Norma Ghanem

Date of Award

3-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Operational Sciences

First Advisor

Richard F. Deckro, PhD

Abstract

Mass migration destabilizes neighboring states, opening the way for fragile state exploitation by enemies, including those that could undermine U.S. national interests. This study investigates an area of the Levant region, specifically countries neighboring Syria, and analyzes their perspective on Syrian refugees for the time frame of 1 June 2019 - 30 June 2020. This analysis may assist in forming policy and creating strategies to address refugee related issues, both domestic and international. There are three main questions addressed. The first inspects dominant refugee framing, the second explores sentiment (dis)similarity within each country and across countries, and the third investigates drastic sentiment changes and their potential driving factors. Results show that Syrian refugees are dominantly viewed in a political framing. Sentiment similarities are shared across two distinguished groupings, Turkey and Israel in one group and Jordan and Lebanon in the other. External factors that vary in origination are likely to influence high sentiment changes. Future research includes application on South American countries, or a change in topic to analyze perspective towards America post Afghanistan withdrawal.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-ENS-MS-22-M-130

DTIC Accession Number

AD1181523

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