Refugee Repatriation and Conflict: Evidence from the Maximum Pressure Sanctions

• In Event: Refugees, Violence, and Integration

Abstract

How does mass refugee return shape conflict dynamics in destination communities? To tackle this question, we leverage the sudden imposition of the Trump Administration’s so-called "Maximum Pressure” sanctions on Iran in 2018. The sanctions rapidly cratered the Iranian economy, spurring the mass return of some 700,000 Afghan refugees from Iran to Afghanistan. Leveraging historical returnee settlement patterns and the plausibly exogenous timing of the sanctions, we estimate the causal effect of large-scale refugee repatriation on violence. We draw on previously unreleased combat records from NATO to show that mass return of Afghans from Iran increased insurgent-initiated violence in returnees’ destination communities. Currency devaluation pursuant to sanctions in Iran may have reduced household income, lowering reservation wages in communities where returnees repatriated. Consistent with this hypothesis, policy-induced return had heterogeneous effects on insurgent violence, increasing use and lethality of labor-intensive combat. Falling household income also reduced the cost of government tip-buying, resulting in greater effectiveness of counterinsurgent bomb neutralization missions. While insurgent violence increased in repatriation communities, there was no effect on social conflict. Our study provides causal evidence demonstrating the link between sanctions-induced refugee return and political and social conflict. These results are economically significant, highlighting unintended consequences of repatriation and clarifying the conditions under which refugee return affects conflict.

Authors

• Benjamin Curtiss Krick, Duke University

• Christopher William Blair, Princeton University

• Austin Wright, University of Chicago