Alan John Gamlen

Diaspora Institutions and Diaspora Governance

Why do governments form institutions devoted to emigrants and their descendants in the diaspora? Such institutions have become a regular feature of political life in many parts of the world: Over half all United Nations Member States now have one. Diaspora institutions merit research because they connect new developments in the global governance of migration with new patterns of national and transnational sovereignty and citizenship, and new ways of constructing individual identity in relation to new collectivities. But these institutions are generally overlooked. Migration policy is still understood as immigration policy, and research on diaspora institutions has been fragmented, case-study dominated, and largely descriptive. In this article, I review and extend the relevant theoretical literature and highlight empirical research priorities. I argue that existing studies focus too exclusively on national-level interests and ideas to explain how individual states tap diaspora resources and embrace these groups within the nation-state. However, these approaches cannot explain the global spread of diaspora institutions. This, I argue, requires a comparative approach and greater attention to the role of efforts to create a coherent but decentralized system of global governance in the area of international migration.

The new migration-and-development pessimism

Human geographers, and collaborators in cognate disciplines, have taken the lead in critiquing a wave of optimistic thinking about the relationship between migration and development that has emerged over the past two decades. This paper reviews and synthesizes recent human geographical and related critiques, arguing that they constitute a ‘new migration-and-development pessimism’, the main contentions of which are: (1) that the new optimism is not really new; (2) that it is partially driven by hidden political and economic agendas; and (3) that it is distorted by simplification and exaggeration.

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.

Mixing Methods in Research on Diaspora Policies

Covering both qualitative and quantitative topics, the expert contributors in this Handbook explore fundamental issues of scientific logic, methodology and methods, through to practical applications of different techniques and approaches in migration research.

Creative Destruction in the New Zealand ‘Diaspora Strategy’

In recent years a range of governments and state agencies have shifted from denouncing expatriates as deserters and traitors to celebrating them as heroes and model citizens. One of the trailblazers was Irish president Mary Robinson who, in the early 1990s, broke from precedent by declaring her wish to ‘represent’ the ‘vast community of Irish emigrants’ living beyond her state (Robinson, 1994), pointing out that ‘if we are honest we will acknowledge that those who leave do not always feel cherished’ (Robinson, 1995). Several years later, Mexico’s Vicente Fox drew much attention by overturning the traditional image of Mexican emigrants as pochos who have abandoned their roots, and heralding them as ‘the cultural engine, the permanent ambassadors of Mexican culture’ (Martinez-Saldana, 2003: 34). Robinson and Fox were by no means alone: around the turn of the millennium it suddenly seemed almost as if states had decided in unison to cast aside habitual suspicions of ‘their’ diasporas, and take a more upbeat approach.