Mobility control as state-making in civil war: Forcing exit, selective return and strategic laissez-faire

Abstract

This paper addresses the question of how different actors attempt to control mobility during civil war, and how mobility control and processes of state-making interact in such settings. Mobility in civil wars is often considered a political act by the various actors involved: Leaving the country can be perceived as an act of opposition, as can moving between territories which are controlled by different, opposing factions. Drawing on literature on strategic displacement and migration politics and combining this with empirical insights from the ongoing wars in Libya and Syria, the paper identifies three mechanisms of mobility control in civil war settings: forcing exit, selective return as a form of expulsion, and strategic laissez-faire as the intentional absence of regulation regarding displacement and return. The analysis reveals that all three mechanisms are employed by state actor(s), rebels, and militias, and can be understood as elements of a new (post)war order that includes some citizens while excluding others depending on perceptions of political threats. We interpret the three mechanisms as ways in which actors in civil war settings attempt to manipulate a country’s demography in their own favour in a process of state-making. The paper is based on fieldwork conducted between 2018 and 2021 in Syria, Lebanon, Libya, and Tunisia.

Violence, life aspirations and displacement trajectories in civil war

“…Moving to another area under different political control was either related to the attempt of trying to reach (relatively) safety within the country but was also related to state authorities and rebel groups enforcing cross‐line displacement (cf. Fröhlich & Müller‐Funk, 2023). These two types of internal displacement constitute ideal types—sometimes it was impossible to distinguish between the two categories due to ambiguities and inconsistencies in the interviews, but also changing political control.…”

“…Refugees' migration trajectories are structured by financial resources and social networks (van Hear, 2004). People contemplating flight or who have been displaced make decisions within sharp structural constraints, influenced by policies and practices of governmental authorities and rebel groups in origin and host states (Arar & FitzGerald, 2022; Fröhlich & Müller‐Funk, 2023). As Lubkemann (2008) has pointed out, in conflict settings, people might have stronger aspirations to leave than in other contexts, but fewer people actually manage to do so, resulting in involuntary immobility for many.…”

(Trans)formations de l’État et gouvernance des migrations forcées en Tunisie

“…Les travaux sur l'Inde, par exemple, mettent en avant la manière dont l'État indien a mobilisé activement les politiques migratoires pour la construction de la nation après l'indépendance (Mongia, 2018 ;Sadiq et Tsourapas, 2021). Les recherches sur les États en guerre civile, comme la Libye et la Syrie, montrent également comment certains acteurs tentent de manipuler la démographie d'un pays en leur faveur dans un processus de création d'État (Fröhlich et Müller-Funk, 2023). La Tunisie offre aussi un excellent exemple pour explorer la gouvernance des migrations forcées à des moments critiques de la formation d'un État, car l'indépendance et le processus de transition vers la démocratie, respectivement en 1956 et 2011, ont également été les moments où le pays a été confronté aux plus grandes arrivées de migrants forcés sur son territoire.…”