Isabelle Cote
Associate Professor
SN 2044
Department of Political Science, Science Building
Memorial University of Newfoundland
St. John's, NL A1B 3X9 Canada
Telephone: (709) 864-8174
Email: icote[at]mun[dot]ca
Website: https://isabelleluciecote.wordpress.com/
Academics
BA Hons (Glendon College, York University); MA, PhD (University of Toronto)
Areas for Student Research Supervision
- Ethnic conflict and civil wars
- Contentious politics
- Political demography
- China and Southeast Asia
- Migration
Examples of Recent Courses Taught
POSC 2300 Comparative Politics
POSC 3290 Human Security
POSC 3295 Migration and Security
POSC 4325 Asian Politics
POSC 4360 Contentious Politics
POSC 6000 Political Concepts and Approaches
Bio
Dr. Côté studies how internal population movements are related to political mobilization, ethnic conflict, and violence in East and Southeast Asia. In particular, she is interested in recent violent conflicts between 'native' populations and internal migrants - i.e. 'Sons of the Soil' (SoS) conflict - in authoritarian China and newly democratizing Indonesia. As a postdoctoral fellow at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) in Leiden, Netherlands, in 2014-2015, she examined the emerging role of sub-state actors (e.g. provinces, states or municipalities) in regulating population movements around the world. She is currently working on a number of projects on migration/security, including one on the impact of internal migration on resource conflicts, and another on indigenous peace processes. She is also interested in comparing the Asian experience in respect to migration and conflict to that of other regions, including Africa, India or Latin America.
Selected Publications
Books
Côté, Isabelle and Yolande Pottie-Sherman [eds] (2020) “Resettlement: Uprooting and Rebuilding Communities in Newfoundland and Labrador and Beyond”, St John’s, NL, ISER Books.
Côté, Isabelle, Matthew I. Mitchell and Monica Duffy Toft [eds] (2019) People Changing Places: New Perspectives on Demography, Migration, Conflict and the State. Routledge.
Refereed Journal Articles
Côté, Isabelle, J. Andrew Grant, Matthew I. Mitchell, Dimitrios Panagos, and Louis-Charles Vaillancourt (2025), ‘Trailblazers and Laggards: Explaining Variation in UNDRIP Implementation at the Sub-National Level in Canada’, accepted at the Canadian Journal of Political Science.
Côté, Isabelle, J. Andrew Grant, Atiarul Islam, Victoria McLean, Matthew I. Mitchell & Dimitrios Panagos (2024) ‘The Global Implementation of UNDRIP? A Thematic Review’, The International Journal of Human Rights, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13642987.2024.2407529
Côté, Isabelle, J. Andrew Grant, Matthew I. Mitchell & Dimitrios Panagos (2022) The Plan Nord in Northern Québec, Canada: Pathway to Peace and Prosperity or Powder Keg?, Ethnopolitics, DOI: 10.1080/17449057.2022.2157105
Côté, Isabelle, Megan Devries, J. Andrew Grant, Matthew I. Mitchell & Dimitrios Panagos (2022): The power of numbers: how majority/minority status affects media coverage and framing of Indigenous contentious politics in Canada, Politics, Groups, and Identities, 11:3, 619-637, DOI:10.1080/21565503.2021.2020663
Côté, Isabelle (2022) “Internal migration and resource conflict: Evidence from Riau, Indonesia”, Journal of Global Security Studies, 7(1): https://doi.org/10.1093/jogss/ogab025
Tang, Yongfeng and Isabelle Côté (2021) “Why do some large-scale land protests succeed in China? The role of domestic media”, Journal of Chinese Political Science 26(2): 333-352.
Côté, Isabelle and Emma Huang (2020) “Where are the Daughters in “Sons of the Soil” Conflict? Examining the Effects of Gendered Migration on Violent Conflict”, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 43(10): 837-853.
Côté, Isabelle and Yolande Pottie-Sherman (2020) “The Contentious Politics of Development-Induced Resettlement Programs in Western Democracies: Evidence from Canada”, Canadian Journal of Political Science, 53(1), 19-37.
Côté, Isabelle (2019) “Researching violent conflicts using comparative multi-sites fieldwork”, Sage Research Methods Case. January. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781526477521.
Côté, Isabelle and Matthew I. Mitchell (2018) “The Far North Act in Ontario: A ‘Sons of the Soil’ Conflict in the Making?”, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 56(2): 139-156.
Côté, Isabelle and Matthew I. Mitchell (2017) “Deciphering Sons of the Soil Conflicts: a critical survey of the literature”, Ethnopolitics 16(4): 333-351.
Côté, Isabelle and Matthew I. Mitchell (2016) “Elections and Sons of the Soil conflict dynamics in Africa and Asia”. Democratization 23(4): 657-677.
Côté, Isabelle (2015) “Horizontal inequalities and Sons of the Soil conflict in China”, Civil Wars 17(3): 357-378.
Côté, Isabelle (2015) “The enemies within: Targeting Han and Hui migrants in Xinjiang”, Asian Ethnicity 16(2): 136-151.
Barter, Shane Joshua and Isabelle Côté (2015) “Strife of the Soil? Unsettling transmigrant conflicts in Indonesia”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 46(1): 60-85 [cover feature].
Côté, Isabelle (2014) ‘Internal migration and the politics of place: a comparative analysis of China and Indonesia’, Asian Ethnicity 15(1):111-129.
Côté, Isabelle (2013) “Fieldwork in the age of social network: opportunities and challenges”, PS: Political Science and Politics 46(3): 615-619.
Côté, Isabelle, Malena Rosen Sundström and Anders Sannerstedt (2013) 'The state of the debate: a media analysis of the debates on citizenship education in France, Sweden and the UK, 2001-2010', Education, Citizenship and Social Justice 8: 215-228
Côté, Isabelle (2011) ‘The political mobilization of a regional minority: the Han Chinese settlers in Xinjiang’, Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies, 34(11): 1855-1873.
Book Chapter
Côté, Isabelle (forthcoming) ‘Le travail de terrain à l’ère des médias sociaux : opportunités et défis’, in Alexandre Pelletier [ed], Voix de terrain : Récits et réflexions sur la recherche de terrain en sciences sociales. Quebec : Presses de l’Université Laval.
Bui, Dung and Côté, Isabelle (2023) Conflict and Migration. Oxford Bibliographies in Military History. Ed. Kaushik Roy. New York: Oxford University Press, July 25th, 2023. DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791279-0237
Pottie-Sherman, Yolande, Isabelle Côté and Rebecca Ledrew (2020) “Resettlement in Global Context”, in Isabelle Côté, and Yolande Pottie-Sherman [eds], Resettlement: Uprooting and Rebuilding Communities in Newfoundland and Labrador and Beyond, St John’s, NL: ISER Books.
Côté, Isabelle and Yolande Pottie-Sherman (2020) “Should We Stay or Should We Go? Mobility, Immobility, and Community Closure in Newfoundland & Labrador, 2009-2018” in Isabelle Côté, and Yolande Pottie-Sherman [eds], Resettlement: Uprooting and Rebuilding Communities in Newfoundland and Labrador and Beyond, St John’s, NL: ISER Books.
Barry, Hannah and Isabelle Côté (2020) “Non-state actors and resettlement in reverse: the case of Rural Resettlement Ireland” in Isabelle Côté, and Yolande Pottie-Sherman [eds], Resettlement: Uprooting and Rebuilding Communities in Newfoundland and Labrador and Beyond, St John’s, NL: ISER Books.
Côté, Isabelle and Mira Raatikainen (2020) “Opposition to Internal Migration: Evidence from Asia” in Arjun Tremblay and Alain G-Gagnon [eds], Federalism, Democracy and National Diversity in the 21st Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.187-207.
Côté, Isabelle (2019) “Adopting migrants as brothers and sisters” –fictive kinship as a mechanism of conflict resolution and conflict prevention in Lampung, Indonesia’, in Shane Barter and William Asher [eds], Internal Migration: Challenges in Governance and Integration. New York: Peter Lang. https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/236835921?q&versionId=263714277
Côté, Isabelle and Matthew I. Mitchell (2019) ‘Demography, Migration, Conflict and the State: The Contentious Politics of Connecting People to Places’, in Isabelle Côté, Matthew I. Mitchell and Monica Duffy Toft [eds] People Changing Places: New Perspectives on Demography, Migration, Conflict and the State.
Strand, Havard, Urdal, Henrik and Isabelle Côté (2019) ‘Ethnic census taking, instability and armed conflict’, in Isabelle Côté, Matthew I. Mitchell and Monica Duffy Toft [eds] People Changing Places: New Perspectives on Demography, Migration, Conflict and the State.
Côté, Isabelle, Matthew I. Mitchell and Monica Duffy Toft [eds] (2019) People Changing Places: New Perspectives on Demography, Migration, Conflict and the State. Routledge.
Côté, Isabelle (2012) ‘Autonomy and ethnic diversity: the case of Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in China’ in Michael Keating and Alain G. Gagnon [eds] Political Autonomy and Divided Societies: Imagining Democratic Alternatives in Complex Settings, Palgrave Macmillan: New York, pp.171-184.
Other Publications and Reports
Côté, Isabelle, Dimitri Panagos and Louis-Charles Vaillancourt (2024) ‘Minority language media outlets treat indigenous issues differently’, Policy Options, March 19. https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/march-2024/northern-development-solitudes/
Côté, Isabelle (2023) ‘Why Demographic Changes Matter for Security Studies: A Look at Xinjiang’, Population & Security (January 11, 2023) https://populationandsecurity.com/why-demographic-changes-matters-for-security-studies-a-look-at-xinjiang/
Bui, Dung and Isabelle Côté (2022) The Return Migration, Health Threat and Conflict Nexus: Insights from India and China. Defense and Security Foresight Working Paper. https://uwaterloo.ca/defence-security-foresight-group/sites/ca.defence-security-foresight-group/files/uploads/files/dung_cote_dsfg_working_paper_2022_the_return_migration_health_threat_and_conflict_nexus.pdf
Côté, Isabelle ‘Internal Migration and Violent Conflicts in Indonesia’, Political Violence at a Glance, (January 25, 2022) https://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2022/01/25/internal-migration-and-violent-conflict-in-indonesia/
Bui, Dung and Côté, Isabelle ‘Security Implications of Asia Pacific states’ Restrictions on Internal Migration’, New Security Beat, Wilson Center (November 22, 2021) https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2021/11/security-implications-asia-pacific-states-restrictions-internal-migration/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email.
Côté, Isabelle (2012) ‘The State of the debate: a media analysis of the debates on citizenship education in France, 1996-2010’. As part of the research project Fostering citizenship? The Education System, Norms and the Dilemma of the Liberal State, Lund University. Available at: http://www.svet.lu.se/FAS/france_media.pdf
Côté, Isabelle (2010) ‘Fostering citizenship? The Education system, norms and the dilemma of the liberal state. Report on the situation in France’. Part of the research project Fostering citizenship? (see above).