Fear of Persecution

Abstract

Why would people abandon their homes in favor of an uncertain life elsewhere? The short answer, of course, is violence. More specifically, the authors contend that people monitor the violent behavior of both the government and dissidents and assess the threat such behavior poses to their lives, physical person, and liberty. The greater the threat posed by the behavior of the government and dissidents, the larger the number of forced migrants a country will produce. To test hypotheses drawn from this argument the authors use a global sample of countries over more than forty years. Their findings are held to be consistent with their argument, showing that violent behavior has a substantially larger impact on forced migration than variables such as the type of political institution or the average size of the economy.