Search

Begin New Search Topic Refugees Political Geography Global Focus

31. Civil War Violence and Refugee Outflows

Author:
Andrew Shaver
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC)
Abstract:
Conflict forces millions of individuals from their homes each year. Using a simple structural model and new refugee data, we produce the first set of estimates relating outflows to annual conflict magnitudes. The theory underlying the structural model implies that standard panel data approaches will underestimate the impact of conflict violence, by differencing out the effect of prior and expected levels of violence on the decisions to flee. We estimate that whereas a shock that doubles conflict deaths in one year increases outflows in that year by 40% on average, doubling conflict deaths in all years increases annual outflows by 100%. We further estimate an average of 30 refugees per conflict death (median 18), with higher rates for conflicts closer to an OECD country and possibly for ethnic wars and in lower income countries. The analysis illustrates a broader methodological point: It can be hazardous to try to identify a causal effect using shocks to a presumed causal factor if the outcome variable is the result of decisions based not only on shocks but also on levels.
Topic:
Political Violence, Civil War, Refugee Issues, Refugees, Refugee Crisis, Data, Armed Conflict, and Models
Political Geography:
Global Focus

32. The UN and the use of "serious games" as an element of citizen awareness: Survival case study/La ONU y el uso de “serious games” como elemento de concienciación ciudadana: Estudio de caso de Survival

Author:
Antonio César Moreno
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
Institution:
Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
Abstract:
Games have always been a powerful tool for learning behaviours and attitudes necessary for an efficient socio-cultural performance. In today's digital society this role is played mainly by video games. They provide video players with skills and abilities typical of the time and facilitate the learning of complex processes effectively. The UN, through its different agencies and through various Education programmes, has used this format to bring together and raise awareness among citizens about the main international issues, such as crises and the displacement of refugees. The aim of this text is to analyse how these issues are projected through the case study of the Spanish video game Survival, as well as to assess whether it is a useful tool for raising awareness and providing adequate information to the population. To this end, this article will analyze the message of this title as well as initiatives such as the UNAOC's PEACEapp initiative./Los juegos han constituido siempre una poderosa herramienta de aprendizaje de conductas y actitudes necesarias para el eficiente desempeño sociocultural. En la actual sociedad digital ese papel lo protagonizan, principalmente, los videojuegos. Estos proveen a los video jugadores de habilidades y destrezas propias de la época y facilitan el aprendizaje de procesos complejos con eficacia. La ONU a través de sus diferentes agencias y mediante diversos programas de Educación se ha servido de este formato para aproximar y concienciar a la ciudadanía sobre las principales problemáticas internacionales, como las crisis y desplazamientos de refugiados. El objetivo del presente texto es analizar cómo se proyectan estos temas a través del estudio de caso del videojuego español Survival así como valorar si es una herramienta útil para concienciar e informar adecuadamente a la población. Para ello analizaremos el mensaje de este título e iniciativas como la iniciativa PEACEapp de la UNAOC.
Topic:
United Nations, Refugees, Media, Citizenship, Digital Culture, and Video Games
Political Geography:
Global Focus

33. The Human Security Deficit as a Cause for Migratory and Refugee Flows: The design of an Accurate Response / El déficit de seguridad humana como causa de los flujos migratorios: el diseño de una respuesta precisa

Author:
Gracia Abad Quintanal
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on International Security Studies (RESI)
Institution:
International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:
The end of the Cold War has given way to an impressive tranformation of the security concept, which has experienced an incredible expansion over the last few decades. This expansion has also gone hand by hand with the emergence of new concepts which might allow better analysis in this realm. The human security concept stands out among such new concepts as a result of its analytical value, in spite of all the criticism it has received. One of the questions which has become securitized in the context of the mentioned expansion of the security concept is migration. However, even if migrations have been approached too frequently from a traditional security concept based on the state and its sovereignty, the human seecurity concepts seems a much better tool for the analysis of this reality and its causes. In this sense, we cannot forget that people become migrants or refugees because they see questioned their personal security. Likewise, we have to pay attention to the extent to which, the host states and, particularly, their societies, may see their political, economic and societal security in danger. Therefore, the analysis should pay attention to the security challenges of both, host societies and migrants and refugees. Besides, only an analysis on the basis of the human security concept will allow us to come up with an accurate response to the question of migratory and refugee flows, this is a response which pays attention to some key aspects such as conflict prevention and management an growth and development promotion in the countries of origin of migrants and refugees, always in cooperation with those countries themselves. Such un analysis will show the indivisible nature of security and the fact that the security of host societies and that of migrants and refugees, far from being incompatible, go hand by hand.
Topic:
Development, Migration, Refugees, Conflict, and Human Security
Political Geography:
Europe and Global Focus

34. Migration and the 2030 Agenda: Making Everyone Count Migrants and Refugees in the Sustainable Development Goals

Author:
Anne Koch and Jana Kuhnt
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)
Abstract:
With its guiding principle “leave no one behind”, the 2030 Agenda aims at improving the living conditions of poor and marginalised groups. Migrants and refugees are not systematically considered in this process. In oder to do so, data disaggregated by migratory status is urgently needed.
Topic:
Migration, United Nations, Refugees, and Sustainable Development Goals
Political Geography:
Global Focus

35. How Will International Migration Policy and Sustainable Development Affect Future Climate-Related Migration?

Author:
Robert McLeman
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Migration Policy Institute (MPI)
Abstract:
Extreme-weather events, such as tropical cyclones, floods, droughts, and intense heat, are shaping migration and displacement in countries around the world, and climate change is likely to make events like these more intense and more frequent. The effects of such conditions vary across regions and can spark a range of migration outcomes—both increases and decrease in movement along existing routes, the creation of new routes, and growth in the number of people who may want or need to move but who are unable to do so. But while the potential of climate change to affect human mobility is widely recognized, estimating future climate-related migration and displacement is made difficult by uncertainty surrounding the future of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and of sustainable development and migration policies. This Transatlantic Council on Migration report describes the findings of a first-of-its-kind exercise to explore how future climatic conditions under standardized greenhouse gas concentration scenarios may affect climate-related drivers of migration and displacement, and how international development and migration policies may mediate (or exacerbate) migration outcomes. It considers how this may play out in two periods (2020–50 and 2050–2100), and in top source regions for international migration: East and Southeast Asia, South and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Migration, Law, Refugees, and Sustainable Development Goals
Political Geography:
Global Focus

36. Responsibility to Protect and the World in 2020

Author:
Simon Adams
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Abstract:
This year the world will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Charter of the United Nations. But celebrations recognizing this historical landmark will occur at a time when the entire post-1945 structure of human rights, humanitarianism and multilateral diplomacy are under threat. Not since the UN was first formed have so many people been displaced by persecution, conflict and war. Not since the peak of the Cold War has the UN Security Council appeared so bitterly divided and incapable of decisive action. And as a new decade begins, there are renewed threats to international peace and security, and fresh assaults on human dignity.
Topic:
Genocide, Human Rights, Social Movement, Refugees, Syrian War, Responsibility to Protect (R2P), and UN Security Council
Political Geography:
China, Yemen, United Nations, Syria, Chile, Myanmar, Global Focus, and Xinjiang

37. Building a Multi-Directional Transnational Solidarity Movement

Author:
Jeff Bachman
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
Transnational solidarity movements have typically flowed from a central point located in the West, particularly in the United States, to the East and the Global South. Shadi Mokhtari describes this phenomenon as the “traditional West-to-East flow of human rights mobilizations and discourses.” Viewed individually, this phenomenon is not problematic in all cases. However, as Mokhtari argues, this one-directional flow of human rights politics precludes non-Western non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from weighing in on human rights violations committed in the United States. Human rights violations in the United States are typically experienced by marginalized communities, from the mass incarceration and disenfranchisement of African-Americans to the detention and ill-treatment of immigrants, migrants, and refugees. For a truly global human rights movement to emerge—one that is not grounded in Western paternalism and perceived moral superiority—this must change.
Topic:
Development, Human Rights, Post Colonialism, Immigration, Refugees, NGOs, and transnationalism
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

38. Beginning to Resolve Displacement

Author:
David Arnold, Lorenza Rossi, Grace Benton, and Nina Stuurman
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cairo Review of Global Affairs
Abstract:
Addressing the issues of displaced persons starts not by envisioning an ending point for those no longer living in their homes, but instead by understanding the mobile nature of displacement and empowering those affected.
Topic:
Refugees, Displacement, Conflict, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

39. A Dynamic Model of the Spread of Intrastate War

Author:
Ali Fisunoğlu
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
The spread of intrastate war has gained increasing prominence, especially in the recent past. This paper studies the spread of intrastate war as a result of another intrastate war in a neighboring country using a system dynamics modeling approach. The model employed is a modification of the SIR, a spread of disease model taken from epidemiology. Revising the SIR model with relevant political and economic variables, the model seeks to explain the mechanism through which an intrastate conflict is spread from an "infected" country to a "susceptible" country. Although diffusion and contagion of civil wars have been widely examined in the past, a dynamic modeling approach has not been adequately used in this area. Consistent with the existing literature, the results of the model suggest that refugees are a means to carry the conflict disease from the initial country by disturbing economic and social dynamics of the host whereas political capacity acts as the immune system, reducing the likelihood of conflict contagion. The results of the simulations, obtained using theoretical parameters, are mainly consistent with the expectations.
Topic:
War, Refugees, Conflict, and State
Political Geography:
Global Focus

40. The role of complementary pathways in refugee protection

Author:
Tamara Wood
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW Sydney
Abstract:
Complementary pathways provide a significant opportunity to enhance refugees access to protection and durable solutions, and to facilitate international responsibility-sharing in the protection of refugees. They also provide potential benefits to states and communities hosting refugees, helping to address current skill and labour shortages in countries of destination and fostering positive public attitudes to refugees. However, realising these benefits requires clarity in the nature, objectives and minimum standards required of complementary pathways, and clear frameworks for implementation that will ensure that such pathways promote, and do not risk undermining, the international protection regime.
Topic:
Migration, Refugees, and Protection
Political Geography:
Global Focus