In the context of the bottom-up approach to development and poverty reduction, this is the first study to use the Sustainable Livelihood Approach (SLA), with a slight adjustment, to study the economic adaptation of refugees within camps. The objective of this study was to explore the factors affecting the economic adaptation of refugees in Midyat Refugee Camp in Turkey. The study used a focus group to help design the questionnaire that was subsequently used to collect data from a sample of 393 households in Midyat Camp. The data was used to estimate a Structural Equations Model. The findings indicated that the most important factors in determining refugees' economic adaptation are human capital, social capital and institutions.

Naturalization takes place at the intersection between a host government's propensity to give citizenship and refugees' attitudes towards it. However, the naturalization of Syrian refugees, with its top-down approach, shows the possibility of a divergence between a government’s propensity and refugees’ attitudes, and that divergence may spoil the expected benefits. This study questions the factors that determine government propensity and refugees' attitude, besides the convergence and divergence between them. The regressions have been estimated using data collected from a sample of 296 Syrian students at Mardin University, Turkey. The findings of this study revealed a contradiction between attitude and propensity, although they share factors of education and the hosting context. While the indications of social and cultural integration have a positive effect on attitudes, they do not affect propensity. Besides the contextual factors of hosting province shape attitude and propensity. Moreover, the most important factor in deciding attitude is the perception of the costs and benefits of naturalization.