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Bish, Alexandre

Alexandre
Bish

http://www.alexbish.com

Alex Bish is an independent researcher specialising on migration, conflict, and crime dynamics in West and North Africa. Over the past seven years, Alex has conducted in-depth fieldwork across West Africa and supervised field networks of key informants in both government and hard-to-reach groups, including rebels, militants, and smugglers. Alex is also an EPSRC PhD researcher in Security and Crime Science at UCL and a Visiting Scholar at Yale University. In addition to qualitative research, he is...
Migration Reasearch Hub ID: 3372
ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7781-1766
LinkedIN https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandrebish/
Twitter https://twitter.com/alexandrebish
Research Gate https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alexandre-Bish

Expertise

Migration processes
Migration consequences (for migrants, sending and receiving countries)
Migration governance
Cross-cutting topics in migration research
Disciplines
Methods

Roles

  • UCL

    University, London, United Kingdom
    Doctoral Researcher

  • Empirika Research

    Other, London, United Kingdom
    Founder & Director

  • Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

    Non-governmental Organisation, Geneva, Switzerland
    Research Manager

  • European External Action Service

    Governmental Organisation, Abuja, Nigeria
    Key Expert

Research

A Review of the Routledge Handbook on Smuggling

Authors Alexandre Bish
Year 2022
Journal Name Journal of Illicit Economies and Development
Taxonomy View Taxonomy Associations
1 Journal Article

Soldiers of fortune: The future of Chadian fighters after the Libyan ceasefire

Authors Alexandre Bish
Description
Conflict zones are key hubs in the global criminal economy, and nowhere is this correlation more evident than in the Sahel and central Sahara, where the proliferation of armed actors and their involvement in many of the subregion’s plethora of illicit markets have contributed to cyclical instability in the region. In the Sahel and central Sahara, armed actor involvement in the region’s illicit markets have been key contributors to cyclical instability there. Chadian fighters have long been key actors within the constellation of armed groups active in the region, but the October 2020 ceasefire in Libya – and the ensuing drop in fighting – are reshaping the role that they play in regional illicit markets and stability dynamics. Chadian fighters first emerged as key actors challenging peace and security in Libya while fighting as mercenaries there after the fall of Qaddafi in 2011. However, the consolidation of their peacetime involvement in Sahelian illicit economies since mid-2020 poses a more enduring, widespread, and unpredictable form of instability. This report describes the typologies of Chadian fighters active in Libya and the central Sahara, and their role as mercenaries and enablers in the transnational mercenary trade in Libya’s second civil war. The Chadian government’s failure to reintegrate rebels after the war is then analyzed before exploring how this has led to Chadian fighters consolidating their involvement in criminal economies. Finally, the risks of this involvement and, in particular, the menace that Chadian fighters pose to border security in the region are presented. This report’s release is timed to coincide with the planned government-led ‘national dialogue’ which will discuss the future of rebel armed groups in Chad and should pave the way for elections. It makes the case for the need to provide a safe corridor for Chadian fighters to return to Chad to prevent further destabilisation of the wider Sahel and Central Sahara region.
Year 2021
Taxonomy View Taxonomy Associations
2 Report

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This project was made possible thanks to funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement Ares(2017) 5627812-77012.

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