Drivers of Displacement: Accounting for the Variation in Forced Migration from Conflict

The purpose of this project is to explain what drives variation in forced migration across conflicts and over time.

Displacement has increased dramatically in recent years with major consequences for individuals and societies in the countries of origin and host countries.

A better understanding of the process of forced migration, to build adequate policies for addressing these challenges, is urgently needed.

While we know that violence is a major driver of forced migration, previous research has been unable to account for the large variation in forced migration from one conflict to another. The recent revolution in conflict data opens a possibility to account for this variation.

The combination if georeferenced conflict events data for all types of violence, combined with geo-coded social, economic and demographic data, allow for a far more nuanced investigation of the drivers of displacement.

In this project, we aim to utilize the data advances to better measure the human impact of violence in order to explain the variation in forced migration across cases. We will do this in a set of broadly conceived large-N studies, looking at both patterns across conflicts and over time.

We will also do surveys among refugees residing in Turkey and people remaining in Iraq to understand their decision to flee or not.

Taken together, this will help us build better explanations about what drives forced migration and to account for the variation between conflicts.