DIFFERENTIAL IMPACTS OF THE SYRIAN REFUGEE CRISIS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ECONOMIC BURDEN AND POLITICAL STABILITY IN JORDAN, LEBANON, AND TURKEY, 2010–2024

Since 2011, the Syrian civil war has displaced over 13 million individuals, with the majority of refugees being absorbed by neighboring states. This paper analyzes the varying influence of the Syrian refugee crisis on economic stability and political order in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey during the period 2010-24. Drawing on neo-institutional theory, it conceptualizes refugee inflows as external shocks whose impacts are mediated by pre-existing state capacity, governance quality, and economic structure. Employing a comparative interrupted time-series design and panel data from UNHCR, the World Bank, the IMF, and ACLED, the analysis identifies three distinct trajectories. Lebanon underwent exacerbated economic decline and political instability despite large amounts of per-capita humanitarian aid, which was indicative of poor institutional capacity and fiscal fragility. Jordan exhibited a pattern of managed strain in that weak institutional capacity and effective aid absorption helped in mitigating the impacts but did not eradicate fiscal and labor market pressures. Turkey absorbed the largest absolute number of refugees with comparatively modest macroeconomic disruption, reflecting greater economic scale and state capacity. Fixed-effects negative binomial regressions indicate that economic grievances, specifically unemployment and inflation rather than refugee density, predict political instability as expressed in protest events. The findings challenge displacement-burden models that assume uniform effects and support institutional quality and economic structure as the primary mediating factors in refugee-hosting outcomes. The paper contributes a theoretically grounded comparative framework with direct implications for equitable international burden-sharing mechanisms.