Zolberg, A.R. (1983) ‘The Formation of New States as a Refugee-Generating Process’

Zolberg, A.R. (1983) ‘The Formation of New States as a Refugee-Generating Process’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 467, 24-38.

1. Refugees: “migratory segment of a larger group of victims, singled out for the wilful exercise of extraordinary malevolence on the part of their state of residence” (24).
2. Persecuted on grounds of political opinion / activity, or because of ascriptive characteristics.
3. Result of secular transformation of empires into. Nation-states.
4. Particularly acute in 3. World.
5. Migration is viewed as an economic phenomenon; refugee flows are primarily political – result of internal upheavals and changes.
6. Persecutor is the state – either directly or by indirection or both.
7. For political persecution – illiberal states are responsible.
8. Ascriptive persecutions result in massive refugee flows and account for current refugee crisis.
9. Question: “Under what conditions do states select certain categories of population as targets for persecution, expelling them outright or creating conditions that provoke them into risky flight?” (27)
10. Hannah Arendt: formation of nation-states leads to transformation of from human rights tradition to nationally guaranteed rights because “only nationals could be citizens” (28).
11. A “yawning gap between the formula and social realities” developed.
12. Two groups emerged who lost their human rights: the minorities and the stateless, resulting from “the inexorable conquest of the state by the nation” (29).
13. “During the interwar period, denationalization became a powerful weapon of totalitarian politics” (29). When undesirables could not be eliminated by expulsion, persecutor state devised “final solutions” for such groups seen as obstacles to successful formation of nation-state.
14. Not just ethnic groups but also religious ones and social strata could be seen as such obstacles.
15. Arendt: refugees result from transformation of empires and smaller communities into nation-states, taking place historically across wider regions and creating tensions within and between states.
16. This process of state-formation based on notions of ideological homogeneity started in Europe and eventually extended to the Third World as it underwent decolonization and resulted in countries with even higher ethnic and cultural hetereogenenity as Europe, heightened by social and political inequalities: “integrative revolution” (C. Geertz, 36).
17. Underdevelopment as key accelerator promoting deployment of increasingly authoritarian strategies to overcome both consolidation of nation-state and underdevelopment itself.
18. Execution of such strategies results in political persecution of certain categories of the population and causes massive refugee flows. Such tensions encompass entire groups of countries, resulting in interaction between domestic and international conflicts, compounded by intrusion of external powers with an interest in the region.
19. This is a protracted process that can degenerate into radicalization and even state terrorism, where changes of regime can result in drastic reversals of targets of persecution.