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Special Lecture: “Managing Reputation for Organizational Survival: Cases of Initial Involvement by the UNHCR in Issues of Internally Displaced Persons”

On Thursday, November 21th, 2019, a special lecture by Prof. Sho Akahoshi was held at Kinugasa Campus, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, hosted by the University’s Graduate School of International Relations (GSIR). Professor Akahoshi is an Associate Professor at the School of Law and Politics at Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan. His main research interest is global governance, especially focusing on coordination mechanisms between various actors such as IGOs (intergovernmental organizations), NGOs and private corporations to solve global issues. His papers are published in the International Relations (国際政治), United Nations Studies (国連研究), CDR Quarterly and other academic journals.

Professor Akahoshi’s lecture presentation comprised three parts. First, he introduced his research on the UNCHR involvement in the IDP (internally displaced persons) issue in two cases: South Sudan and South Vietnam. Next, he explained his choice of multi-archival research as the main method of data collection. Finally, he invited students to ask him questions regarding his research.

He started with reminding the listeners of the UNCHR mandate to protect refugees and brought up international definitions of refugees and IDPs. Although both categories leave their places of residence and flee to avoid the armed conflict, the main difference between refugees and IDPs lies in crossing internationally recognized state borders. Originally, the UNCHR mandate protected only those who crossed the state borders but eventually, it was expanded to include IDPs. Therefore, Prof. Akahoshi’s main empirical question is ‘Why did the UNCHR decide to get involved in IDP case, beyond its mandate?’ Based on that, he developed a theoretical question: ‘Under what conditions does an IGO change its behavior?’ He attempted to answer both questions using two case studies in late 1960s. In case of South Sudan, the UNHCR chose to help IDPs while in case of South Vietnam, it didn’t get involved. He became curious why the UNCHR had such a different response to seemingly similar cases.

The previous research didn’t compare the two cases but treated each of them individually. To explore the factors that caused the IGO change its behavior, Prof. Akahoshi applied existing empirical literature to his case studies. Examining literature based on the realism tradition, he came up with factors as power, interest and idea. Based on liberalism theory, he looked into collective principals and proximate principals as possible explanations. Finally, he explored structural factors based on constructivism theory: e.g. functional approach, regime complexity and IGO’s characteristics. However, he found that none of the factors could answer his research questions.

Being interested in theory building through a case study, Prof. Akahoshi proceeded to heuristic/plausibility probe to theory-testing. As IDP assistance was out-of-mandate issue for the UNHCR, the organization had to justify its activity to member states in the Executive Committee and General Assembly. Therefore, Prof. Akahoshi further narrowed down his research question to the following: ‘How did the UNHCR interpret issues on IDPs? Especially, how did the UNHCR connect the issues to its mandate?’ To answer these questions, he started archival research in the UNHCR Records and Archives in Geneva, the US National Archives and the UK National Archives.

Assistance to South Vietnamese IDPs was requested by the Chief of the US Senate Subcommittee of Refugees Edward Kennedy who was concerned that without humanitarian assistance, those people might become active agents against the United States. He requested Sadruddhin Aga Khan, the High Commissioner for Refugees who was his classmate at Harvard University to get involved in the IDP issues in South Vietnam. However, the UNHCR clearly rejected the US request and their interpretation of IDPs as refugees. Instead, Khan offered to loan or second personnel to either US AID or South Vietnamese government seeing no problem of criticism as long as the personnel are not under the UNHCR label or control.

In case of South Sudanese IDPs, the assistance was requested by the Sudanese government that initiated the repatriation of refugees to Sudan, and the UNHCR provided Sudanese refugees in Uganda, Kenya, and Central African Republic with humanitarian assistance. In addition to refugees, there were 0.5 million IDPs in southern regions of Sudan, and the UNHCR committed to help them as well. Based on his analysis of archival documents. Prof. Akahoshi argues that Sudanese government and the UNHCR had agreed interpretations for IDP assistance: they both considered IDP assistance as a part of refugee protection.

According to Prof. Akahoshi, the theoretical implications of those two case studies lie in managing reputation for organizational survival. Most prior studies have focused on state reputation and its use by NGOs in ‘naming and shaming’ strategies to influence the state behavior. However, relatively few studies (Carpenter 2010; Barnett and Finnemore 2004) explored the role of reputation for international organizations. Prof. Akahoshi found that the UNHCR justified its involvement or non-involvement in IDP issues using principles of organizational neutrality, and ‘guilt by association’. The UNHCR attempted to hide its label in South Vietnamese case, while the situation in Sudan was seen as an opportunity for the UNCHR to expand its activities into Africa and prove its efficiency to African member states. Prof. Akahoshi concluded that the driver of the UNHCR change was its reputational management, i.e. organizational attempts to enhance or not to undermine its reputation.

Regarding his method of data collection, Prof. Akahoshi stressed the lack of studies based on archival materials of the UNHCR. The UNHCR Archives were opened for the public in 1996 by the High Commissioner Sadako Ogata who used to be a diplomatic historian and understood the importance of archival study. However, they observe a 20-year rule meaning that current issues cannot be researched in the archives. Prof. Akahoshi explained about the structure of the UNHCR Archives and types of documents to be found there. He encouraged students to go to archives as a treasure hunt: not only the UNHCR but also other international organizations (WFP, ILO, IOM, etc.). By combining research in national archives and IGO archives, Prof. Akahoshi was able to cross-check the information and enhance validity of his findings.

The Q&A session involved questions regarding his experience conducting archival research, the role of the main donors to the UNHCR during 1960s, the role of the Cold War confrontation in explaining the UNHCR behavior in providing IDP assistance, relation between IDP protection and refugee issue.


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