Power in the Global Refugee Regime: Understanding Expressions and Experiences of Power in Global and Local Contexts

Abstract

Since the late 1980s, scholars have highlighted the role of diverse conceptualizations of power in explaining the functioning of the global refugee regime. Part of this literature has examined the functioning of power in global contexts, while another part has explored expressions and experiences of power in local contexts. While these approaches illustrate how power may be expressed and experienced in the diverse contexts of the regime, can we conceptualize power in a way that engages with the functioning of the refugee regime in both global and local contexts? Can a more disaggregated understanding of power, sensitive to form and context of expression, open new areas of enquiry into the functioning of the regime and help explain its ability and inability to fulfill its core mandate of protection and solutions for refugees? In response, this article draws on the literature on power in global governance to propose a heuristic framework for understanding power and influence in the diverse context of the global refugee regime. It argues that various forms of power co-exist within the regime, and that further research could usefully examine the manifestations and implications of these forms of power through the making and implementation of global refugee policy.

“We” the Refugees: Reflections on Refugee Labels and Identities

“…8 Within the refugee regime, 9 power is expressed in multiple ways, such as through policy and law, and these expressions of power influence how categories and labels are constructed. 10 The contemporary refugee label, which attempts to group together an extraordinarily heterogeneous population of people, fails to nuance the diverse historical, social, political, and cultural contexts that drive forced migration. 11 The contemporary refugee label also lacks an analysis of how power is expressed within the making and sustainment of that label.…”

“…50 Labels, on the other hand, are the culmination of socio-political power that produces and sustains categorizations or groupings of people. 51 Refugee labels are constantly evolving and transforming within an increasingly politicized and securitized socio-political context, and they are informed as much by those who bear the label as by those who do not. Within this socio-political context, refugee identities and labels are imprinted onto one another and form a complex web of collective and individual transformations.…”