Alexander Betts | |
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| Born | 17 January 1980 Bristol, U.K. |
| Nationality | British |
| Academic career | |
| Field | Political Science, International Development |
| Institution | University of Oxford |
| Alma mater | University of Oxford |
Alexander Betts is Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs, [1] William Golding Senior Fellow in Politics at Brasenose College, [2] and Associate Head (Graduate and Research Training) of the Social Sciences Division at the University of Oxford.
He completed his undergraduate degree at Durham University. [3] He then completed an MSc at Bristol University, followed by an MPhil and DPhil from the University of Oxford. [3]
He was appointed Rose Junior Research Fellow in International Relations at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford in 2006, before becoming Hedley Bull Research Fellow in International Relations at Wadham College, Oxford between 2007 and 2010. He then spent a year as a post-doc at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), before becoming Associate Professor in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies in the Oxford Department of International Development at the University of Oxford in 2011. He became Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs in 2015.
He was Director of the Refugee Studies Centre between 2014 and 2017. [4] In 2019, he was appointed Associate Head (Graduate and Research Training) of the Social Sciences Division at the University of Oxford, also becoming Director of the Economic and Social Research Council's 'Grand Union' Doctoral Training Partnership, which includes Oxford University, Open University, and Brunel University London. [5]
Since 2017, he has led the Refugee Economies Programme at the University of Oxford, which is funded by the IKEA Foundation, which supports the socio-economic inclusion of refugees through a longitudinal study following the economic lives of 16,000 refugees and host community members in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda. [6]
In 2021, he co-founded the Oxford SDG Impact Lab, which supports students from across Oxford University to collaborate with business to deliver the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and co-created the Refugee-Led Research Hub in Nairobi, Kenya which supports aspiring researchers with lived experience of displacement to become leaders in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies.
Most of his research is on refugees in world politics. He is centrally concerned with the question of what makes the global refugee system effective, and on reconciling the tension between national interests and refugee rights. Under what conditions are nation-states willing to protect, assist, and integrate refugees? What is the role of international institutions in influencing the behaviour of states? And what role do refugees themselves play as actors within the refugee system? [7]
The other strand of his work focuses on the relationship between international development and forced displacement, exploring the socio-economic integration of refugees within host countries. What explains variation in refugees' welfare outcomes? What shapes host community attitudes towards refugees? What explain the mobility and migration choices of refugees? Much of this research has taken place in East Africa.
Betts' main research monographs are:
Protection by Persuasion: International Cooperation in the Refugee Regime (Cornell University Press, 2009), [8] explores the history of responsibility-sharing in the global refugee regime. Theoretically, it identifies the cooperation problem in the refugee regime as being a 'suasion game' in which bargaining is characterized by asymmetric power relations between Northern donor/resettlement states and Southern host states. It argues that this North-South impasse has sometimes been overcome through 'issue-linkages', connecting refugee protection to policy fields in which states have strategic interests, such as migration, security, and development. Empirically, it examines the history of four UNHCR-led initiatives: the International Conferences on Refugees in Africa (1981 and 1984), the Indo-Chinese Comprehensive Plan of Action (1989), the International Conference on Refugees in Central America (1989), and the Convention Plus initiative (2003-5).
Survival Migration: Failed Governance and the Crisis of Displacement (Cornell University Press, 2013), [9] explores new drivers of displacement that fall outside dominant interpretations of who is a 'refugee' under the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees. Theoretically, it uses the concept of 'survival migration' to highlight people who flee serious harm but are not generally recognized as refugees. Empirically, it uses qualitative fieldwork to explain variation in African state responses to people fleeing serious socio-economic rights deprivations in fragile states, examining national responses to people fleeing Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Zimbabwe. It shows that where legal norms are ambiguous, elite political interests shape the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion.
Mobilising the Diaspora: How Refugees Challenge Authoritarianism (Cambridge University Press, 2016, with Will Jones), [10] examines the political lives of refugees, focusing particularly on how refugee diasporas mobilize to challenge authoritarianism in their countries of origin. Theoretically, it offers a social constructivist account of diaspora formation, suggesting that diasporas are not pre-determined but defined by their political mobilization vis-a-vis the homeland. They have 'lifecycles', emerging, expanding, and sometimes waning. Empirically, it examines the history of Rwandan and Zimbabwean diaspora, revealing the important role played by internal and external elites in mobilizing and sustaining diasporic engagement.
The Global Governed? Refugees as Providers of Protection and Assistance (Cambridge University Press, 2020, with Kate Pincock and Evan Easton-Calabria) [11] explores the role of refugee-led organizations (RLOs) in providing social protection. Theoretically, it challenges the dominant provider/beneficiary relationship within global governance. Building upon the 'post-development' literature, it uses a 'post-protection' lens to critically examine the interaction between international institutions and in refugee-led organizations. Empirically, it focuses on RLOs in camps and cities in Kenya and Uganda, to reveal how, despite a lack of funding or recognition, RLOs provide important and diverse forms of social protection. The RLOs that thrive generally do so by bypassing formal humanitarian governance and creating their own transnational networks.
The Wealth of Refugees: How Displaced People Can Build Economies (Oxford University Press, 2021) [12] explores what sustainable refugee policies look like in an age of displacement characterized by rising numbers and declining political will. It divides into four main sections. 1) Ethics -- what is right? 2) Economics -- what works? 3) Politics -- what persuades? 4) Policy -- what next? It argues that all rich states have an obligation to support spontaneous arrival asylum, resettlement/complementary pathways, and supporting refugees hosted in neighboring countries. However, realistically, the majority of refugees will remain in countries that neighbor conflict and crisis, and so a development-based approach to refugee protection offers the most viable way forwards. Drawing upon original qualitative and quantitative data from Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia, it reveals the limitations of existing 'self-reliance' programmes and the ambivalent and often disingenuous politics that underpins them. It argues for a re-think in how protection is delivered in refugees' regions or origins, outlining an approach that builds upon the skills, talents, and aspirations of refugees, leverages socio-economic rights, and invests in infrastructure, public services, and job creation for both refugees and proximate host communities.
Betts' work has been influential in reframing refugees as economic contributors, [13] [14] and increasing recognition and funding for refugee-led organisations. [15] He has been active in public and policy debates in relation to the Syrian, Venezuelan, and Ukrainian refugee crises.
Together with Paul Collier, he developed an idea to employ Syrian refugees in already existing Special Economic Zones in Jordan, first published in a piece in Foreign Affairs. [16] [17] The proposal adopted as a pilot project by Jordan, the UK, the EU, and the World Bank, which became known as the 'Jordan Compact’. [18] The pilot was described by News Deeply as “one of the most important economic experiments in the world today”. [16] Despite its limitations, the Compact opened the Jordanian labour market to refugees and led to 200,000 work permits being granted to Syrian refugees in Jordan.
In 2017, he co-authored Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System [19] with Paul Collier, which was recognised by The Economist as one of the best books of 2017, [20] and was final shortlisted for the Estoril Global Issues Distinguished Book Prize. [21]
He was named in Foreign Policy magazine's top 100 global thinkers in 2016, [22] as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader in 2016, [23] in Thinkers 50's radar list of emerging business influencers in 2017, [24] as a Bloomberg Businessweek 'gamechanger' in 2017, [25] and as a European Young Leader by Friends of Europe in 2020. [26]
He won the Economic and Social Research Council's Outstanding International Impact Prize in 2021, for work on 'Refugee-Led Social Protection During COVID-19'. [27] He was also awarded the International Studies Association's 'Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Migration' Distinguished Book Prize for The Wealth of Refugees in 2022. [28]
He has received fellowships and grants from the British Academy, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), among others. He is Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) and of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS).
He is former European debating champion. [29] He has run the London Marathon in 2:38.24 and has a personal best half marathon time of 1:11.51 [30]
A diaspora is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. The word is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently reside elsewhere.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with over 18,879 staff working in 138 countries as of 2020.
Human migration is the movement of people from one place to another, with intentions of settling, permanently or temporarily, at a new location. The movement often occurs over long distances and from one country to another, but internal migration is the dominant form of human migration globally.
Forced displacement is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The UNHCR defines 'forced displacement' as follows: displaced "as a result of persecution, conflict, generalized violence or human rights violations".
Transnationalism is a research field and social phenomenon grown out of the heightened interconnectivity between people and the receding economic and social significance of boundaries among nation states.
Environmental migrants are people who are forced to leave their home region due to sudden or long-term changes to their local or regional environment. These changes compromise their well-being or livelihood, and include increased drought, desertification, sea level rise, and disruption of seasonal weather patterns. Though there is no uniform, clear-cut definition of environmental migration, the idea is gaining attention as policy-makers and environmental and social scientists attempt to conceptualize the potential social effects of climate change and other environmental degradation, such a deforestation or overexploitation.
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short-term stays in a destination country do not fall under the definition of immigration or migration; seasonal labour immigration is sometimes included, however.
Sir Paul Collier, is a British development economist who serves as the Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford and co-Director of the International Growth Centre. He is also a Professeur invité at Sciences Po and a Professorial Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford.
The Refugee Studies Centre (RSC) was established in 1982, as part of the University of Oxford's Department of International Development, in order to promote the understanding of the causes and consequences of forced migration and to improve the lives of some of the world's most marginalised people. Its philosophy is to "combine world-class academic research with a commitment to improving the lives and situations for some of the world's most disadvantaged people".
Return migration refers to the individual or family decision of a migrant to leave a host country and to return permanently to the country of origin. Research topics include the return migration process, motivations for returning, the experiences returnees encounter, and the impacts of return migration on both the host and the home countries.
The Oxford Department of International Development (ODID), or Queen Elizabeth House (QEH), is a department of the University of Oxford in England, and a unit of the University’s Social Sciences Division. It is the focal point at Oxford for multidisciplinary research and postgraduate teaching on the developing world.
Institute for the Study of International Migration is a private research institute located in Washington, DC. Founded in 1998 as part of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, it is associated with the Georgetown University Law Center. The Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) is an innovative multidisciplinary center that studies the social, economic, environmental, and political dimensions of international migration.
Migration studies is the academic study of human migration. Migration studies is an interdisciplinary field which draws on anthropology, prehistory, history, economics, law, sociology and postcolonial studies.
Global apartheid is a term used to describe how Global North countries are engaged in a project of "racialization, segregation, political intervention, mobility controls, capitalist plunder, and labor exploitation" affecting people from the Global South. Proponents of the concept argue that a close examination of the global system reveals it to be a kind of apartheid writ large with striking resemblance to the system of racial segregation in South Africa from 1948 to 1994, but based on borders and national sovereignty.
Sari Hanafi is currently a professor of sociology at the American University of Beirut and chair of the Islamic Studies program. He is the president of the International Sociological Association and also the editor of Idafat: the Arab Journal of Sociology (Arabic). In 2018, Hanafi founded "Athar", the Portal for Social impact of scientific research in/on the Arab world.
Chantal J.M. Thomas, Cornell Law Professor at Cornell Law School, directs the Clarke Initiative for Law and Development in the Middle East and North Africa. She teaches in the areas of Law and Development, Law and Globalization, and International Economic Law. She is active in the areas of human rights and social justice, particularly in the Middle East.
Katharyne Mitchell is an American geographer who is currently a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and the Dean of the Social Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Joya Chatterji FBA is Professor of South Asian History and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. She specialises in modern South Asian history and was the editor of the journal Modern Asian Studies for ten years.
The Global Refugee-Led Network (GRN), previously known as the Network for Refugee Voices, is an international not for profit organization that organizes advocacy between local and national refugee organizations. "In September 2024, GRN shut down its website and cease operations. Market rumors suggest that the company is facing serious allegations of fraud within its organization."
Gerasimos Tsourapas is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Glasgow. He currently serves as the Chair of the Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Migration Section of the International Studies Association and is the Editor-in-Chief of Migration Studies. His main areas of research and teaching are the politics of migrants, refugees, and diasporas, with particular expertise on cross-border mobility across the Global South.
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