The lawful power to expel people considered criminal, dangerous or otherwise undesirable has been a feature of virtually all human communities. This project explores the various incarnations that expulsion power takes in modern liberal states and the issues it raises for communities ostensibly committed to principles of freedom, equality and human rights.

During the past few years academics based at or associated with the RSC – and previously at the Centre for International Studies and the Global Economic Governance Programme at the University of Oxford – have undertaken a significant programme of research on UNHCR and international cooperation on refugees. The principal researchers have been Gil Loescher, Alexander Betts and RSC Research Associate James Milner.

Refugees lie at the heart of world politics and yet scholars of international relations have generally bypassed the study of refugees, and forced migration studies has generally bypassed insights from international relations.

This project attempts to bridge the divide, exploring a range of ways in which refugee protection and other aspects of forced migration interact with world politics.

The project divides into a number of sub-themes:

The objectives of this project are:

This research project looks at the practice and experience of political imprisonment over a 50-year period in Zimbabwe. It uses imprisonment as a lens through which to study the state on the one hand and the social history and politics of opposition movements on the other. It draws on oral history, memoirs, letters, state records, media, and the archives of institutions that supported and lobbied on behalf of political prisoners to trace shifting practices of repression, ideas about race, gender, rights and law, and the social lives of prisoners.