Network analysis of the contemporary “international refugee system”: is there any structure?

Dimitri Fazito, Centro de Desenvolvimento e Planejamento Regional (CEDEPLAR)
Chris McCarty, University of Florida

In this study we propose to investigate the so-called International Migration System considering the case of the refugee flows in 2005 (UNHCR, 2005). In fact, this is a study about which features one should come up with if there is in fact an empirical pattern of the refugee flows into the “International Migration System”. Assuming that the refugees are an important part of the more general migration system, we should find structural patterns converging to a system-like design of the refugee flows and volumes among countries of origin and destination. Is there any structure behind the distribution of refugee flows, volumes and countries of origin and destination? If so, what structural configuration is supposed to exist and to which factors such patterning should be causally related to? We observed that the refugee system display a bipolar (non-concentric) configuration consistent with the North-South Divide assumption.