Introducing POSVAR: A dataset on refugee-related violence

Abstract

While scholars have for some time debated the role of refugee flows in the international spread of conflict, most evidence has been indirect due to the scarcity of systematic data on refugee-related violence. The Political and Societal Violence By And Against Refugees (POSVAR) dataset addresses this lacuna by providing cross-national, time-series data on refugees’ involvement in acts of physical violence in their host state, either as the victims or the perpetrators of violence, individually or collectively, in all countries between 1996 and 2015. In this article, we provide an overview of the main features of the dataset, identify its limitations, and trace variation in reported levels of refugee-related violence over time and across different types of actors. We emphasize that the data may be helpful to both researchers and policymakers for more accurate understanding of the prevalence of refugee-related violence and the design of more optimal policies to mitigate it.