Protection by Persuasion (2009), Cornell University Press
Full Title: Protection by Persuasion: International Cooperation in the Refugee Regime
Author: Alexander Betts
Type: Book
Abstract
States located near crisis zones are most likely to see an influx of people fleeing from manmade disasters; African states, for instance, are forced to accommodate and adjust to refugees more often than do European states far away from sites of upheaval. Geography dictates that states least able to pay the costs associated with refugees are those most likely to have them cross their borders. Therefore, refugee protection has historically been characterized by a North-South impasse. While Southern states have had to open their borders to refugees fleeing conflict or human rights abuses in neighboring states, Northern states have had little obligation or incentive to contribute to protecting refugees in the South.
In recent years, however, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has sought to foster greater international cooperation within the global refugee regime through special conferences at which Northern states are pushed to contribute to the costs of protection for refugees in the South. These initiatives, Alexander Betts finds in Protection by Persuasion, can overcome the North-South impasse and lead to significant cooperation.
Betts shows that Northern states will contribute to such efforts when they recognize a substantive relationship between refugee protection in the South and their own interests in such issues as security, immigration, and trade. Highlighting the mechanisms through which UNHCR has been able to persuade Northern states that such links exist, Protection by Persuasion makes clear that refugee protection is a global concern, most effectively addressed when geographic realities are overridden by the perception of interdependence.
Author Bio
Dr Alexander Betts is the Hedley Bull Research Fellow in International Relations at the University of Oxford, where he is also Director of the MacArthur Foundation-funded Global Migration Governance project, and a Fellow of Wadham College. He completed a D.Phil in International Relations at the University of Oxford. In addition, he holds a First Class honours degree in Economics from the University of Durham, and an MSc in International Relations and M.Phil in Development Studies (both with Distinction). He has won a number of academic awards including the Eugene Havas Memorial Prize, the European Association of Development and Training Institutes (EADI) prize for postgraduate research in development studies and the Babsybanoo Marchioness of Winchester Prize. He has previously worked in the Executive Office at UNHCR Headquarters in Geneva and as a consultant on refugee and migration issues for UNHCR, IOM and the Council of Europe. He is Senior Researcher at the Global Economic Governance Programme (GEG) and a Research Associate of the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC), the Centre for Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), and the Centre for International Studies (CIS).
Reviews
"Protection by Persuasion provides an expert analysis of the evolving international refugee protection regime, focusing on the different and changing ways in which states and other actors have cooperated on this issue. It will be of great and equal interest to international relations theorists, refugee studies scholars, and humanitarian practitioners." — Jeff Crisp, Head of Policy Development and Evaluation, UNHCR
"In the exceptionally well-researched Protection by Persuasion, Alexander Betts successfully argues that the international politics of refugee protection are shaped by an impasse between developing states in the South, where most refugees first seek asylum, and the developed states in the North that provide resources for refugee protection and/or offer refugee resettlement. Betts systematically applies international relations theory to develop a compelling argument explaining the crucial role of cross-issue persuasion." — Rey Koslowski, SUNY Albany
"Protection by Persuasion is eminently suitable for courses on refugees and forced migration; it contains a wealth of information and will have a broad audience among legal scholars as well as students in international relations." — Susan Kneebone, Monash University
