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Zahra R. Babar

Gerasimos Tsourapas

Chair and Professor, University of Birmingham
EducationPhD, University of London
Website  (external link, opens in new window) 

Visiting Toronto Metropolitan University

Fall 2026

Research focus while a Global Migration Institute Scholar

At the Global Migration Institute, Gerasimos Tsourapas will advance Acting As If, a book on how states stage refugee governance for international audiences. The project develops the concept of credible fictions: governance performances that observers recognise as partial and certify regardless, converting that recognition into funding, diplomatic access, and international standing. Drawing on fieldwork across the Middle East and the Mediterranean, it asks why donors and international organisations continue to underwrite arrangements whose limits they can plainly see. The residency will also support a collaborative workshop on migration diplomacy and the special issue arising from it.

Career Achievements

Gerasimos Tsourapas is the 125th Anniversary Chair and Professor of International Relations, Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham. He works on the international politics of migration, with a focus on the Middle East, North Africa, and the Mediterranean. He is the author of The Politics of Migration in Modern Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and Migration Diplomacy in the Middle East and North Africa (Manchester University Press, 2021), with articles in International Studies Quarterly, International Affairs, and the International Migration Review. He leads MIGDIPLO (2022–27), which examines how states use cross-border mobility as a strategic instrument in international relations and develops migration diplomacy as a framework for understanding that use; originally awarded a European Research Council Starting Grant, the project is now funded in the United Kingdom by UK Research and Innovation. He also co-directs Securitisation Without Security, supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. He has held fellowships at Harvard University's Center for European Studies and is a 2025–26 Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Relevant Publications

Adamson, F. B., & Tsourapas, G. (2019). Migration diplomacy in world politics. International Studies Perspectives, 20(2), 113–128.

Adamson, F. B., & Tsourapas, G. (2020). The migration state in the Global South: Nationalizing, developmental, and neoliberal models of migration management. International Migration Review, 54(3), 853–882.

Fernández-Molina, I., & Tsourapas, G. (2024). Understanding migration power in international studies. International Affairs, 100(6), 2461–2479.

Tsourapas, G. (2018). The politics of migration in modern Egypt: Strategies for regime survival in autocracies. Cambridge University Press.

Tsourapas, G. (2018). Labor migrants as political leverage: Migration interdependence and coercion in the Mediterranean. International Studies Quarterly, 62(2), 383–395.

Tsourapas, G. (2019). The Syrian refugee crisis and foreign policy decision-making in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. Journal of Global Security Studies, 4(4), 464–481.

Tsourapas, G. (2021). Migration diplomacy in the Middle East and North Africa: Power, mobility, and the state. Manchester University Press.

Tsourapas, G. (2025). The strategic politics of cross-border mobility: A typology of migration interdependence. International Migration Review. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/01979183251369832 (external link) 

Tsourapas, G., & El-Anis, I. (2025). Instrumentalizing crisis as capital: Eco-humanitarian rentierism and the global politics of aid. International Affairs, 101(6), 2149–2172.

Tsourapas, G. (2026). Credible fictions: How states stage refugee governance for geopolitical gain. Journal of Refugee Studies, 39(1), 22–40.