Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Books: Research
This chapter focuses on climate conflicts from a political economy perspective. Using the example of droughts in Somalia, the chapter investigates the different drivers of conflict and fragility over time, as well as the relation of changing actors in conflict, environmental disruptions and mixed migration. The chapter shows that there is no empirical evidence to state that climate change per se will increase the number of conflicts and migration. Instead, pre-existing conflicts exacerbate environmental problems that weaken local and national governance arrangements, as well as society’s capacities to deal with climatic shocks, which then can increase migration. However, the authors argue that these relations have to be seen with caution, as conflict-induced and climate-related migration cannot be yet clearly disentangled empirically. Thus, the authors conclude the need for streamlined, flexible governance measures to address climate conflicts.
This chapter examines if and under which conditions natural resource governance regimes can mitigate the likelihood of violent conflicts and, consequently, reduce sources of forced migration. Focusing on the trajectories of the Kimberley Process and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), the author specifically examines the norm dynamics in and the effects of these two governance regimes that strive to regulate conflict-prone minerals. By means of a ‘conflict-free mineral norm’ both regimes strive to regulate global supply chains that prevent illegal extractive activities, which have effects on environmental considerations and the violent conflicts that generate forced migration flows. While success rates are moderate, both governance regimes have increased transparency where it did not exist before. The chapter concludes by arguing that further academic research needs to be done to understand the complexities of the environmental-conflict mineral nexus.
This introductory chapter provides the outline of the book and the analytical framework to explore the interlinkages and dynamics between environmental and resource-related conflicts, migration, and the role of governance in this context. It introduces how and under what conditions environmental and resource-related problems lead to conflicts and how this can induce migration. It also reflects on the role of governance in this respect. Based on state-of-the-art research, the chapter highlights the importance of understanding the interdependencies between migration, environmental and resource conflicts, as well as the development and roles of national, regional and global migration governance regimes. While extensive academic literature exists on each strand of research, little are the academic exercises that bring them together, particularly from an interdisciplinary perspective.
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The globalized era is characterized by a high degree of interconnectedness across borders and continents and this includes human migration. Migration flows have led to new governance challenges and, at times, populist political backlashes. A key driver of migration is environmental conflict and this is only likely to increase with the effects of climate change.
Bringing together world-leading researchers from across political science, environmental studies, economics and sociology, this urgent book uses a multifaceted theoretical and methodological approach to delve into core questions and concerns surrounding migration, climate change and conflict, providing invaluable insights into one of the most pressing global issues of our time.
This chapter presents insights into regional migration governance. It identifies domestic and international drivers behind regional responses and focuses on Latin America. The authors argue that state responses alone might not be sufficient to regulate migration patterns and respond to related environmental changes. In fact, Latin America has become more sensitive to the implications of environmentally induced migration and has established instruments to face more effectively the challenges posed by environmental changes, natural disasters and migration. Thus, governments have created national and regional responses to migration, some of which explicitly deal with the topic of environmental refugees form the region. The authors also point out that regional governance arrangements are important, as they facilitate the implementation of migration instruments elaborated at the global level and can serve as opportunities to develop and exchange best practices.
This chapter focuses on non-renewable resources and their relation to conflict and migration. It explores the argument that conflict is not brought by scarcity of these resources, but rather by resource abundance and the fact that they make looting possible. Access to valuable non-renewable resources, such as energy resources, can create crises of governance. Accountability decreases and rent seeking and corruption become common behaviors. ‘Lootable’ resources increase the possibilities of high political repression and income inequality, which then cause small and large-scale ‘uprooting’. Thus, tackling the issue of bad governance is key in order to solve migration flows caused by ‘lootable’ conflicts.
This chapter contributes to the explanation to how environmental migrants are ‘selected’ at the individual and small group level. It argues that individual decisions to migrate depend on the type of environmental change. The author distinguishes between sudden onset environmental problems (e.g. natural disasters) and slow onset environmental problems (e.g. climate change). Sudden onsets make push factors more important- They give migrants less power over their decision to migrate, and therefore include more vulnerable population groups. On the contrary, slow onset events create opportunities for individual agency. Governance can play an important role as it can influence migration and environmental change, especially on the local and state level. The author argues that democratic governance arrangements confer agency to individuals and non-democratic governance delimits it. Moreover, the management of sudden onsets in the short run can be more effective in non-democratic governance, while slow onset environmental changes call for democratic governance arrangements.
This chapter explores what drives the decision of an individual to migrate to a particular place (migrant sorting). The authors do so by studying the mechanisms, empirical evidence, and policy implications of migrant sorting in the context of environmental conflict-induced migration. Predicting the sorting outcome of migration processes is very complex, because many different factors play a role: the type of environmental onset, the type of conflict, the individual propensity to migrate among different groups of society, the selection pattern of migrants, the attractiveness of destinations with respect to various characteristics, as well as national and international migration governance. The authors highlight that this has important implications for governance since host countries can adjust their immigration policies. Such adjustments, in turn, feed back into individual sorting decisions.
This chapter examines the link between forced migration as a response to environmental degradation on the one hand, and conflict and security in host countries, on the other. From a political science perspective, the authors review existing research on migration as a reason for conflict, with a particular focus on refugees. They show that forced migrants per se do not influence violence in host countries, but only in those cases where refugees are socially and economically marginalized. Also, when aid services are unequally distributed to them and host communities. Thus, the authors highlight the need for governments to pursue inclusionary socio-economic policies towards their population and refugees as a prevention against dangerous tensions. They also present the limitations of current knowledge and indicate future research to solve the challenges associated with forced displacement.
This chapter presents insights into global migration governance and maps the management of environmentally induced migration. Focusing on the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the International Labor Organization (ILO), the UN High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Development Program (UNDP) and UN Environmental Program (UNEP) the author discusses the migration policies of these organizations and their involvement in the negotiation of Global Compacts on migration and refugees. It highlights that migration governance takes place in different international organizations with overlapping mandates and memberships. Also, that their efforts are limited due to sovereignty claims of member states. The chapter concludes by mentioning the achievements and difficulties of environmental migration governance on the international level and how the UN Global Compacts can serve as potential problem solvers.
