Scapegoating, Social Disorganization, and the Causes of Refugee-on-Refugee Violence

What motivates refugee-on-refugee violence? With protracted displacement on the rise, it is increasingly important to understand the causes of violence against refugees in order to protect the most vulnerable people. While most of the literature on refugee-related violence focuses on organized violence, I approach refugee-on-refugee violence at the individual level. I argue that forced displacement leads to the development and exacerbation of discriminatory attitudes, such as homophobia and misogyny, because people look for scapegoats to blame for their suffering. I predict that these discriminatory attitudes, combined with the social disorganization and immense stress caused by forced displacement, are responsible for refugee-on-refugee violence and thus expect most violence to be identity-based or domestic violence. Looking at reports from 22 refugee-hosting countries from 1996 to 2015, I find that most reports of refugee-on-refugee violence with sufficient evidence to identify the motivations are identity-based or domestic violence.