The Rise and Decline of a Global Security Actor

UNHCR, Refugee Protection, and Security
Erscheinungsjahr 2014
ISBN: 978-0-19-921308-5
Verlag: Hurst & Co.

Buch, Englisch, 356 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 930 g

The Rise and Decline of a Global Security Actor investigates the rise of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as a global security actor. It follows the refugee agency through some of the past two decades' major conflict-induced humanitarian emergencies: in northern Iraq (1991), Bosnia (1991-95), eastern Zaire (1994-96), Kosovo (1998-99), Afghanistan (2001-) and Iraq (2003-). It analyses UNHCR's momentous transformation from a small,
timid legal protection agency to the world's foremost humanitarian actor playing a central role in the international response to the many wars of the tumultuous last decade of the 20th century. Then, as the 21st century set in, the agency's political prominence waned. It remains a major humanitarian actor, whose
budgets and staffing levels continue to rise. But the polarised post-9/11 period and a worsening protection climate for refugees and asylum seekers spurred UNHCR to abandon its claim to be a global security actor and return to a more modest, quietly diplomatic role.

The rise of UNHCR as a global security actor is placed within the context of the dramatic shift in perceptions of national and international security after the end of the Cold War. The Cold War superpower struggle encouraged a narrow strategic-military understanding of security. In the more fluid and unpredictable post-Cold War environment, a range of new issues were introduced to states' security agendas. Prominent among these were the perceived threats posed by refugees and asylum seekers to
international security, state stability, and societal cohesion. This book investigates UNHCR's response to this new international environment; adopting, adapting, and finally abandoning a security discourse on the refugee problem.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hammerstad, Anne

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen Vereinte Nationen, UN Organisationen
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Regierungspolitik Migrations- & Minderheitenpolitik
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Militärwesen Friedenssicherung, Krisenintervention
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Militärwesen Zivil- und Katastrophenschutz
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Militärwesen Nationale und Internationale Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik

Über Autor(innen)

Dr Anne Hammerstad was an ESRC/RCUK Global Uncertainties Fellow from 2009 to 2012, and has also won grants from the British Academy, Europaeum and the Norwegian Fritt Ord foundation. Her DPhil thesis from Oxford University won the BISA Thesis Prize and Winchester Prize in 2003. She has more than a decade's experience in researching and writing about displacement, conflict and security, and about UNHCR and humanitarian politics. She is a lecturer in International
Relations at the University of Kent and a Research Associate of the South African Institute of International Affairs.