Refugee Crises, Policies, and Violence against Refugees

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

With the number of refugees and displaced persons at historically high levels, systematic research on questions relating to refugee policies and their impact on vulnerable populations could not be timelier. This panel provides a state-of-the-art examination of the variation in the treatment of refugees by looking at the salience and types of refugee policies as well as electoral incentives in host countries. The individual papers employ a diverse set of methodological approaches, including text-analysis, difference-in-difference method, and cross-national and sub-national analyses, and introduce various original datasets. Addelaaty introduces an original global dataset that conceptualizes and measures refugee crises worldwide during 1951-2015. Cordell and Wright examine the prevalence and salience of refugee policies in the United States using text analysis of the State Department’s annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. Pardos-Prado, Polo, and Wucherpfennig study the impact of refugee policies on terrorism against host populations and refugees by using a novel time series cross-sectional dataset covering 35 OECD countries and conducting a difference in differences analysis assessing the impact of Germany’s pro-refugee policy approach in 2015. Finally, Fisk and Savun examine the conditions under which violence against refugees in host countries increases. Using both cross-national and sub-national level data, they show that violence against refugees tends to increase during election periods, as leaders act on incentives to foster xenophobia and construct more exclusive notions of group identity to boost their own prospects at the polls. Taken together, the collection of papers in this panel provide crucial policy-relevant insights related to the variation and effectiveness of refugee policies in host countries.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 21: Conflict Processes

Individual Presentations

• Conceptualizing and Measuring Refugee Crises - Lamis Abdelaaty, Syracuse University

• An Examination of US Refugee Policy Over Time - Thorin Martin Wright, Arizona State University; Rebecca Elizabeth Cordell, University of Texas at Dallas

• Refugees and Terrorism: The Conditioning Effect of Migration Policies - Sara Polo, University of Essex; Julian Wucherpfennig, Hertie School of Governance

• Electoral Incentives and Violence against Refugees - Kerstin Fisk, Loyola Marymount University; Burcu Savun, University of Pittsburgh

Chair

• Kerstin Fisk Loyola Marymount University

Discussant

• Beth Elise Whitaker University of North Carolina, Charlotte