State, nation, citizen: rethinking repatriation

This demonstrates that the essential difficulty in understanding refugee repatriation as a 'solution' to displacement is a result of the fundamental problems of attempting to reconcile a political philosophy of universal human rights with the principle of nation-state sovereignty.

The paper then argues that post-1985 attempts to reconceptualise repatriation were fundamentally flawed not only because they were largely prompted by a narrowing of the political space for asylum and the need to find alternative practical solutions rather than any foundational approach, but because in reducing theory to practice, repatriation was depoliticised into 'return', reducing the likelihood of durable solutions based on citizenship and the remaking of state-citizen bonds which required an explicitly political context.