understanding power in the global refugee regime: a work in progress… james milner carleton...
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Understanding power in the global refugee regime:A work in progress…
James MilnerCarleton University
Geneva, 1998• Annual meeting of the Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s
Programme (ExCom)• Debate on annual theme: “International Solidarity and Burden-Sharing in
all its Aspects: National, Regional and International Responsibilities for Refugees”• Desire to “identify practical ways of achieving or enhancing” cooperation• Context: • Rising global refugee numbers and pressures for repatriation• Restrictive policies by states in the Global North and South• Hathaway’s proposal for the “reformulation of refugee law”• Opportunity for the progressive development of the global refugee regime?
Debate highlights• India: “While donors seek solutions that relieve their financial burden
as fast as possible, the priority for developing countries of first asylum is to expedite returns in order to obtain relief from the … burdens that the presence of refugees poses to their already hard pressed societies.” • Tanzania: “Countries of asylum are to a large extent left to bear the
brunt of the burden or hosting the refugees they admit to their territory… Whatever resources that are made available to the countries of asylum remains a matter of charity, left to the discretion of donor countries.”• US: “Protecting refugees should be seen as a “shared responsibility not
as a shared burden” and “it would be wrong to see refugees only in terms of costs to the countries in which they find refuge.”
Result?• Chairman’s summary:• Agreement on the principle, but not on mechanisms• Debates on language of “burden” v. “responsibility”• Majority view that “developing countries bear a disproportionate share of the
burden or hosting refugees”
• Result: Annual Standing Committee paper on “Economic and social impact of massive refugee populations on host developing countries, as well as other countries”• Politics of the issue arguably prevented more empirical consideration
of the various impacts of refugees on host states and communities
Significance?
• As the presume hegemon in the global refugee regime, the US was not able to reframe the debate around ‘responsibilities’• As a growing majority of states in ExCom, refugee hosting states
were able to frame the concept of ‘burden sharing’• Provokes several questions:• What does this suggest about the functioning of the decision-making
bodies of the global refugee regime?• What does this suggest about the functioning of power in the global
refugee regime?• What does this suggest about power in global regimes, more generally?
The global refugee regime• What is a regime? Krasner (1982):
“sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules and decision making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given area of international relations.”
• Is there a global refugee regime?• Norms: Non-refoulement• Rules: 1951 Convention and UNHCR’s 1950 Statue• Decision-making procedures: ExCom
• Expectation?• The creation and expansion of a global refugee regime will facilitate
cooperation, overcome collective action failure and help ensure the realization of the regime’s core objectives: protection and solutions for refugees
Do regimes matter?• Realist view of “hegemonic stability”: The emergence of a state
hegemon would encourage stability and predictability• The US as the hegemon of the global refugee regime?
• Liberal view of the role of regimes and international organizations in facilitating cooperation and overcoming collective action failure• ExCom providing a venue for developing collaborative approaches?
• Critical view that regimes are not “benevolent, voluntary, cooperative, and thus legitimate” but “forums and objects of struggle” (Keeley, 1990)• How do actors exercise power or influence within the regime?
• Experience of 1998 suggests that hegemons do not always get their way, regimes do not always result in consensus, and power matters
Understanding power• Limited attention to the role of power in the study and pursuit
of “global governance”• Barnett and Duvall (2005)
• Compulsory power: direct control over another• Institutional power: actors’ control over socially distant others• Structural power: direct and mutual constitution of the capacities of
actors (such as shaping the global economy)• Productive power: production of subjects through diffuse social
relations (ability to define “what constitutes legitimate knowledge”)
• Helps frame two key questions• If there is no single expression of power, how do different actors
employ different forms of power to influence outcomes?• If not all power is exercised and experienced directly, is there a
distinction between ‘power’ and ‘influence’?
Power in the global refugee regime• How and where do we observe or measure power/influence?• What determines the ability of various actors to influence the global
refugee regime? Where? When? How?• Are there different forms of power that influence outcomes in
different contexts?• How can an understanding of power contribute to a more effective
and predictable global refugee regime?
Where can we observe ‘power’?
• ‘Global refugee policy’ is a formal statement of, and proposed course of action in response to, a problem relating to protection, solutions or assistance for refugees or other populations of concern to the global refugee regime• Motivated by ‘policy problem’ affecting persons of concern to the
global refugee regime (ie. not only refugees)• From decision-making bodies of the global refugee regime
• Formal v. informal decision-making
• Takes the form of either ‘regulations that define the limits of permissible behavior for national governments’ or ‘programs administered by international agencies’
Policy v. other expressions of ‘rules’• Global refugee policy as a sub-set of a broad category of
‘impersonal rules’ (Barnett and Finnemore)• Overlaps with, but distinct from, norms: “a standard of
appropriate behaviour for actors with a given identity”• Overlaps with, but distinct from, international law: “the body of
law that governs relations between states”• Overlaps with, but distinct from, other policies• Key features of global refugee policy:• Formal statement of a problem and steps to resolve that problem• From the decision-making bodies of the global refugee regime• Applies to states and international organizations
Observing power in global policy• Global refugee policy is both a product (the text of the policy
document itself) and a process by which the policy is made, implemented and evaluated:• Agenda setting: How do certain issues make it on to the GRR’s agenda?• Policy formulation: Who presents different policy options?• Decision-making: Where and how are policies formalized?• Policy implementation: What factors condition variation in implementation?• Policy evaluation: How does evaluation inform revision?
How do you study global refugee policy?• As an independent variable• Can ask what role global refuge policy played in outcomes in a particular
context (ie naturalization in Tanzania), but global refugee policy arguably has little effect as an independent causal variable without the agency of other actors and factors
• But, for understanding power, more useful as a dependent variable• What are the factors that explain the contents of the product?• What are the factors that explain the outcomes of the process?• What are the factors that explain the dynamics of each stage of the process?
• Who are the actors involved? • What role do these actors play?• What variation do we see between the role of these actors and factors at different
stages of the same process or at the same stage of different processes?
Who are the actors in the process?• States
• Donor states (US v. Australia)• Hosting states (India v. Bangladesh)
• International organizations• UNHCR• IOM?
• NGOs• Advocacy• Operational
• Other actors?• What role for epistemic communities, diaspora communities, private sector, and
refugee communities?
Expectations of power and influence?Actor Agenda setting Formulation Decision-
makingImplementation Evaluation
Donor states (1) High High High Indirect High
Donor states (2) Limited Limited High Indirect Limited
Host states High Limited High High Limited
UNHCR High High Indirect Indirect High
Advocacy NGO Indirect Indirect Indirect Indirect High(inconsistent)
Ops. NGO Indirect Indirect Indirect High High(inconsistent)
Other Indirect Indirect Indirect Indirect ?
Agenda setting
• Donor states (1): Influence of key donor and resettlement countries• Donor states (2): Limited influence of states that are seen to have lost
moral authority within the regime• Host states: Demonstrated ability to bring issues to the agenda
through majority in ExCom structure• UNHCR: Important role, especially since proliferation of fora• NGOs: Ability to influence other actors, especially states• Other: Limited indirect role for epistemic communities • Result: Contestation between donor states, host states and UNHCR
Policy formulation
• Donor states (1): “Loaned” policy capacity and expertise• Donor states (2): Limited due to perceived loss of moral authority• Host states: Limited due to perceived capacity and interests• UNHCR: Established power of IOs through expertise and experience• NGOs: Indirect abilities, but only when included in process• Other: Indirect abilities, but only when included in process• Result: Contestation between donor states and UNHCR and within
UNHCR
Decision-making
• States: Monopoly on power given role of states in multilateral structures, but presumes the type of policy, ability to resist options, and formal v. informal venues of decision-making • UNHCR: Officially indirect influence only through moral authority, but
presumes the type of policy, ability to resist options, and formal v. informal venues of decision-making• NGOs: Indirect abilities, but only when included in process• Other: Indirect abilities through informal networks• Result: Primarily contestation between states, but highlights the
significance of formal and informal decision-making venues
Policy implementation
• Donor states: Indirect influence over implementation of policy outside their territory (resources, pressure, capacity)• Host states: Significant control over implementation process in their territory
(where control is asserted)• UNHCR: Indirect influence through host states as mediator of international
support, except where UNHCR is “surrogate state”• Advocacy NGO: Indirect influence through other actors• Ops. NGO: High, especially as implementing partners• Other: Indirect influence through other actors• Result: While donor state influence would be expected, more common is
contestation between host states, donor states and UNHCR
Policy evaluation
• Donor states (1): Impact of donor missions and evaluations• Donor states (2): Limited impact, unless through coalitions• Host states: Limited influence due to presumed agenda• UNHCR: Established power of IOs through expertise and experience• NGOs: Demonstrated impact of NGOs evaluations, but inconsistency in the
exercise of this impact• Other: Unclear what role academic evaluations of policies have played• Result: Primarily contestation between donor states, UNHCR and NGOs• Key: Limited understanding of the role of evaluations in formal policy cycle
within the global refugee regime
Preliminary conclusions
• Different actors exercise ‘power’ in different ways at different stages in the global refugee policy process• Not all actors are able to exercise ‘direct’ power
• What is the distinction between ‘power’ and ‘influence’• ‘Power’ is not static: actors may gain and lose power
• Need to develop more systematic methodology to study ‘power’• A more systematic study of the global refugee policy process (as a
dependent variable) provides a context within which such a methodology may be developed• A more rigorous understanding of ‘power’ will enhance our
understanding of the functioning of the global refugee regime, and may contribute to the regime’s effectiveness and predictability
Next steps• Workshop at Carleton University in September 2015• The role of state, IO, NGO and other actors in the making and implementation
of global refugee policy • Plan to have video-link with the RSC (TBC)• Preparing background paper while in Oxford (May 2015)• Would welcome opportunity to continue discussion
• Develop partnerships to examine the making and implementation of global refugee policy• Graduate students working with different policy partners examining the
making of global refugee policy or the implementation of the same policy in different locations• Would welcome interest from graduate students associated with the RSC• Ability to draw common lessons from comparative research
