International Refugee Assistance: a Study of the Determinants of Organizational Domain in the Iro and the Unhcr.

Abstract

Since its establishment in 1946, the United Nations system has come to play a central role in international efforts aimed at providing relief and assistance to refugees. Two major organizations were created to operate as channels of its assistance to refugees. These organizations are the International Refugee Organization which had operated from 1947-1952, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees which has been operating since 1951. This study is aimed at analyzing major constraints and influences which have led to variations in the domains (population and services) of these two organizations. The study has relied upon theories of bureaucratic organization and international organizations. These theories provide us with three major concepts for the study: political environment, resource actors, and organizational leadership and machinery. Documents, reports and journals of the League of Nations and of the United Nations are used to illustrate how the domain of their refugee organizations had been defined. Other non-UN literature is used as supportive sources of data and interpretation. The results of the study show that politics of the world and of the UN arenas have crucial influence in determining the kind of organization to be established and the strategy of its operation. Resource countries and organizations are of influence in tactically defining the domain of the refugee organizations, relative to the scarcity of their services. Of particular influence are countries and organizations which finance projects for refugees. The influence of the organizations' leadership was found to be conditional on the political status of the organization and on the scale of its operations. The bureaucratic staff of the organization was also found to be of influence in tactically defining the domain of the organization conditional to the scale and the complexity of the organization's projects.