Diaspora Politics: Ethnic Linkages, Foreign Policy, and Security in Eurasia

When and why does ethnicity matter in international relations? When do states founded on a preexisting cultural community act to protect the interests of co-ethnic populations living abroad? The primordial ties of kith and kin and the destabilizing perils of ethnic conoict have become important themes in international security over the last decade. Scholars and analysts, however, have only begun to understand the complicated relationship between dispersed ethnic groups, the states in which they live (host states), and the actions of governments that might make some historical or cultural claim to represent them (kin states).1 How do transborder communities inouence foreign policymaking? Are diasporas— ethnic communities divided by state frontiers—necessarily a source of insecurity? Or can nation-states use “their” diasporas as tools of nation and state building without threatening the interests of their neighbors? As many scholars have argued, transborder ethnic ties can or may increase the insecurity of states.2 But when do can’s and may’s become do’s and don’t’s?