Introducing POSVAR: A dataset on refugee-related violence

Gineste, Christian; Savun, Burcu

doi:10.1177/0022343318811440

Cited by 27 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Hence, additional coding efforts to distinguish between refugees as the source or target of violence are necessary. Savun & Gineste (2019), Gineste & Savun (2019), and Polo & Wucherpfennig (2017) have begun to pursue this promising avenue of research; in addition, Fisk (2014) provides spatially disaggregated conflict and refugee data in 26 African countries for 2000–10, while Shaver & Zhou (2017) have compiled geo-coded data on UNHCR refugee sites for 1989–2008.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Blame the victims? Refugees, state capacity, and non-state actor violence

Böhmelt

Bove

Gleditsch

2018

Journal of Peace Research

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Existing research argues that refugee inflows may increase the risk of domestic conflict, particularly civil war that, by definition, involves the state as an actor. However, many of the postulated mechanisms linking refugees to a higher risk of such conflict pertain to tensions with locals, which do not necessarily involve any grievances against government authorities. We contend that it is more likely to identify an association between refugees and non-state actor violence, i.e., armed violence between organized non-state groups, neither of which pertains to the state. We also claim that the extent to which refugees are associated with a higher likelihood of non-state conflict depends on the capacity of governments to manage and mitigate risks. We report evidence that refugee populations can be linked to an increased risk of non-state conflict, as well as for a mitigating effect of state capacity on the risk of non-state conflicts in the presence of refugees. We do not find a clear effect of refugee populations on civil war, suggesting that the link depends on existing conflict cleavages relevant to mobilizing refugees or locals. Our research helps to shed light on the relevant security consequences of managing refugee populations. Despite the common arguments portraying refugees as security risks in developed countries, the risk of non-state conflict applies primarily to weak states that have been forced to shoulder a disproportionate burden in hosting refugees.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Blame the victims? Refugees, state capacity, and non-state actor violence

Böhmelt

Bove

Gleditsch

2018

Journal of Peace Research

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“…To test the validity of our hypotheses, we build a global cross-national dataset for the period 1996 to 2015. For our dependent variable, we draw upon the government repression and violence against refugees index [GVI] variable from the Political and Societal Violence by and against Refugees (POSVAR) dataset (Gineste and Savun 2019).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Government Targeting of Refugees in the Midst of Epidemics

Braithwaite¹,

Frith²,

Savun³

et al. 2021

Perspect. polit.

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We investigate how the outbreak of epidemics can affect host governments’ targeting of refugees and violation of their physical integrity rights. We argue that governments target repression against refugees for two reasons. First, refugees are easily scapegoated for the arrival of epidemics at a time when governments are looking to shift the blame for their own poor performance. Second, crises provide circumstances for governments to engage in opportunistic repression to further their goal of coercing existing refugees to depart and deterring new refugees from arriving. Drawing upon a global dataset of countries for the years 1996 to 2015, we demonstrate that epidemic outbreaks do indeed increase the likelihood and scale of government repression targeting refugee populations. These effects are especially pronounced in countries with higher proportions of refugees hosted and in less democratic countries. Identification of this potential for government repression of refugees during epidemics is important in light of the grave scale of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings suggest the international community should be vigilant for signs of governments’ mistreatment of vulnerable refugee populations to shift focus away from their own poor handling of crises such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and opportunistically advance their goal of reducing the numbers of refugees hosted locally.

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“…A final contribution of this special issue is to introduce a new dataset. Gineste & Savun (2019) present a new cross-sectional time-series dataset on refugee-related violence that provides systematic information on refugees’ direct involvement in violence in their host states, either as the perpetrators or as the victims of violence, between 1996 and 2015. The POSVAR (Political and Societal Violence By and Against Refugees) dataset provides an opportunity for scholars to empirically evaluate existing and new hypotheses regarding the causes and dynamics of refugee-related violence that was not possible previously due to scarcity of systematic data.…”

Section: Contributions To This Special Issuementioning

confidence: 99%

Refugees, forced migration, and conflict: Introduction to the special issue

Braithwaite

Salehyan

Savun³

2018

Journal of Peace Research

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Few issues in international politics have dominated public debates, both in domestic and international arenas, as much as refugee movements across borders in recent years. By the end of 2017, more than 68.5 million people – one in approximately every 110 people on the planet – had been displaced from their homes, either as internally displaced persons (IDPs) or as refugees, due to violent conflict, persecution, famine, or natural disasters. This article introduces a special issue on refugees, forced migration, and conflict. It describes the evolution of the international refugee regime and identifies theoretical and methodological advances in the relevant literature. It concludes with a discussion of the individual contributions to the issue, which seek to address gaps in the literature with respect to explaining motivations for refugee departures, understanding the relationship between refugee populations and political instability in host countries, and tracking public attitudes towards hosting refugee populations.

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Introducing POSVAR: A dataset on refugee-related violence

Cited by 27 publications

References 35 publications

Blame the victims? Refugees, state capacity, and non-state actor violence

Blame the victims? Refugees, state capacity, and non-state actor violence

Government Targeting of Refugees in the Midst of Epidemics

Refugees, forced migration, and conflict: Introduction to the special issue

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