STATE POLICY ON INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS: TYPES AND METHODS OF INFLUENCE

Abstract

The article systematizes the types and methods of implementing the state policy on internally displaced persons. A comparative analysis of the concepts ‘internal forced migration’, ‘displacement’, ‘evacuation’, ‘deportation’, ‘migrants’, ‘internally displaced persons’, ‘refugees’. Within the range of the state policy on internally displaced persons, the following types can be discerned: voluntary resettlement, displacement, evacuation, deportation, forced displacement. The definition of the term ‘state policy on internally displaced persons’ is offered. The essence and nature of the most massive forced displacements of the population in Ukraine from the early twentieth century to 2021 are highlighted. The objectives, tasks, methods of implementation and tools of the state policy on internally displaced persons under different political regimes are determined. The six periods of the state policy on internally displaced persons in Ukraine from the beginning of the twentieth century are identified as follows: 1) 1906-1911 – an organized voluntary resettlement of landowners aiming to remove social tension; 2) 1914-1918 – a forced displacement (expulsion) of the civilian population due to military action; 3) 1929-1933 – a forced expulsion of the population regarded by the regime as “compromised” on account of social and ethnic descent; 4) 1939-1945 – evacuation of enterprises of strategic importance for the state’s economy and security, the party and soviet establishment, and the youth of drafting age during the course of military action; deportation of the nations regarded by the regime as “compromised” (the Chechens, Ingush, Crimean Tatars, Ukrainians); 5) April 1986-1989 – organized displacement of civilian population through a man-induced disaster; 6) 2014 – to the present time – internal forced migration due to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. The experience of implementing the state policy on internally displaced persons in Ukraine from the beginning of the twentieth century to 2021 is characterized by the use of rigid tools under the totalitarian regime, and soft tools – under the authoritarian and democratic regimes.