Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Since the beginning of the twentieth century, governments have expelled over 30 million people, en masse, around the world. Yet, despite its prevalence, mass expulsion is an understudied phenomenon. More scholarly attention has been focused on the gravest atrocities—genocide and mass killing—or on forced migration more generally. This book examines why and how governments expel. What motivates them to implement this extreme eliminationist policy, and how do they decide to act? Using the original Government-Sponsored Mass Expulsion (GSME) dataset, the book provides the first systematic, cross-regional account of mass expulsion over the longue durée, explaining when and where expulsion occurs, who is targeted, and what regimes are most likely to expel. It identifies two overarching categories of mass expulsion—security and economic—and develops a typology of four corresponding types: counter-irredentist, counter-subversive, reprisal, and nativist. The book presents a theory of mass expulsion that explicates the process of government decisions to expel, including the key structural, proximate, precipitating, and intervening factors that shape the context and circumstances in which expulsion does or does not occur. The theoretical framework expounds on the key intervening factors that enable or restrain/constrain expulsion: the alliances of the ruling elite, the “homeland” state of the target group, and the pertinent international organizations. Evidence is drawn from archival research conducted at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the League of Nations archives in Geneva, Switzerland.</jats:p>