Explaining the rise of diaspora institutions

ABSTRACT

Origin-state institutions dedicated to emigrants and their descendants have been largely unnoticed by mainstream political studies even though diaspora institutions are now found in over half the countries of the world. In response, we first develop alternative theories explaining diaspora institution emergence. They emerge to: ‘tap’ diasporas for resources vital to origin-state development and security; ‘embrace’ diasporas to help define origin-state political identity and achieve domestic political goals; or ‘govern’ diasporas in ways that demonstrate origin-state adherence to global norms. Second, we investigate empirical support for these tapping, embracing and governing explanations in regression and related analyses of diaspora institution emergence in 113 origin states observed from 1992 to 2012. Findings suggest support for all three perspectives with more robust evidentiary support for governing. Our analyses suggest several directions for future research on how and why diaspora institutions emerge for different origin-state purposes.     

The Coptic diaspora and the status of the Coptic minority in Egypt

This paper examines the political activity of the Coptic diaspora in the United States in support of the Coptic minority in Egypt. Analysing its strategy reveals that for years it has focused on lobbying the United States and international bodies, in order to raise international awareness of the Coptic minority status. By using this strategy, it has framed the struggle for Copts’ rights in a manner that contradicts the Egyptian unity narrative, and the strategic choices of those they are struggling for. This paper shows that understanding the limitations of this strategy alongside a change in the structure of opportunities in Egypt has led to a change in the pattern of activity of the diaspora activists. Alongside lobbying for international involvement, they have developed additional strategies, including strengthening their influence in the homeland and even direct action vis-à-vis the Egyptian authorities. This paper, which emphasises the pattern of action of diaspora activists that represent minorities, directs attention to the structure of opportunities in the homeland, the variety of relationships between the diaspora and the homeland, and their effect on the ability of the diaspora activists to become a significant force in shaping the life of the minority.     

Breaking the silences,breaking the frames: a gendered diasporic analysis of sexual violence in the DRC

ABSTRACT

The role of diasporas in fuelling conflict has been extensively studied, with much less attention being paid to their role in peace-building. It is increasingly recognised that diasporas from conflict regions are contributing to the reconstruction of their countries of origin, acting as ‘peace-makers’ rather than ‘peace-wreckers’. Women and men migrants have also been found to engage differently towards their country of origin, but attention to women’s activism is still scarce. This article addresses the issue of political activism by Congolese women in the diaspora in both the UK and Belgium. Their activities are assessed analytically through the prism of ‘mechanisms of framing’, which shape the ways in which messages are conveyed during the mobilisation process. The paper discusses diagnostic, motivational and prognostic frames to address sexual and gender-based violence against Congolese women in the protracted conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Framing strategies vary among Congolese diaspora women’s groups depending on the national context in which they are embedded (Belgium and the UK) but a variety of narratives is also discerned which transcends and is shared among Congolese women beyond national borders.     

Winning,Westminster-style: Tamil diaspora interest group mobilisation in Canada and the UK

ABSTRACT

Migration scholars are becoming increasingly interested in diasporas and in their ‘host state’ activities. In a separate body of literature, foreign policy analysts have been considering domestic sources of foreign policy and increasingly the impact of diaspora interest groups on host state foreign policy. The convergence of these two strands offers fertile ground to explore the efforts of diaspora interest groups on host state foreign policy. This illustrative, comparative case study adds additional rigour to existing analyses of mobilised diaspora host state lobbying by further conceptualising policy outcome through the application of the literature on interest groups. Theoretically, it further situates diaspora lobbying into the foreign policy literature by introducing Role Theory, which aids in demonstrating the impact of structural differences when considering similar actors. Via this theoretically informed template, the paper argues that slight contextual variation in two seemingly analogous contexts can discernibly impact outcomes, in this case on whether or not Tamil diaspora interest groups influenced British and Canadian foreign policy in 2009 toward the civil war in Sri Lanka.     

Critical junctures and transformative events in diaspora mobilisation for Kosovo and Palestinian statehood

ABSTRACT

Scholarship on conflict-generated diasporas has identified the need to consider diaspora mobilisations in multiple contexts and how they are affected by local and global processes. I argue that diasporas react with mobilisations to global events that take place not only in host-states and home-states but also in other locations to which diasporas are transnationally linked. I illustrate the theoretical concepts with empirical discussion about global diaspora activism for Kosovo and Palestinian statehood. Two categories of global events, critical junctures, and transformative events, can be distinguished, with effects on diaspora mobilisation depending on the sociospatial context in which diasporas are embedded. Critical junctures can transform international and state structures and institutions, and change the position of a strategic centre from ‘outside’ to ‘inside’ a homeland territory and vice versa. Transformative events are less powerful and can change diaspora mobilisation trajectories. In contexts where diasporas have relatively strong positionality vis-à-vis other actors in a transnational social field, diaspora mobilisation is more likely to be sustained in response to critical junctures and transformative events.     

Diaspora mobilisation for conflict and post-conflict reconstruction: contextual and comparative dimensions

ABSTRACT

This special issue seeks to move the scholarly conversation beyond notions of conflict-generated diasporas as simply agents of conflict or peace. The field is ripe to unpack the notion of context for diaspora mobilisation in International Relations, the focus and novelty of this special issue. Theorising in this volume goes beyond current prevalent thinking that contexts are host-states in which diasporas live, and original home-states to which they are transnationally connected. The emphasis here is that diasporas have linkages to different contexts, and that their embeddedness in these contexts – simultaneously or sequentially in time – either shapes their mobilizations or is shaped by them. The volume theorises about spatialities and temporalities of diaspora engagement: it emphasises spatial notions such as multi-sited embeddedness, positionality, and translocalism on the one side, and temporal notions such as critical junctures, transformative events, simultaneity, crises, and durability of conflicts on the other. This collection further adds new thematic areas to current scholarly inquiry, opening the discussion beyond interest in diaspora remittances, economic development, and extraterritorial voting. The authors take little-explored paths to examine diasporas as agents in transitional justice processes, contested sovereignty, and fragile and de facto states, as well as in civic and ethnic-based activism.     

States and standardisation: constructing the co-ethnic migrant story in Germany

ABSTRACT

This article addresses the standardisation of stories about diaspora return (also called ‘co-ethnic migration’ or ‘repatriation’). Using the concept of ‘standards’, the author analyses how the German state distributes certain texts about diaspora history over others, forming a legible and homogenous narrative of co-ethnic migrant identity. The article is based on a critical discourse analysis of texts relating to Russian–German history and analysis of biographical narratives of co-ethnic Germans residing in Germany. The study identifies mechanisms by which states homogenise narratives, and to understand which co-ethnic history and identity constructions are reproduced by the state, and which are silenced. This approach enriches the study of diasporas in two ways: first, it sheds light on how states govern diaspora members who have migrated ‘back’ to their ‘origin’ countries; second, it departs from the state-centric approach prevalent in the study of diaspora governance by focusing on stories told by diaspora members.     

Deconstructing diasporic mobilisation at a time of crisis: perspectives from the Palestinian and Greek diasporas

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on the difficulties that diasporas face in relation to mobilising around helping the homeland at a time of crisis, using qualitative research on the Greek and Palestinian diasporas. Rather than assume that long-distance nationalism, emotional attachment to the homeland and diasporic obligation will galvanise diasporic populations into assisting, and mobilising around, the homeland, the paper argues that those in diasporas do not necessarily help their homelands in times of crisis, even if they have strong socio-cultural connections to it. At times of crisis these feelings are heightened but not do not always translate into direct action; this may especially be the case at times of prolonged crisis when past efforts to help do not seem to have worked. This paper argues that it is often hard for those in diaspora to find meaningful ways to help at a time of crisis and many question the effectiveness of their actions if they do not see positive outcomes over time. The paper demonstrates that trying to help the homeland can therefore be a frustrating process and can make those in diaspora feel distanced and isolated from the homeland due to their inability to find concrete ways to help.     

In the Name of God and Nation: The Overlapping Influence of Separatism and Religion on Ethnic Conflict

Processes of migration, diaspora and exile offer diverse and complex environments for the renegotiation of social identities. Immigrants and refugees must not only adapt to the material circumstances of uprooting but must also confront, maintain or recreate a sense of self, often in contexts which are vastly different and fraught with constraints, in which they are removed from their familiar social networks and in which their previous identities may be of little meaning or relevance to the new society. In confronting an altered social status and radically different circumstances, individuals may be required to come to terms with a new or reconstructed sense of ethnic or national identity. This process is not only a personal one but involves affiliations with others who engage in similar interpretations and adaptive strategies and enmity toward those who do not' Field, 1994: 432 . Such a process can be seen as part of the phenomenon of transnationalism, the process by which immigrants forge and sustain multi-stranded social relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement' Basch et al., 1994: 7 . One important aspect of transnationalism is the role that immigrants and refugees play in political activities in both their countries of origin and residence, and their political commitment often has important implications for their sense of self, particularly when those political activities are directed towards the creation of a new homeland for oppressed minorities. This paper examines the role played by diaspora intellectuals in promoting a nationalist discourse which calls for the creation of an independent state for the Oromo, who constitute one of the largest ethnic populations in Africa and the manner in which their participation in such discursive activities allow them to engage in a reconstruction of their own identities and in the shaping of national and personal senses of the self.     

The microfoundations of diaspora politics: unpacking the state and disaggregating the diaspora

ABSTRACT

Recognising the need to unpack ?the ‘state’ and? ?problematise? the term? ‘diaspora’, in this special issue we examine the various actors within (and beyond) the state that participate in the design and implementation of diaspora policies, as well as the mechanisms through which ???diasporas?? are constructed by governments, political parties, diaspora entrepreneurs, or international organisations?. Ex??tant theories are often hard-pressed to capture the empirical variation and often end up identifying ‘exceptions’. We?? theorise these ‘exceptions’ through three interrelated? conceptual moves: First, ??we focus on? ??underst?udie?d? aspects of the relationships between states as well as organised non-state actors and their citizens or co-ethnics? abroad (??or at home – in cases of return migration).? Second, ??we? ??examine dyads of ?origin states and specific diasporic communities differentiated by time of emigration, place of residence, socio-economic status, migratory status, generation, or skills. T?hird??,? ?we ?consider? migration in its multiple spatial and temporal phases (emigration, immigration, transit, return??)? and ?how the???y?? inter?sect to?? constitute diasporic identities?? and policies. ??These? conceptual moves contribute to comparative research in the field and allow us to identify the mechanisms? connect?ing structural variable??s with ? specific policies by states ?(and other actors?) as well as responses? by the relevant ?diasporic ?communi?ties??.     

Competing for the diaspora's influence at home: party structure and transnational campaign activity in El Salvador

ABSTRACT

How do parties in migrant-sending countries engage with the diaspora? Migrants exercise an increasingly important voice in electoral politics in their home countries, though they often either cannot legally vote or vote in very low numbers, yet parties attempt to leverage the influence they believe migrants have over voters at home. However the degree and manner by which parties reach out to diaspora citizens varies widely. A case study of El Salvador points to party organisation as a determinant of variation among parties in diaspora campaigning, based on interviews with Salvadoran party elites in the U.S. and El Salvador, party documents, and historical comparison of campaign activities of El Salvador's two major parties, ARENA and FMLN, over three presidential elections and one mayoral election. FMLN, with a hierarchical model and base committee structure, more effectively mobilizes diaspora support while ARENA, with a horizontal model and sectoral structure, exhibits difficulties in party-diaspora coordination and largely makes indirect and symbolic references to diaspora issues.     

Foreign policy priorities and ethnic return migration policies: group-level variation in Greece and Serbia

ABSTRACT

Why do ethnoculturally defined states pursue favourable policies to integrate some returnees from their historical diasporas while neglecting or excluding others? We study this question by looking at members of two historical diasporas that, in the 1990s, returned to their respective ethnic homelands, Greece and Serbia, but were not treated uniformly by their respective governments. Utilising a wide range of primary sources, we consider evidence for a number of plausible explanations for such policy variation, including the economic profile of an ethnic returnee group, its status in internal ethnic hierarchies, its lobbying power, and dynamics of party politics. We find, instead, that the observed variation is best explained by the role that each particular group played in the ruling elites’ ex ante foreign policy objectives. Elites discouraged the repatriation of co-ethnics from parts of the world they still had claims over, by pursuing unfavourable repatriation policies. Conversely, absent a revisionist claim, states adopted favourable repatriation policies to encourage their repatriation and facilitate their integration upon return. Methodologically, the article illustrates the importance of focused comparisons across dyads of states and particular sub-diaspora groups.     

Bifurcated homeland and diaspora politics in China and Taiwan towards the Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia

ABSTRACT

The conventional literature on diaspora politics tends to focus on one ‘homeland’ state and its relations with ‘sojourning’ diaspora around the world. This paper examines an instance of ‘bifurcated homeland:’ the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan) since 1949. The paper investigates the changing dynamics of China's and Taiwan's diaspora policies towards Overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia throughout the Cold War and post-Cold War periods. They were affected by their ideological competition, the rise of Chinese nationalism, and the ‘indigenisation’ of Taiwanese identity. Illustrating such changes through the case of the KMT Yunnanese communities in Northern Thailand, this paper makes two interrelated arguments. First, we should understand relations through the lens of interactive dynamics between international system-level changes and domestic political transformations. Depending on different normative underpinnings of the international system, the foundations of regime legitimacy have changed. Subsequently, the nature of relations between the diaspora and the homeland(s) transformed from one that emphasises ideological differences during the Cold War, to one infused with nationalist authenticity in the post-Cold War period. Second, the bifurcated nature of the two homelands also created mutual influences on their diaspora policies during periods of intense competition.     

Long-distance Mourning and Synchronised Memories in a Global Context: Commemorating Srebrenica in Diaspora

Abstract

This paper discusses annual commemorative activities of July 11 in the Bosnian diaspora communities in Europe, the USA and Australia, a widely embraced grassroots trend commemorating the 1995 Srebrenica genocide that has become an important act of public memorialisation, reassertion of collective identity and a form of political activism among the Bosnian refugees and genocide survivors in different places across the globe where they have settled. In addition to serving as a cohesive factor among the members of the Bosnian diaspora communities and providing them with a social context in which they can collectively mourn their losses, the Srebrenica commemorations in diaspora have been increasingly reaching out to include members and leaders of the mainstream communities; hence becoming distinct, locally situated, global public events about Bosnia and Srebrenica rather than remaining the exclusive Bosnian immigrants' gatherings that they initially tended to be. In conjunction with the public commemorations, Bosnian diaspora organisations and initiatives have successfully lobbied the governments of their adopted countries to pass resolutions recognising the Srebrenica genocide and calling for July 11 to be acknowledged as the Srebrenica Remembrance Day.     

Breaking borders,changing structures – transnationalism of migrants from Poland as anti-state resistance

ABSTRACT

Among the many meanings of transnationalism(s), the political significance of transnational action from the perspective of individual migrants does not always gain enough attention. It is usually framed as a way transnational migration processes affect the state, how social movements formed in the diaspora compete for the stake in the home country or how a particular state manages its diaspora through various policy means. This article will call for a more actor-centred approach in which individuals’ choices and strategic decisions have an anti-state frame of reference dominating their individualised agendas and norms of behaviour. These are not overtly political, thus falling outside a typical political science lens, but follow what James Scott refers to as ‘small scale resistance’ or ‘weapons of the weak’ of structurally subordinate groups. In the case of Polish migrants I discuss, this follows a long-lasting tradition of contestation of the state normative and institutional structures, its surveillance, migration regimes and ways in which institutions aim to control human actions. With the advent of increased mobility within the European Union due to EU integration processes and the subsequent volume of these flows, these types of behaviour and cultural attitudes gain particular prominence offering a variety of means and opportunities to manoeuver between structural constraints, contesting them and at times even changing them to individual advantage. I argue that these culturally and structurally mutually reinforcing features of anti-state culture make migrants from Poland a particular type of agents in the European web of transnational social fields.     

‘We’re not coming from Mars; we know how things work in Morocco!’ How diasporic Moroccan youth resists political socialisation in state-led homeland tours

ABSTRACT

Diaspora policies, to be defined as emigrant state policies aiming at maintaining and strengthening ties with its expatriate population, have become a regular feature of twenty-first century international politics. A particular diaspora policy strategy adopted by various emigration countries including Morocco is the introduction of state-led homeland tours. These can be understood as an origin-state tool to socialise mainly young expatriate community members with homeland orientations and identities. Both by opponents as by sympathisers of these tours, it is often assumed that homeland tours are effective in their socialisation project. However, this assumption undervalues the agency of tour participants. This article presents an in-depth investigation of the Moroccan Summer Universities, annual state-led homeland tours for college and university students of Moroccan descent, based on participant observation and qualitative interviews. The analysis highlights the tour participants’ resistance against both discourses and practices of these homeland tours’ organisers. As such, the article attends to the need to understand better how state diaspora policies are received by young members of the diaspora, in a situation where state–diaspora relations are tense and policies are top-down.     

Mobilising diasporas for justice. Opportunity structures and the presencing of a violent past

ABSTRACT

This article investigates how the global dominance of the transitional justice (TJ) discourse and practice – and the controversies and conflicts that arise around TJ – have come to make up an important context for diaspora mobilisation. The article looks at the increasingly globalised mechanisms and norms of transitional justice as a set of opportunity structures – political, legal and discursive – which shape diaspora mobilisation. Diaspora engagement in commemoration, truth-seeking and legal justice in relation to atrocities in Rwanda and Sri Lanka is studied. The article shows that in relation to Rwanda, state dominance and divides are largely replicated in the diasporic space, while the Sri Lankan case provides examples of how Tamil diaspora engagement have been able to reverse power dynamics around TJ. Combining opportunity structures with the concept of ‘past presencing’, the article shows how diaspora groups appropriate and strategise in relation to the dominant norms and practices of TJ, and how in doing so the past is performed and experienced in ways which are both personally and politically meaningful.     

Mobilising towards and imagining homelands: diaspora formation among U.K. Sudanese

This paper examines diasporic identity formation among Sudanese migrants in the U.K. From constructivist perspectives, diasporas form when mobilisations towards a ‘homeland’ initiate processes of collectively imagining that homeland. These mobilising agendas have been analysed as either emotional and/or political and correspond to processes of collective remembering, forgetting or future-making. Drawing on interviews with, and observations of, Sudan-born residents of the U.K., this paper examines diaspora formation among U.K. Sudanese. It asks what mobilising agendas unite U.K. Sudanese and what kinds of imaginative processes orient them towards their shared homeland(s). This investigation uncovers how multiple and seemingly contradictory processes of diasporic identity formation overlap within the same ‘national’ migrant community. It analyses how different mobilising agendas initiate imaginative processes of ‘past-making’ and ‘future-making’ which correspond to various types of diasporic identity. In doing so, this paper contributes to debates within constructivist approaches to diaspora formation.     

Diasporas and Fragile states – beyond remittances assessing the theoretical and policy linkages

ABSTRACT

There is a need for further refinement of the complex relationship between diaspora communities, their transnational social networks and fragile states. Research clearly shows that many diaspora mobilise to support their causes, but this often creates unevenness in outcomes and inequalities in access to resource especially in fragile states settings. We argue that remittances address only part of the state fragility problematique and that there are other, equally important roles for diaspora beyond remittance flows. We develop this argument by first explaining why a broader definition of state fragility improves our understanding of the importance of different kinds of diaspora linkages between home and host state. We then identify additional factors that can contribute to a reduction of state fragility and evaluate these against six cases.     

Speaking with one voice? The European Union's global approach to migration and mobility and the limits of international migration cooperation

ABSTRACT

Migration is comparatively weakly regulated at the international level. States are reluctant to cede sovereignty over international migration and negotiations between rich destination countries in the north and sending countries in the south must overcome asymmetries of interests. For this reason, issue-linkage is typically required to achieve north–south cooperation. This paper examines the European Union's (EU) Global Approach to Migration and Mobility as a framework for international migration cooperation. The paper argues that institutional complexity and political dynamics internal to the EU limit its capacity to reach agreement with third countries. Three internal factors are examined: contrasting approaches of the Commission and Council to the external dimension; diversity of member states’ interests in migration policy; and the different policy agendas of the European agencies. These factors result in an approach to external migration relations that is limited in scope and characterised by variable participation. Despite its apparent potential to leverage agreements from third countries, the EU emerges as an unpromising vehicle for international migration cooperation.