Weber, Sigrid; (2023) Essays on Displacement During and After War. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

How do internally displaced persons navigate the contested environment of conflicts? When violence breaks out, civilians have to make difficult decisions regarding the questions of whether to leave, how to protect themselves from armed actors and when to return. In three empirical chapters, this thesis investigates how violence affects population movements but also how population movements shape conflict dynamics and post-conflict recovery. The first chapter investigates how different patterns of violence lead to differential decisions to flee by conducting a survey experiment in the Kurdish dominated areas of Turkey. I find that certain patterns of violence, in particular the threat of repeated and future violence but also the perpetrator of violence, explain when civilians flee and where they go. The second empirical chapter highlights how armed actors respond to the resulting displacement. I propose a revised theory of civilian victimization during civil wars in which the local population is not static but moves dynamically through zones of territorial control. In a spatial regression analysis of one-sided violence against civilians and IDPs, I show in the context of the Iraq war against the Islamic State that territorial rulers respond with violence to disloyal IDPs moving into their areas while territorial challengers spoil local rule by targeting civilians that support the current local ruler and move towards their territories. This study contributes to the literature on territorial control, civilian victimization, and conflict contagion. The last chapter analyses how housing, land and property rights affect the decision to return home after displacement. Using a matching analysis of actual return decisions in Northern Iraq and survey experiments with the Yazidis in Iraq, I demonstrate that political discrimination and economic uncertainty in property rights security slow down returns and hinder a speedy recovery in post-conflict environments. Situated at the intersection between forced migration research and conflict studies, the thesis as a whole provides insights into the interlinked dynamics of violence and displacement during and after conflicts.

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