The Refugee System

Abbreviations
1. A systems approach to displacement
2. Who is a refugee?
3. Making a legal refugee regime
4. Should I stay or go?
5. Exit
6. Hosting in the many Global Souths
7. Powerful hosts
8. Transnational connections and homeland ties
9. Conclusion
References
Acknowledgements

Rawan Arar is Assistant Professor in the Department of Law, Societies, and Justice at the University of Washington.
David Scott FitzGerald is Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California San Diego.

"Arar and FitzGerald offer a truly comprehensive overview of what makes people able and willing to flee violence [...]. The Refugee System will be useful to undergraduate and graduate students of migration, particularly because of its accessible language and composition [...]. Besides students, the book will also benefit more seasoned migration scholars looking for a theoretical synthesis of recent debates in their field."
Ethnic and Racial Studies
 
"This book [demonstrates] the value of using a systems approach to understand the refugee system. While it is challenging to empirically measure and capture all interactions between refugee drivers, actors, states, policies, and institutions involved, the book has shown that demographic analysis can benefit from using a holistic approach in the production of knowledge about refugees."
Raya Muttarak, Population and Development Review
 
"A work of brilliance, Arar and FitzGerald's The Refugee System illuminates the phenomenon in a way that no one has done before, providing an indispensable framework for understanding the causes and consequences of forced migration as well as the ways in which states and institutions have responded when faced with people fleeing violence and persecution."
Roger Waldinger, University of California, Los Angeles
 
"A rich analysis of the ways in which migrants and refugees interact with entangled legal and political regimes. Arar and FitzGerald never lose sight of the people most affected by the phenomena under discussion: refugees themselves, and their communities."
Laura Madokoro, Carleton University
 
"During the past decade, the refugee issue dominated the world's media headlines and has risen to the very top of the global policy agenda. This groundbreaking book provides a uniquely comprehensive, systematic and humane analysis of this important topic."
Jeff Crisp, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford