The MigraTion-inTersTaTe ConfliCT nexus
Journal Title: Social Affairs - Year 2014, Vol 1, Issue 1
Abstract
When and how does forced migration strain security relations between neighbouring States? Drawing from secondary research on two interstate conflicts in Africa’s Great Lakes Region during the 1970s and 1990s, I examine the socio-political conditions in both the migrants’ home and recipient States that interweave migrants into both States’ security calculations. I argue that refugees strain neighbouring States’ security relations under conditions of domestic socio-political violence, geographical proximity, and opportunities for refugees’ forced-return mobilisation. Evidence from the 1978-79 Uganda-Tanzania war, and the post-1994 DRC-Rwanda conflict, indicates that given these conditions forced migration strains interstate security relations by arousing suspicion and fear of migrants living in neighbouring States among leaders of refugees’ home country; and provoking migrants’ desire to forcefully return home expressed through politico-military mobilisation and declaration of war. Sending States pressure host States to ‘contain’ refugees’ mobilisation for forceful return. When recipient States are unable or unwilling to satisfy sending States’ demands, refugees become infused in both countries’ security calculations. These convergent processes generate interstate conflicts and may result in armed confrontation. The fndings are useful for grasping the transformation of civil wars into transnational and regional conflicts, such as prevailed in the Region since the 1990s.
Authors and Affiliations
Sabastiano Rwengabo
POVERTY, YOUTH AND POLITICS; A THREE DIMENSIONAL VIEW OF YOUTH IN SLUM AREAS OF SOLAPUR CITY
The present study is an empirical study conducted in selected slum areas of Solapur city in the Maharashtra State of India. The study was conducted to fnd out the relationship between poverty, politics and youth develo...
CULTURAL TOURISM POTENTIAL IN THE NORTH CENTRAL PROVINCE OF SRI LANKA
International tourism has recorded a tremendous growth in the past and this trend will continue further uninterruptedly. Sri Lanka has been one of the major tourist attractions since antiquity. The end of a protracted...
SOCIOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CEYLON
For eight years after its establishment in 1948, the Department of Sociology remained in the ambiguous terrain of being both an independent department and a subordinate partner of the Economics Department. In that role...
WHAT IS A MODERN SOCIAL WORKER COMFORTABLE WITH - UNIVERSALISM OR RELATIVISM? A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE ARTICLE, “POSTMODERNISM, CRITICAL THEORY AND SOCIAL WORK” BY JIM IFE
The author, Prof. Jim Ife, starts this article claiming that, “in the current social, economic and political climate of change and instability, many of the old certainties of social work practice no longer seem relev...
EXPANSION OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION, GRADUATE UNEMPLOYMENT AND THE KNOWLEDGE HUB IN SRI LANKA
The main objective of this paper is to examine the nexus between the existing university education system and graduate unemployment, and to explore the responses of successive governments to address this issue. It also...