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Abstract
Civil war and other forms of generalized violence have been identified as the main determinants of forced migration. Yet, there are still large variations across armed conflicts that have not been accounted for. In this article we examine new measures of armed conflict that indicate the magnitude and scope of fighting. We find that the geographical scope of fighting and the extent to which urban centres are affected determine a significant portion of the variation in the expected number of forced migrants across conflicts. Contrary to our expectations, our results show that the intensity of the armed conflict is not significantly related to the number of forced migrants. These findings suggest that the threat perceived by potential forced migrants is more related to where the fighting is taking place, than to the overall intensity of the fighting.
Notes
3. See < www.unhcr.org/publ/PUBL/3b779dfe2.html>.
4. See < www.unhcr.org/basics/BASICS/405ef8c64.pdf>.
5. Christian A. Davenport, Will H. Moore and Steven C. Poe, ‘Sometimes You Just Have to Leave: Domestic Threats and Forced Migration, 1964–1989’, International Interactions 29/1 (2003) pp.27–55; Harto Hakovirta, Third World Conflict and Refugeeism (Helsinki: The Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters 1986); Susanne Schmeidl, ‘Exploring the Causes of Forced Migration: A Pooled Time-Series analysis, 1971–1990’, Social Science Quarterly 78/2 (1997) pp.284–308; Aristide R. Zolberg, Astri Suhrke and Sergio Aguayo, Escape from Violence: Conflict and the Refugee Crisis in the Developing World (New York: Oxford UP 1989).
6. Davenport et al. (note 5); Schmeidl, ‘Exploring the Causes of Forced Migration’ (note 5).
7. Erik Melander and Magnus Öberg, ‘Time to Go: Duration Dependence in Forced Migration’, International Interactions 32/2 (2006) pp.129–52; Will H. Moore and Stephen M. Shellman, ‘Fear of Persecution: A Global Study of Forced Migration, 1952–1995’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 40/5 (2004) pp.723–45.
8. Melander and Öberg, ‘Time to Go’ (note 7).
9. Melander and Öberg, ‘Time to Go’ (note 7)
10. Clair Apodaca, ‘Human Rights Abuses: Precursor to Refugee Flight?’, Journal of Refugee Studies 11/1 (1998) pp. 80–93; L. Clark, Early Warning of Refugee Flows (Washington DC: Refugee Policy Group 1989); Davenport et al. (note 5); B. Edmonston and S. Lee, ‘Why Refugees Flee: An Analysis of Refugee Emigration Data’, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Social Science History Association, Chicago 1992; Mark Gibney, Claire Apodaca and J. McCann, ‘Refugee Flows, the Internally Displaced and Political Violence (1908–1993): An Exploratory Analysis’, in Alex Schmid (ed.), Whiter Refugee? The Refugee Crisis: Problems and Solutions (Leiden: PIOOM 1996); Susanne Schmeidl, ‘From Root Cause Assessment to Preventive Diplomacy: Possibilities and Limitations of an Early Warning of Forced Migration’ (Columbus: Ohio State Univ., PhD Diss. 1995); Schmeidl, ‘Exploring the Causes of Forced Migration’ (note 5); Peter Wallensteen and Magnus Öberg, ‘Armed Conflict and Humanitarian Emergencies: Exploring a Relationship’, in Geopolitics in Humanitarian Assistance (Luxemburg: European Communities 1998); M. Weiner, ‘Bad Neighbors, Bad Neighborhoods – An Inquiry into the Causes of Refugee Flows’, International Security 21/1 (Summer 1996) pp.5–42; Zolberg et al. (note 5).
11. Apodaca (note 10); Edmonston and Lee (note 10); B. Edmonston and S. Lee, Factors Affecting Refugee Emigration (Washington DC: Urban Institute 1990); Edmonston and Lee, ‘Why Refugees Flee’ (note 10); Gibney et al (note 10); Hakovirta (note 5); Zolberg et al. (note 5).
12. Apodaca (note 10); Edmonston and Lee, ‘Why Refugees Flee: An Analysis of Refugee Emigration Data (note 10); Gibney et al. (note 10); Hakovirta (note 5); Zolberg et al. (note 5); Wallensteen and Öberg (note 10).
13. Davenport et al. (note 5); Melander and Öberg, ‘Time to Go’ (note 7); Moore and Shellman (note 7); Schmeidl, ‘Exploring the Causes of Forced Migration’ (note 5).
14. Schmeidl ’Exploring the Causes of Forced Migration' (note 5) p.302.
15. Davenport et al. (note 5); Kurt Jonassohn, ‘Famine, Genocide and Refugees’, Society 30 (1993) pp.72–6; Kurt Jonassohn and Karin Solveig Björnson, Genocide and Gross Human Rights Violations in Comparative Perspective (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction 1998); Moore and Shellman (note 7); Rudolph J. Rummel, Death by Government: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900 (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction 1994); Schmeidl, ‘Exploring the Causes of Forced Migration’ (note 5).
16. S. Aga Khan, Study on Human Rights and Massive Exodus. Special Report to the Commission on Human Rights, 38th session (New York: United Nations Economic and Social Council, UN Doc E/CN.4/1503, 1981); Apodaca (note 10); Davenport et al. (note 5); Gibney et al. (note 10); Hakovirta (note 5); Moore and Shellman (note 7).
17. Davenport et al. (note 5); Moore and Shellman (note 7).
18. Davenport et al. (note 5); Moore and Shellman (note 7); Schmeidl, ‘Exploring the Causes of Forced Migration’ (note 5); Weiner (note 10).
19. Edmonston and Lee, ‘Why Refugees Flee’ (note 10); W. B. Wood, ‘Forced Migration: Local Conflicts and International Dilemmas’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 84/4 (1994) pp.607–34; Zolberg et al. (note 5).
20. Davenport et al. (note 5); Moore and Shellman (note 7); Schmeidl, ‘Exploring the Causes of Forced Migration’ (note 5).
21. Davenport et al. (note 5); Moore and Shellman (note 7); Schmeidl, ‘Exploring the Causes of Forced Migration’ (note 5).
22. Davenport et al. (note 5).
23. Melander and Öberg, ‘Time to Go’ (note 7).
24. Moore and Shellman (note 7).
25. Moore and Shellman (note 7)
26. This argument rests on the assumption that if a larger portion of the country is affected this means that a larger number of people are affected. Ideally we would like to have data directly showing the number of people affected by fighting, but lacking this there are good empirical grounds for assuming that the portion of the country affected is closely related to the number of people affected. A recent study by Hegre and Raleigh using disaggregated population and conflict events data shows that fighting clearly cluster in more populous areas and that ‘conflict events clearly tend to occur close to population concentrations, and not in the hinterland’. See Håvard Hegre and Clionadh Raleigh, ‘Population size, Concentration, and Civil War: A Geographically Disaggregated Analysis’ (Oslo: Centre for the Study of Civil War, Peace Research Institute Oslo 2006).
27. This is common practice in the literature and it is less problematic than other measures used in the literature such as the net forced migration stock (for a discussion of this issue see Melander and Öberg, ‘Time to Go’, note 7, p.9). Nonetheless, it should be noted that there is a risk that flows are undercounted if there exist a number of forced migrants from one country and resettlement to the same country occurs alongside new refugee flows.
28. Melander and Öberg, ‘Time to Go’ (note 7).
29. We estimated Models 1 and 2 also with a dependent variable truncated at 500 forced migrants. The results were generally somewhat weaker but our main findings held.
30. The positive and significant coefficient of the over-dispersion parameter (α) in all models indicates that events are not independent and that the negative binomial distribution is appropriate.
31. Gary King, ‘Event Count Models for International Relations: Generalizations and Applications’, International Studies Quarterly 33/2 (1989) pp.123–47; Scott J. Long, Regression Models for Categorical and Limited Dependent Variables (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage 1997).
32. Long (note 31).
33. For the same reasons Moore and Shellman (note 7) also use the ZINB model.
34. The results of the Voung test (Zinb vs. Neg. Bin) for Model 1 (complete model) without robust standard errors are: Std. Normal = 5.12, Pr>Z = 0.00.
35. Jack A. Goldstone, Ted Robert Gurr, Barbara Harff, Marc A. Levy, Monty G. Marshall, Robert H. Bates, David L. Epstein, Colin H. Kahl, Pamela T. Surko, John C. Ulfelder and Alan N. Unger, State Failure Task Force Report: Phase III Findings (McLean, VA: Science Applications Int. Corp. 2000).
36. Bethany Lacina and Nils Petter Gleditsch, ‘Monitoring Trends in Global Combat: A New Dataset of Battle Deaths,’ European Journal of Population-Revue Europeenne de Demographie 21/2–3 (2005) pp.145–66.
37. Nils Petter Gleditsch, Peter Wallensteen, Mikael Eriksson, Margareta Sollenberg and Håvard Strand, ‘Armed Conflict 1946–2001: A New Dataset’, Journal of Peace Research 39/5 (2002) pp.615–37; Lotta Harbom and Peter Wallensteen, ‘Armed Conflict and Its International Dimensions, 1946–2004’, Journal of Peace Research 42/5 (2005) pp.623–35.
38. Lacina and Gleditsch (note 36)
39. Håvard Strand, Lars Willhelmsen and Nils Petter Gleditsch, Armed Conflict Dataset Codebook (Oslo: International Peace Research Institute 2002).
40. A detailed description of measures and data sources for all variables in this study can be found in Appendix 1.
41. Davenport et al. (note 5); Jonassohn (note 15); Jonassohn and Björnson (note 15); Moore and Shellman (note 7); Rummel (note 15); Schmeidl, ‘Exploring the Causes of Forced Migration’ (note 5).
42. D.C. Esty, J.A. Goldstone, T.R. Gurr, B. Harff, M. Levy, G.D. Dabelko, P.T. Surko and A.N. Unger, ‘State Failure Task Force Report: Phase II Findings’ (McLean, VA: Science Applications Int. Corp. 1998); Goldstone et al. (note 35); Barbara Harff and Ted R. Gurr, ‘Victims of the State: Genocides, Politicides, and Group Repression from 1945 to 1995’, in Albert J. Jongman (ed.), Contemporary Genocides: Causes, Cases, Consequences (Leiden: PIOOM 1996) pp.33–58.
43. Aga Khan (note 16); Apodaca (note 10); Davenport et al. (note 5); Gibney et al. (note 10); Hakovirta (note 5); Moore and Shellman (note 7).
44. Mark Gibney and Mathew Dalton, 'The Political Terror Scale', in D.L. Cingranelli (ed.), Human Rights and Developing Countries (Greenwich, UK: JAI Press 1997).
45. Arthur Banks, Cross-Polity National Survey (Binghamton, NY: Dept. of Political Science 1998); Davenport et al. (note 5); Moore and Shellman (note 7).
46. For an extensive discussion of the problems see Erik Melander and Magnus Öberg, Forced Migration: The Effects of the Magnitude and Scope of Fighting (Uppsala: Uppsala Peace Research Papers No.8, 2004).
47. Davenport et al. (note 5); Moore and Shellman (note 7); Schmeidl, ‘Exploring the Causes of Forced Migration’ (note 5); Weiner (note 10).
48. William Easterly and M. Sewadeh, ‘Global Development Network Growth Database’ (Washington DC: World Bank 2001) < www.worldbank.org/research/growth/GDNdata.htm>.
49. Monty G. Marshall and Keith Jaggers, POLITY IV PROJECT: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800–2002: Dataset Users' Manual (College Park, MD: Center for Int. Development and Conflict Management, Univ. of Maryland 2002).
50. Edmonston and Lee, ‘Why Refugees Flee’ (note 10); Wood (note 19); Zolberg et al. (note 5).
51. Kristian S. Gleditsch, ‘Expanded Trade and GDP Data’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 46/5 (2002) pp.712–24.
52. Davenport et al. (note 5); Moore and Shellman (note 7); Schmeidl, ‘Exploring the Causes of Forced Migration’ (note 5).
53. Melander and Öberg, ‘Time to Go’ (note 7).
54. Nathaniel Beck, Jonathan N. Katz and Richard Tucker, ‘Taking Time Seriously: Time-Series Cross-Section Analysis with a Binary Dependent Variable’, American Journal of Political Science 42/4 (1998) pp.1260–1288.
55. We tested for potential problems of multicollinearity but found little grounds for worry: maximum variance-inflation factor (VIF) is 2.33, and mean VIF is 1.54.
56. Melander and Öberg, ‘Time to Go’ (note 7); Moore and Shellman (note 7); Schmeidl, ‘Exploring the Causes of Forced Migration’ (note 5).
57. Melander and Öberg, ‘Time to Go’ (note 7).
58. The predictions are based on the Baseline Model with the two variables indicating the intensity of fighting dropped.
59. The remaining variables were set at the following values: No. of Years w/ Forced Migration = 0; No. of Years w/o Forced Migration = 2; Geographical Scope of Revolutionary Fighting = 0; State Repression = 3.
60. We report results obtained using the state repression values that are based on US State Department reports. A very similar set of values based on Amnesty International reports is also included in the Political Terror Scale.