The Effects of Settlement Policy on Refugee Political Activism: Sudanese Refugees in Australia and the US
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Syracuse University SURFACE Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Political Science - Dissertations Affairs 2011 The Effects of Settlement Policy on Refugee Political Activism: Sudanese Refugees in Australia and the US Hannah Allerdice Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/psc_etd Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Allerdice, Hannah, "The Effects of Settlement Policy on Refugee Political Activism: Sudanese Refugees in Australia and the US" (2011). Political Science - Dissertations. 101. https://surface.syr.edu/psc_etd/101 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Political Science - Dissertations by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract: South Sudanese refugees are strongly motivated to effect change in South Sudan. After resettlement to the US, this motivation has resulted in much transnational political activism on their part. In Australia, Sudanese refugees have concentrated primarily on domestic political and social integration. Why? In this project I examine the possible causes of this difference, including the institutions, the policies, and the agents who implement settlement programs. I argue that refugee settlement policies of host countries directly shape the political activities of their refugees. When a host country provides assistance to integrate refugees, the government's policies and the individuals who implement policy (professional service providers and volunteers) influence what activities refugee leaders are likely to pursue. I find evidence that professional service providers are more likely to channel refugees toward domestic political goals, especially when they are implementing specific refugee capacity building programs. In contrast, volunteers are more likely to support refugee leaders in the political activities that the leaders themselves are eager to pursue. Due to different levels of centralization and institutionalization across these two host country contexts, they have different compositions of policy implementers and utilize capacity building programs to differing degrees. These factors play a significant role in shaping the direction of South Sudanese political activities. I use evidence from examination of institutional policies and semi-structured interviews of Sudanese refugees, professional and volunteer service providers, and government officials in the USA and Australia. THE EFFECTS OF SETTLEMENT POLICY ON REFUGEE POLITICAL ACTIVISM: SUDANESE REFUGEES IN AUSTRALIA AND THE US By Hannah Allerdice B.A. University of Georgia, 2003 M.A., Syracuse University, 2007 DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science in the Graduate School of Syracuse University MAY 2011 Copyright 2011 Hannah L. Allerdice All rights Reserved Table of Contents List of Illustrative Materials VI Preface VII-XI Introduction: The Puzzle of Refugee Political Activities 1 - 43 Research Design, Data Collection and Analysis 44 - 63 Sudanese Refugees and their Organizations 64 - 95 Comparative Settlement Environments 96 - 138 Policy Implementers, Refugee Social Networks and Political Activities 139 – 171 Channeling through Refugee Organization Building Programs 172 - 202 Conclusion 203 - 218 Appendices 219 - 226 Bibliography 227 - 237 Biographical Data 238 - 240 V List of Illustrative Materials Figure 1.1: Trajectories of Sudanese Refugee Political Paths 5 Table 2.1: Interview Subjects 57 Table 3.1: Demographic Characteristics of Sudanese refugees 75 Table 3.2: Sudanese Organizational Targets 87 Chart 3.1: Sudanese Organizational Targets 88 Table 4. 1: Comparative Settlement Environments 122 Figure 4.1: Australian Settlement Organizations’ Amount of Revenue from the Australian Federal Government 130 Figure 4.2: US Settlement Organizations’ Percentage of Revenue from US Federal Government 131 Figure 4.3: Annual Government funding per incoming refugee 133 Figure 4.4: Faith-based and Secular Refugee Settlement Organizations 136 Table 5.1: Policy Implementers, Refugee Social Networks and Political Activities 141 Figure 6.1. Refugee Organization Building Funds per refugee (2000 – 2007) 184 Appendix E: Funding for Refugee Organization Building Programs (2000-2007) 225 Appendix F: Refugees Resettled in Australia and the United States (2000 – 2007) 216 VI Preface This dissertation project has evolved not from a desire to know about different refugee settlement contexts, but rather to understand more about the politicization of the South Sudanese men and women I first met in the Fall of 2006. At the time I was a political science graduate student and coordinator of a conflict resolution student organization. I was leading a conflict resolution training session with about 30 members of the Lost Boys living in Syracuse, NY. When I met them I was blown away. These young men, mostly between 20 and 30 years old, were more politically charged than any Americans I knew, including those in my program. Our training objectives were to teach them how to listen better, and to assert their feelings and wants more clearly. These young men were not so interested in conflict resolution at this level. Instead they asked to discuss the Sudanese Comprehensive Peace Agreement and theories about war and international conflict resolution. They wanted to discuss ways in which Americans could help them protect and develop South Sudan and its people. It was this encounter that catalyzed this dissertation project. At the time I had no idea about refugee settlement policies, but I was learning about international and domestic politics, including the role of states, institutions, policies and non-governmental actors in politics. So, when I first began interviewing South Sudanese refugees in the summer of 2007, I was fascinated by the fact that the relatives, and fellow Lost Boys, were also being resettled to Australia and Canada. It VII was then that I wondered, “What is it like for these South Sudanese refugees in other places?” Over the course of this research, I understood that although the Lost Boys are unique, their drive to protect and care for their people, and to effect change in South Sudan is common to the broader South Sudanese population. These motivations have played out in the contexts to which these communities were resettled. The work of the leaders of this community, as Chapter 3 underscores, is driven by their heartfelt ‘duty’ to protect and care for their people – a duty that has been instilled by unimaginable hardship and socialization by their country’s past leadership. Sure, there are also ego-related factors in some instances, including the desire for status and power, but this is not the main thrust of the political motivations of the South Sudanese refugees I interviewed. In each context, these leaders, motivated by these duties, have interacted with the policies and policy implementers they have encountered and have responded by taking the political actions highlighted by the empirical puzzle. Each country’s approach to settling refugees, a result of their social and political histories, has established set programs, rules and structures of policy implementers. It has laid the ground for specific individuals to implement these programs and follow these rules. Refugee leaders, newcomers to these host communities, have taken these different settlement journeys, received divergent resources and met different people. Consequently, their political activities have taken certain nationally specific shapes. VIII It is important to note that the data pertaining to this empirical puzzle represents social phenomena at a specific point in time. Domestic-focused refugees in Australia, once they are established in the policy and political circles, are quite likely to engage in transnational endeavors. And, I have no reason to think that transnationally focused Sudanese refugees in the US will overlook domestic-related concerns, or will not take organizational steps to remedy them in the future. As each of these communities becomes more and more established in these host countries (and less and less the recipients of settlement policy), it is likely that their social networks and resource reservoirs will be complete and diverse enough to accommodate whatever political action they think is worth pursuing. What “national” patterns this will take will likely depend, like most things, on the specific events of their communities in each country, as well as the situation in South Sudan. These findings, while certainly specific to South Sudanese refugees, also have implications beyond this community, both theoretically and practically. This project would not have been completed without the support of the many South Sudanese men and women in the US and Australia who welcomed me into their lives wholeheartedly. It is my sincere hope that the new Republic of South Sudan will be led by individuals with as much integrity, smarts and heart as they all have. I am thankful too for the many service providers, government officials and volunteers who spoke frankly about the realities of refugee settlement in their countries. Their work is hard, and goes unnoticed. Thank you. IX I have also been lucky enough to be surrounded by individuals whose support exceeds anything imaginable. I am indebted especially to two central advisers, Professors