Diasporas and foreign policy: A comparative analysis

This project examines the role of diaspora groups and their impact on the foreign policy in European democratic states. While liberal democracy implies pluralism and a significant role for civil society in terms of representation and accountability, foreign policy has historically been largely insulated from contentious domestic politics due to its elitist and bipartisan policy-making process.

The interplay between domestic and foreign policy is however changing in new and distinct ways due to an increasingly diverse civil society resulting from migration. Diaspora groups, comprising both new and established communities, are emerging as a new type of transnational actors in foreign policy given their close ties to their countries of origin.

To investigate how, when, and why diaspora groups influence the foreign policy of their host country we trace diaspora mobilization and state-diaspora interactions across different countries and diaspora groups. Our study explores key contextual factors and agential attributes that explain diaspora influence on foreign policy decisions and actions. We adopt a comparative research design that employs both across country comparisons between five European liberal democracies (Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom) and within-case comparisons of six diaspora groups (Assyrians, Armenians, Iranians, Jews, Kurds, and Palestinians) in these host countries.