The Journey Back: Factors Influencing Refugees’ Decisions to Return

• In Event: Violence, Integration, and Return: Decisions of Syrian IDPs, Refugees, and Hosts

Abstract

Normative practice for forced displacement is to voluntarily repatriate refugees once conditions are stable in the country of origin, which typically translates to the end of violence. However, Syrian refugees have been returning over the past few years even though there is yet to be a definitive end to the Syrian civil war. Therefore, this paper asks how refugees form decisions on when and whether they should return despite ongoing violence and instability in their country of origin? Rather than focusing on one part of the picture, we examine how several aspects of a refugee’s journey can motivate the decision to return: the initial decision to flee, experience in the host state of Lebanon, and perception of the situation in Syria. To answer these questions, we designed an original vignette experiment, implemented among Syrian refugees hosted in Lebanon (N=1,750) to causally identify the effects of different peace conditions on refugees’ decisions to return. We complement these experimental findings with rich qualitative data from six focus groups to capture the mechanisms through which these decisions are made. We find that, overall, Syrian refugees are more willing to return when there is a strong commitment to peace. However, poor treatment in the host country drives considerations to return under unstable peace conditions such as a local truce or a ceasefire agreement, which might explain the early return of individuals to Syria before peace has been struck.

Authors

• Tiffany Chu, University of Arizona

• Michael James Frith, UCL

• Faten Ghosn, University of Arizona

• Alex Braithwaite, University of Arizona

• Miranda Soledad Simon, University College London