Diaspora politics in the United States

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Diaspora politics in the United States is the study of the political behavior of transnational ethnic diasporas, their relationship with their ethnic homelands and their host states, as well as their prominent role in ethnic conflicts. This article describes case studies and theories of political scientists studying diaspora politics within the specific context of the United States. The general study of diaspora politics is part of the broader field of diaspora studies.

Contents 1 Overview 2 Political spheres 2.1 Homeland 2.1.1 Significance to the diaspora identity 2.1.2 Negotiating the national interest 2.1.3 Domestic activism 2.2 Host states 2.2.1 Lobbying for ethnic interests 2.2.2 Potential liabilities 2.2.2.1 Domestic accountability for foreign kin actions 2.2.2.2 Conflicting loyalties 2.3 International 2.3.1 Bilateral relations 2.3.2 Foreign cultivation of diaspora influence 3 Involvement with homeland conflicts 3.1 Dissident advocacy of domestic coups 3.2 Mobilization in response to outside threats 3.2.1 Military aid 3.2.2 Public relations 3.3 Peace negotiations 3.3.1 Negotiations as a "three-level game" 3.4 Post-conflict demobilization 4 Politically active diaspora in the United States 5 See also 6 Further reading 7 References

[edit] Overview

Main article: Diaspora politics

To understand a diaspora's politics, one must first understand its historical context and attachments^[1]: A diaspora is a transnational community that defined itself as an singular ethnic group based upon its shared identity. Diasporas are created by a forced or induced historical emigration from an original homeland. Diasporas place great importance on their homelands because of their long history and deep cultural association. The important of a homeland, especially if it has been lost, can result in a ethnic nationalist movement within the diaspora, often resulting in the reestablishment of the homeland. But even when homelands are established, it is rare for the complete diaspora population to immigrate to the homeland, leaving a remaining diaspora community which often retains significant emotional attachment to its foreign kin and homeland.

Ethnic diaspora communities are now recognized by scholars as "inevitable" and "endemic" features of the international system, writes Yossi Shain and Tamara Cofman Wittes^[2], for the following reasons:

1. First, within each of a diaspora's host states, resident members can organize domestically to maximize their political clout.
2. Second, a diaspora can exert significant pressure in its homeland's domestic political arena regarding issues of diaspora concern.
3. Lately, a diaspora's transnational community can engage directly with third-party states and international organizations, in effect bypassing its homeland and host state governments.

Diasporas are thus perceived as transnational political entities, operating on "behalf of their entire people", and capable of acting independently from any individual state (be it their homeland or host states.)

[edit] Political spheres

Diaspora are politically active in three separate realms: their outsider influence on their homeland's domestic politics, the exercise of their domestic political rights within their host states, and their independent involvement at the international level.

[edit] Homeland

[edit] Significance to the diaspora identity

While all transnational diasporas retain objective components of a coherent ethnic identity such as a shared history and folkways such as food and music, in some cases, diaspora's can share the objective reality of a territorial homeland. When these ethnic homelands exist, they serve as "the physical embodiment", "a territorial, cultural and social focus for the ethnic identity of the diaspora community." Shain writes:

"In the homeland, the community's language is the language of daily interaction, and all the symbols of sovereignty - currency, stamps, military, flag, and the like -- are ingredients that reinforce the identity of the diaspora kin in ways similar to their functions in cultivating and sustaining the national identity of the homeland's citizens."^[2]

Thus, from the perspective of the diaspora, the homeland's "political and territorial fate has profound implications."^[2]

[edit] Negotiating the national interest

In international relations, it is assumed that a state, in order to act coherently in the international system, must identity what are termed its "national interest", its goals and ambitions in the economic, military or cultural domains. The formulation of policy, both domestic and international, is then straightforward, it is simply the pursuit of the nation's identified national interest.

The national interest of a state usually derived from its closely linked national identity and national narrative. For ethnic homelands with diasporas, there is conflict between the national identity of the homeland and the diaspora's ethnic identity -- most obvious is the state's principle concern for only the people living within its boundaries, while the diaspora's is more broadly concerned for transnational community.

While the homeland has the ability to independently formulate its national identity, narrative and interest, the homeland is highly motivated accommodate, or at least appear to, the concerns of its ethnic diaspora because of "the diaspora's political clout and financial assistance, at home and internationally."^[2] Thus the homeland's formulations must accommodate the ethnic identity needs of the diaspora to allow for the homeland to retain its significance to them and thus their support.

Shain describes the negotiation process as:

"Although national identity can be negotiated between homeland and diaspora, the structure of modern international relations give the prerogative of constituting, elaborating, and implementing the national interest to the government of the homeland state. [...] [In] reality, neither the diaspora nor the homeland community ultimately dominates in constitute and communicating national identity. [...] The degree to which the one influences the other is associated with the relative strength that the homeland and the diaspora can exercise via-a-vis one another through monetary flows, cultural productions, community leadership, and the like."^[2]

The conflict between the homeland's national identity and the diaspora's ethnic identity often results in the diaspora emphasizes different aspects of the national narrative resulting in the diaspora embracing a slightly different interpretation of the homeland's national interest than that of held by the homeland's citizens. "A certain degree of flexibility can be preserved because of the distance between homeland and diaspora: each can, to a degree, put its own 'spin' on the national narrative and life out their shared identity in its own way."^[2] "Sufficient areas of overlap exist that homeland-diaspora ties can be quite close despite differences of emphasis in the national narrative."^[2]

[edit] Domestic activism

Some diasporas have became significant players in the domestic circles of their homelands according to Shain and Wittes^[2]. Diasporas are vocal in their declarations of support for elected homeland politicians or in voicing their belief that certain politicians in their homeland may be "betraying the national causes" as they see it. There have been mass demonstrations of support or opposition by diaspora communities in response to specific policy decisions by their homeland governments. In addition, diasporas have targeted domestic public opinion in their homelands and its domestic political development via the use of "monetary contributions, affiliated political parties, and transnational communal organizations."

[edit] Host states

Diaspora communities can both influence the governments and public of their host countries, as well has have their social and political status in a host country affected by the polices of their homeland authorities.

[edit] Lobbying for ethnic interests

According to Thomas Ambrosio^[1], "like other societal interest groups, ethnic identity groups establish formal organizations devoted to promoting group cohesiveness and addressing group concerns." While many formal organizations established by ethnic identity groups are apolitical, others are created explicitly for political purposes. In general, groups who seek to influence government policy on domestic or foreign issues are referred to as interest groups. Those interest groups established by ethnic identity groups are referred as to ethnic interest groups^[1].

Homeland authorities can enlist diaspora communities to lobby their respective host governments on behalf of the homeland.^[2]

[edit] Potential liabilities

These issues, can result in real danger to the local diaspora community. May lead to racism directed towards the diaspora community, either directly or by being co-opted by opportunities extremists. Diaspora communities are almost always minorities in their host states, and thus are at risk of xenophobia or persecution by other demographic groups in the host state.

[edit] Domestic accountability for foreign kin actions

Shain explains that "[when] kin states violate norms that are valued by the host state (such as, for Americans, democracy or human rights), diasporas are often implicated or held accountable morally and politically. [...] The [host state] government and perhaps even [its] public may expect diaspora leaders to persuade or pressure their homeland government to alter its policies in a more congenial direction" and the failure of the diaspora community to act as desired by the host state "can impinges on the diaspora's ability to achieve cherished political goals."^[2]

Shain cites the situation of Arab-Americans as an example where diaspora members are held accountable and negatively impacted by the polices of foreign ethnic kin:

"The violence sponsored by the Palestinian nationalist movement over many years, and Arab state' endorsement of that violence, severely hampered the ability of Arab-Americans general (and Palestinian-American more particularly) to integrate themselves into American electoral politics. In 1999, a prominent Arab-American was removed from a government-convented panel examining U.S. counter-terrorism policy because of (perhaps prejudicially rooted) concerns about his attitude towards Arab terrorism against Israeli and American targets."^[2]

[edit] Conflicting loyalties

Diaspora leaders can be presented with a dilemma of dual loyalties when the interests of their homeland come in conflict with those of its host state. This is most common, according to Shain, when the homeland is involved in a violent conflict or in negotiations to resolve such a conflict.

Shain describes one example:

"[When] the Bush administration in 1991 threatened to withhold loan guarantees to Israel unless Israel agreed not to spend the money in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, Jewish-American advocacy organizations were forced to choose between their good relations with the U.S. foreign policy establishment and their loyal support of Israeli polices in its conflict with the Palestinians. Most chose to support Israeli policy at the cost of incurring the wrath of their American partners. But after the bilateral U.S.-Israel confrontation was resolved and the loan guarantees were put into place, many of those same organizations joined the effort to pressure the Israeli government to adopt a different attitude toward settlement activity in the West Bank and Gaza."^[2]

In 2006, political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt^[3] leveled high-profile accusations of dual loyalty at segments of the Jewish-American community as a result of the significant advocacy by the "Pro-Israel lobby" of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Mearsheimer and Walt questioned whether these domestic lobbying organizations were acting out of a concern of the United States' national interest or in pursuit of wider goals more relevant to that of Israel.

[edit] International

A diaspora's transnational community can engage directly with third-party states and international organizations, in effect bypassing its homeland and host state governments.

[edit] Bilateral relations

Diasporas have, in addition to their domestic political involvement in the homeland and host states, also directly influenced bilateral international relations of states of concern. In some cases, diasporas have appeared to "bypass" their own homeland traditional sovereignty over its own international relations via "privately funded activities, and by lobbying governments" of the diaspora host states as well as those of third-party states.^[2] Shain and Wittes cite the following as examples of international relations involvement:

• "[The] Armenian-American lobbying groups successfully pass a congressional ban on U.S. aid to Azerbaijan (known as Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act) that has withstood many years of White House efforts to have it overturned."
• "Jewish-American lobbying organizations have pressed for the United States to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, against the wishes of the U.S. administration and often those of the Israeli government as well."
• "[The] American Jewish Committee and B'nai B'rith both devoted impressive lobbying efforts to encourage newly independent post-Soviet states to establish diplomatic relations with Israel."

[edit] Foreign cultivation of diaspora influence

In some cases, foreign governments, in hopes of currying favor from distant diaspora communities believed to wield valuable political influence in their host counties, have dispensed generous benefits to local diaspora kin or improved relations with the diaspora's homeland.

Shain describes the Azerbaijan government's persistent frustration of with the influence of the Armenian-American lobby in Washington and the lack of a viable Azerbaijan-American diaspora population to counter the Armenian's domestic presence. The Azerbaijani response has been to cultivate Jewish organizations in Washington as their counterbalancing allies to the Armenian-American opposition. The Azerbaijani ambassador to the United States described his efforts:

"We understood that we need to make friends in this country. We know how strong Jewish groups are. They have asked us about the conditions of Jews in our country. I helped them to go to Azerbaigjan and open Jewish schools. They came back with [a] good understanding [of the conflict]."^[2]

Later, the son of the Azerbaijani ambassador was quoted: "We now have a lobby in the United States and that is the Jewish community."^[2]

[edit] Involvement with homeland conflicts

[edit] Dissident advocacy of domestic coups

Diaspora communities, particular those predominantly composed of dissidents of the homeland authorities, can put significant effort towards undermining the homeland regime, going as far as to advocate or instigate for domestic coups. There were segments of Iraqi-Americans who advocated strongly for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, segments of the Iranian-American population have similarly advocated for a regime change in Iran since the fall of the Shah, and most prominent has been the consistent and vocal calls for ending Fidel Castro's leadership of Cuba by the Florida-based Cuban-American lobby.

[edit] Mobilization in response to outside threats

When a homeland is threatened by another country, Shain writes, "the threat to a community's survival that the conflict represents can serve as an important mobilizing force for diasporic communities, enabling them to build institutions, raise funds, and promote activism among community members who might otherwise allow for their ethnic identity to fade to the level or mere 'folkways' [...] thus [playing] an important role in the diaspora community's ability to maintain and nourish its own ethnic identity."^[2]

[edit] Military aid

Military aid from diasporas to their homelands can be vital in period of violent conflict. Military aid offered by a diaspora, according to Shain ^[2], can varying from fundraising in support of military purchases, directly supplying weapons, or serving "as a source of recruits."

Shain ^[2] cites the example of the military fundraising of the Eritrean and Ethiopian diaspora communities in the United States in response to the 1998-2000 Eritrean-Ethiopian War, the eventual result of which was hundreds of millions of dollars in arm purchases by their respective homelands Shain quotes from the account of Jesse Driscoll of Georgetown University:

"The energy and organization of the Eritrean diaspora, however, was simply overpowering... With none of the credibility baggage of the [ruling regime in Ethiopia], Eritrea called upon its wealthy and energetic... diaspora.... The fundraising efforts of President Isaias Afewerki in the United States have reached legendary status among those who following the conflict."^[4]

[edit] Public relations

Diasporas, according to Shain and Wittes, can be "propagandists" for their homelands.^[2]

[edit] Peace negotiations

While in times of severe threat to the homeland, a diaspora suppresses its differences, once there is potential for peace, the conflict between the diaspora's ethnic interests and its homeland's national interests reemerge.^[2] In situations, where peaceful resolutions involve the homeland renouncing claims to historically meaningful territory, the preeminence in the diaspora's ethnic identity of the homeland's territory, which contrasts sharply with pragmatic valuations made by the homeland, can create in significant and deeply emotional debates and potential multi-level political battles.

Shain gives this description of the potential for diaspora-homeland conflict over potential territorial compromises:

"[Consider] a state that gives up its claim to a piece of historically significant territory in oder to achieve peaceful relations with a neighboring state. Diaspora and homeland citizens often have different attitudes towards the implications such polices have for ethnic and national identity. For many homeland citizens, territory services multiple functions: it provides sustenance, living space and security, as well as a geographic focus for national identity. If giving up a certain territory, even one of significant symbolic value, would increase security and living conditions, a homeland citizen might find the trade-off worthwhile. By contrast, for the diaspora, the security of the homeland is of course important as well; but the territory's identity function is paramount. Its practical value (and indeed the practical value of peace with a formal rival) is not directly relevant to the diaspora's daily experience. In such situations, altering the geographic configuration of the homeland state for the sake of peace may be far more disturbing to the diapora elements than to segments of the homeland community."^[2]

Again, while the leaders and public of the homeland may feel that their national interests trump those of the remote diaspora, the situation is complicated by the homeland's reliance on diaspora's political clout and financial assistance. Such situations lead to the diaspora feeling threatened by actions of the homeland, which to the homeland are viewed as necessary, and if blocked by the diaspora result in harm to the nation's security.

[edit] Negotiations as a "three-level game"

Because of the potential of conflict between the homeland's national interests and the diasporas ethnic interests, and the ability of the diaspora to act independently as a deal-breaker when it feels its interests are at stake, Yossi Shain argues for explicitly including the involved diaspora communities in any peace negotiations.

Specifically, Shain argues that the standard "two-level game" model for international peacemaking is inadequate for conflicts complicated by political active diaspora. The original "two-level game" model, introduced in 1988 by Robert Putnam, recognizes only two stakeholders at being relevant to a successful outcome, the domestic political constituencies of each state and each state's foreign negotiating counterparts.^[5] The solution, Shain advocates, is simply to expand the model from a "two-level game" to a "three-level game" in which political active diasporas are recognized as distinct and equally important stakeholders in the negotiation process.^[2]

[edit] Post-conflict demobilization

Just as a threat to a homeland can mobilize a diaspora to organize, collect funds, and seek political influence, the peaceful end of a conflict, can lead to a parallel demobilization in the community. The demobilization can be more disruptive for diaspora communities who have become deeply involved in their long-running homeland struggles.

Additionally, in the midst of a conflict, the diaspora community's status can be significantly elevated, both by the attention of the host state's foreign policy establishment seeking influence on the diaspora's homeland, and by the attention of homeland's leaders seeking influence in the diaspora's host states. After the transition to peace, Shain writes, "[the] high-level meetings and phone calls may recede and diasporic community leaders find that internal communal prestige and their external levers of influence both degrade as a result."^[2]

Shain hypothesizes:

"If the Arab-Israeli conflict is resolved peacefully, for example, the AIPAC is likely to see its mission greatly diminished, along with its membership, its funding, and its level of attention from elected officials in Washington."^[2]

[edit] Politically active diaspora in the United States

Modern politically active diasporas

Ethnic group	Diaspora	Homeland (est.)	Nationalist movement	Domestic lobby	Concerns
Armenian-Americans	Armenian diaspora	Armenia (1990)	Armenian nationalism		Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenian Genocide
Arab-Americans	Arab diaspora	Arab world	various	Arab lobby	Arab-Israeli conflict, 2003 invasion of Iraq
Cuban-Americans	Cuban exile	Cuba		Cuban-American lobby	Opposition to Fidel Castro, U.S. embargo against Cuba
Irish-Americans	Irish diaspora	Ireland (1920)	Irish nationalism		Provisional IRA arms importation
Jewish-Americans	Jewish diaspora	Israel (1948)	Zionism	Israel lobby	Arab-Israeli conflict, Antisemitism, The Holocaust
Muslim-Americans	various	Muslim world	various		War on Terrorism, Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Taiwanese-Americans	Taiwanese diaspora	Taiwan	Taiwan independence	China lobby	Political status of Taiwan

[edit] See also

• Diaspora studies
• Ethnic interest groups in the United States
• Ethnic nationalism

[edit] Further reading