is supported by a novel dataset of CAMs signed by ten Western frontier states with partners across five continents over the last thirty years. The findings suggest that right-wing populist pressure paradoxically enables executives to manage electoral opposition through foreign policy, highlighting the need to revisit prevailing 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"
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. "The Network of Security Cooperation on Migration"
Rojas Venzor, Jesus E. "The Political Logic and Consequences of Tripartite Repatriation Agreements in the Global South, Evidence from 1983–2025"
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.