The UNHCR emerged in response to the post World War II refugee crisis.
Its initially limited mandate has been expanded to deal with subsequent refugee crises, and the UNHCR has established itself as the leading international organization institutionalizing cooperation on international protection between its expanding number of member states. Facing an unrelenting and rising demand for international protection however, the latters’ support for the organization could not be taken for granted. This is perhaps more true than ever today with an increasing number of traditional asylum countries turning their back on the 1951 Geneva Convention. How has the UNHCR succeeded consolidating and even expanding its relevance in the past, and what can we learn of these "survival strategies" for the current situation? Starting from the UNHCR's origins in times of crisis, and considering that crises can be catalysts for action, endowing organizations with new budgets and competences, we examine how far the UNHCR has strategically invoked the notion of crisis throughout its existence and how the invocation of crisis has been instrumental in maintaining the member states' support and the growth of the organization. We do so via a frame analysis of UNHCR discourse based on an original database including UNHCR annual reports and Executive Committee meeting conclusions from 1958 until today, the annually published Note on international protection from 1965 until today, and the UN General Debates dataset (Baturo, Dasandi & Mikhaylov 2017). The paper contributes to the ongoing debates in IR on the power of international organizations and the effect of crises and crisis narratives, as well as the literature on international migration governance, by shedding light on the construction of meaning within international organizations dealing with migration and its effect on their power and resources.
Karin Vaagland is a Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Geneva, at the Department of Political Science and International Relations. She is also a visiting researcher at the University of Oslo. Her research focuses on international organisations in global migration management and is funded by the Swiss National Centre of Competence ‘NCCR on the move’. During her PhD, she was a visiting PhD student at the European Institute at LSE. Vaagland holds a PhD and MA in political science from the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo.
Theresa Squatrito is an Associate Professor in International Organisations in the Department of International Relations at LSE.