Catalysts of conflict : how refugee crises lead to the spread of civil war

The spread of civil war due to refugee crises has occurred repeatedly throughout history. In some refugee crises, the sending state pursues the refugees, subjecting them to military attack. In other cases, militant exiles use the refugee camps as rear bases in their attacks on the sending state. As the cross-border attacks escalate, the risk of international war grows. The refugee crisis spawned by the 1994 genocide in Rwanda provides the most extreme example of this phenomenon. The militant actions of the Rwandan Hutu refugees in Zaire eventually sparked two international wars that led to further massive population displacement in the region. The recurring pattern of violent refugee crises, prompts the following three questions: 1) How widespread is the phenomenon of political violence involving refugees? 2) Under what conditions do refugee crises cause a civil war to spread across borders? 3) What role can international actors, such as the United Nations or the United States government, play in preventing the spread of violence? To answer the above questions, this dissertation presents new time series data on refugee-related political violence and also systematically compares violent and non-violent crises involving Rwandan, Bosnian, and Afghan refugees. This dissertation advances a political explanation for the spread of civil war in refugee crises and tests it against the prevailing socioeconomic explanation. According to the political explanation, three factors combine to cause the spread of civil war. 1) Strong political cohesion among the group before exile determines initial refugee militancy.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Political Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2002

Author dc:creator

• Lischer, Sarah Kenyon

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Stephen Van Evera.

• Political Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/8175

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/8175