FROM ACCESS TO OUTCOMES: HOUSING POLICY AND THE CONSTRAINTS OF INTEGRATION AMONG FORCIBLY DISPLACED PERSONS FROM NAGORNO-KARABAKH
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46991/BYSU.F/2026.17.1.124Keywords:
forced displacement, refugee integration, housing policy, access to services, structural constraints, social policyAbstract
Housing policy is widely framed as a key mechanism of socio-economic integration in contexts of forced displacement; however, theoretical debates increasingly distinguish between processes and outcomes, challenging the assumption that formal access necessarily leads to sustainable integration.
This article examines the constraints of integration within housing policy by analyzing the mechanisms through which access to housing support is translated—or fails to translate—into integration outcomes. Drawing on original empirical research conducted in Armenia following the mass displacement from Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023, the study employs an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, combining administrative data, a survey of 717 households, and qualitative interviews.
The findings demonstrate that integration outcomes are shaped by a structural gap between formal and effective access. Financial intermediation, housing market dynamics, and institutional features of programme design interact to constrain beneficiaries’ ability to convert legal eligibility into actual housing outcomes. This results in selective participation, uneven integration pathways, and dynamics of partial inclusion that may be understood as forms of “double marginalisation”.
The article advances process-oriented and socio-ecological approaches to integration by conceptualising access as a mediated and conditional process. It argues that the constraints of integration are not inherent to displacement itself, but emerge from the interaction between policy design, market dynamics, and institutional environments.
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