Violence-Motivated Migration: Theorizing and Predicting Migration Responses to Violent Events

• In Event: 1541 - Population Processes: Cohort dynamics and social change

Abstract

Does violence drive migration? Despite a wealth of research on refugee movements, the causal relationship between violence and migration is undertheorized. The omission of violence in migration theory is in part due to existing biases in empirical studies. This paper introduces the concept “violence motivated migration” which aims to rectify important exclusions created by these biases. The new conceptualization specifies two dimensions of violence that affect migration: perceived risk and trust in the mechanisms of justice. Once defined, I use data from 2 million respondents in the Gallup World Poll to support the premise of the conceptualization. Operationalizing the perception of risk as a respondents’ indication of whether they feel safe walking home at night, and institutional trust as the respondents’ indication of trust in the local police and courts, I examine whether these components are significantly linked to migration intentions. I find that safety and trust in the police are the most important indicators of whether a respondent has migration intentions. I further find that if the respondent feels unsafe walking home, but does have trust in the police, then her trust in the courts matters for migration intention. I test these claims on a set of non-wartime respondents versus wartime respondents. I further use the data to highlight “hot spots” of increasing risk and declining trust as places where future migration activity may well erupt.

Author

• Michelle L. O'Brien, New York University Abu Dhabi