Alexander Betts

Alexander Betts is Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs, William Golding Senior Fellow in Politics at Brasenose College, and Associate Head (Graduate and Research Training) of the Social Sciences Division at the University of Oxford.

He completed his undergraduate degree at Durham University.

He then completed an MSc at Bristol University, followed by an MPhil and DPhil from the University of Oxford.

Empirically, it examines the history of four UNHCR-led initiatives: the International Conferences on Refugees in Africa (1981 and 1984), the Indo-Chinese Comprehensive Plan of Action (1989), the International Conference on Refugees in Central America (1989), and the Convention Plus initiative (2003-5).

He was appointed Rose Junior Research Fellow in International Relations at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford in 2006, before becoming Hedley Bull Research Fellow in International Relations at Wadham College, Oxford between 2007 and 2010.

Protection by Persuasion: International Cooperation in the Refugee Regime (Cornell University Press, 2009), explores the history of responsibility-sharing in the global refugee regime.

Theoretically, it identifies the cooperation problem in the refugee regime as being a 'suasion game' in which bargaining is characterized by asymmetric power relations between Northern donor/resettlement states and Southern host states.

It argues that this North-South impasse has sometimes been overcome through 'issue-linkages', connecting refugee protection to policy fields in which states have strategic interests, such as migration, security, and development.

He then spent a year as a post-doc at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), before becoming Associate Professor in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies in the Oxford Department of International Development at the University of Oxford in 2011.

Survival Migration: Failed Governance and the Crisis of Displacement (Cornell University Press, 2013), explores new drivers of displacement that fall outside dominant interpretations of who is a 'refugee' under the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees.

Theoretically, it uses the concept of 'survival migration' to highlight people who flee serious harm but are not generally recognized as refugees.

Empirically, it uses qualitative fieldwork to explain variation in African state responses to people fleeing serious socio-economic rights deprivations in fragile states, examining national responses to people fleeing Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Zimbabwe.

It shows that where legal norms are ambiguous, elite political interests shape the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion.

He was Director of the Refugee Studies Centre between 2014 and 2017.

He became Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs in 2015.

Mobilising the Diaspora: How Refugees Challenge Authoritarianism (Cambridge University Press, 2016, with Will Jones), examines the political lives of refugees, focusing particularly on how refugee diasporas mobilize to challenge authoritarianism in their countries of origin.

Theoretically, it offers a social constructivist account of diaspora formation, suggesting that diasporas are not pre-determined but defined by their political mobilization vis-a-vis the homeland.

They have 'lifecycles', emerging, expanding, and sometimes waning.

Empirically, it examines the history of Rwandan and Zimbabwean diaspora, revealing the important role played by internal and external elites in mobilizing and sustaining diasporic engagement.

''The Global Governed?

Since 2017, he has led the Refugee Economies Programme at the University of Oxford, which is funded by the IKEA Foundation, which supports the socio-economic inclusion of refugees through a longitudinal study following the economic lives of 16,000 refugees and host community members in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda.

In 2021, he co-founded the Oxford SDG Impact Lab, which supports students from across Oxford University to collaborate with business to deliver the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and co-created the Refugee-Led Research Hub in Nairobi, Kenya which supports aspiring researchers with lived experience of displacement to become leaders in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies.

Most of his research is on refugees in world politics.

He is centrally concerned with the question of what makes the global refugee system effective, and on reconciling the tension between national interests and refugee rights.

Under what conditions are nation-states willing to protect, assist, and integrate refugees?

What is the role of international institutions in influencing the behaviour of states?

And what role do refugees themselves play as actors within the refugee system?

The other strand of his work focuses on the relationship between international development and forced displacement, exploring the socio-economic integration of refugees within host countries.

What explains variation in refugees' welfare outcomes?

What shapes host community attitudes towards refugees?

What explain the mobility and migration choices of refugees?

Much of this research has taken place in East Africa.

Betts' main research monographs are:

In 2019, he was appointed Associate Head (Graduate and Research Training) of the Social Sciences Division at the University of Oxford, also becoming Director of the Economic and Social Research Council's 'Grand Union' Doctoral Training Partnership, which includes Oxford University, Open University, and Brunel University London.

Refugees as Providers of Protection and Assistance'' (Cambridge University Press, 2020, with Kate Pincock and Evan Easton-Calabria) explores the role of refugee-led organizations (RLOs) in providing social protection.

Theoretically, it challenges the dominant provider/beneficiary relationship within global governance.

Building upon the 'post-development' literature, it uses a 'post-protection' lens to critically examine the interaction between international institutions and in refugee-led organizations.

Empirically, it focuses on RLOs in camps and cities in Kenya and Uganda, to reveal how, despite a lack of funding or recognition, RLOs provide important and diverse forms of social protection.

The RLOs that thrive generally do so by bypassing formal humanitarian governance and creating their own transnational networks.

The Wealth of Refugees: How Displaced People Can Build Economies (Oxford University Press, 2021) explores what sustainable refugee policies look like in an age of displacement characterized by rising numbers and declining political will.