IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/amposc/v52y2008i4p787-801.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Externalities of Civil Strife: Refugees as a Source of International Conflict

Author

Listed:
  • Idean Salehyan

Abstract

Domestic strife and civil war frequently produce large population dislocations and refugee flows across national boundaries. Mass refugee flows often entail negative consequences for receiving states, particularly in developing countries. Moreover, civil violence frequently extends across national boundaries as “internal” conflicts are not constrained by borders. This article argues that refugee flows between states significantly increase the likelihood of militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) in that dyad. Refugee‐receiving states are more likely to initiate MIDs as they intervene to prevent further externalities, and refugee‐sending states initiate MIDs as they violate borders in pursuit of dissidents. Moreover, this research challenges conventional theories of international conflict that focus exclusively on distributional bargains between states. These propositions are tested in a quantitative analysis of the relationship between refugees and MID initiation, 1955–2000. Results confirm that refugees significantly increase the probability of international conflict.

Suggested Citation

  • Idean Salehyan, 2008. "The Externalities of Civil Strife: Refugees as a Source of International Conflict," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(4), pages 787-801, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:52:y:2008:i:4:p:787-801
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2008.00343.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2008.00343.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2008.00343.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Slantchev, Branislav L., 2003. "The Power to Hurt: Costly Conflict with Completely Informed States," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 123-133, February.
    2. Fearon, James D. & Laitin, David D., 2003. "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 75-90, February.
    3. Fearon, James D., 1995. "Rationalist explanations for war," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(3), pages 379-414, July.
    4. D. Scott Bennett & Allan C. Stam, 2000. "Eugene : A conceptual manual," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(2), pages 179-204, March.
    5. James C. Murdoch & Todd Sandler, 2004. "Civil Wars and Economic Growth: Spatial Dispersion," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(1), pages 138-151, January.
    6. Salehyan, Idean & Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede, 2006. "Refugees and the Spread of Civil War," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(2), pages 335-366, April.
    7. Fox, Jonathan A, 2005. "Unpacking "Transnational Citizenship"," Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, Working Paper Series qt4703m6bf, Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, UC Santa Cruz.
    8. R. H. Coase, 2013. "The Problem of Social Cost," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 837-877.
    9. Erik Melander & Magnus Öberg, 2006. "Time to Go? Duration Dependence in Forced Migration," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(2), pages 129-152, July.
    10. Ghobarah, Hazem Adam & Huth, Paul & Russett, Bruce, 2003. "Civil Wars Kill and Maim People—Long After the Shooting Stops," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(2), pages 189-202, May.
    11. Tomz, Michael & Wittenberg, Jason & King, Gary, 2003. "Clarify: Software for Interpreting and Presenting Statistical Results," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 8(i01).
    12. Rudolph, Christopher, 2003. "Security and the Political Economy of International Migration," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(4), pages 603-620, November.
    13. Shain, Yossi & Barth, Aharon, 2003. "Diasporas and International Relations Theory," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 57(3), pages 449-479, July.
    14. de Mesquita, Bruce Bueno & Morrow, James D. & Siverson, Randolph M. & Smith, Alastair, 1999. "An Institutional Explanation of the Democratic Peace," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(4), pages 791-807, December.
    15. Kalena E. Cortes, 2004. "Are Refugees Different from Economic Immigrants? Some Empirical Evidence on the Heterogeneity of Immigrant Groups in the United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(2), pages 465-480, May.
    16. Simmons, Beth A. & Dobbin, Frank & Garrett, Geoffrey, 2006. "Introduction: The International Diffusion of Liberalism," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(4), pages 781-810, October.
    17. Goldstein, Judith L. & Rivers, Douglas & Tomz, Michael, 2007. "Institutions in International Relations: Understanding the Effects of the GATT and the WTO on World Trade," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 61(1), pages 37-67, January.
    18. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2004. "Greed and grievance in civil war," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(4), pages 563-595, October.
    19. Erik Gartzke, 2007. "The Capitalist Peace," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(1), pages 166-191, January.
    20. Paul Collier & V. L. Elliott & Håvard Hegre & Anke Hoeffler & Marta Reynal-Querol & Nicholas Sambanis, 2003. "Breaking the Conflict Trap : Civil War and Development Policy," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13938, December.
    21. Christina Davenport & Will Moore & Steven Poe, 2003. "Sometimes You Just Have to Leave: Domestic Threats and Forced Migration, 1964-1989," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(1), pages 27-55, January.
    22. Jackson, Robert H., 1987. "Quasi-states, dual regimes, and neoclassical theory: International jurisprudence and the Third World," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(4), pages 519-549, October.
    23. Cortes, Kalena E., 2004. "Are Refugees Different from Economic Immigrants? Some Empirical Evidence on the Heterogeneity of Immigrant Groups in the United States," IZA Discussion Papers 1063, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yuri M. Zhukov, 2014. "Theory of Indiscriminate Violence," Working Paper 365551, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    2. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    3. Bryce W. Reeder & Matthew R. Reeder, 2014. "Political Violence, Interstate Rivalry, and the Diffusion of Public Health Crises," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1101-1120, December.
    4. Brian J. Phillips, 2015. "Civil war, spillover and neighbors’ military spending," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 32(4), pages 425-442, September.
    5. Idean Salehyan, 2010. "The Delegation of War to Rebel Organizations," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 54(3), pages 493-515, June.
    6. Eoin McGuirk & Marshall Burke, 2020. "The Economic Origins of Conflict in Africa," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(10), pages 3940-3997.
    7. Anderton,Charles H. & Carter,John R., 2009. "Principles of Conflict Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521875578, December.
    8. Gates, Scott & Hegre, Håvard & Nygård, Håvard Mokleiv & Strand, Håvard, 2012. "Development Consequences of Armed Conflict," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(9), pages 1713-1722.
    9. Christopher Blattman, 2009. "Civil War: A Review of Fifty Years of Research," Working Papers id:2231, eSocialSciences.
    10. Shweta Moorthy & Robert Brathwaite, 2019. "Refugees and rivals: The international dynamics of refugee flows," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 36(2), pages 131-148, March.
    11. Lopes da Fonseca, Mariana & Baskaran, Thushyanthan, 2015. "Re-evaluating the economic costs of conflicts," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 246, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    12. Erik Gartzke & Dominic Rohner, 2010. "Prosperous pacifists: The effects of development on initiators and targets of territorial conflict," IEW - Working Papers 500, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    13. Kristian Skrede Gleditsch & Idean Salehyan & Kenneth Schultz, 2008. "Fighting at Home, Fighting Abroad," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 52(4), pages 479-506, August.
    14. Casper Sakstrup, 2021. "What’s going on next door? Irregular leader change in neighboring countries, uncertainty, and civil war," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(3), pages 539-553, May.
    15. Clayton L. Thyne, 2006. "Cheap Signals with Costly Consequences," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 50(6), pages 937-961, December.
    16. Mehlum, Halvor & Ove Moene, Karl, 2011. "Aggressive elites and vulnerable entrepreneurs - trust and cooperation in the shadow of conflict," Memorandum 16/2010, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    17. Schmid, Lena & Renner, Laura, 2020. "The Decision to Flee: Analyzing Gender-Specific Determinants of International Refugee Migration," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224596, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    18. Gallea, Quentin, 2023. "Weapons and war: The effect of arms transfers on internal conflict," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    19. Nathan Fiala & Stergios Skaperdas, 2011. "Economic Perspectives on Civil Wars," Chapters, in: Christopher J. Coyne & Rachel L. Mathers (ed.), The Handbook on the Political Economy of War, chapter 10, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. fofana, moustapha & Lawson, Laté & ballo, zié, 2019. "Assessing the migration and social instability nexus in sub-saharan Africa : A spatial analysis," MPRA Paper 96471, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:52:y:2008:i:4:p:787-801. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5907 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.