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

Diaspora Politics Charles King and Neil J. Melvin 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? 108 International Security, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Winter 1999/2000), pp. 108–138© 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Charles King is Assistant Professor in the School of Foreign Service and the Department of Government at Georgetown University, where he also holds the university’s Ion Ratiu Chair of Romanian Studies. Neil J. Melvin is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics at the University of Leeds. The conclusions in this article are drawn from a two-year project on transborder ethnic groups in eastern Europe and Eurasia. Participants in the project included Sally N. Cummings, Zvi Gitelman, Katherine E. Graney, Razmik Panossian, Tim Snyder, and Andrew Wilson, along with the authors. Two of the case studies draw on the work of Cummings and Wilson, which is cited in the notes. Thanks to Joseph Lepgold, William Wohlforth, and three anonymous referees for helpful comments on an earlier version, and to Jeanette Rébert and Felicia Roqu for research assistance. 1. These terms are of course less than ideal. Kin states may not necessarily feel a sense of duty toward co-ethnics abroad, and minorities may resent the label “host state,” which implies that they are merely guests in a foreign land. 2. See V.P. Gagnon, Jr., “Ethnic Nationalism and International Security: The Case of Serbia,” International Security, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Winter 1994/95), pp. 130–166; James Fearon, “Commitment Problems and the Spread of Ethnic Conºict,” in David A. Lake and Donald Rothchild, eds., The International Spread of Ethnic Conºict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 107–126; Stephen Saideman, “Explaining the International Relations of Secessionist Conºicts: Vulnerability vs. Ethnic Ties,” International Organization, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Autumn 1997), pp. 721–753; Jack Snyder, “Nationalism and the Crisis of the Post-Soviet State,” in Michael E. Brown, ed., Ethnic Conºict and International Security (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 79–101; David Carment and Patrick James, “Internal Constraints and Inter- Why, in particular, have the “beached diasporas”3 created by the implosion of the Soviet Union—especially Russians—been far less signiªcant for regional security than most observers originally predicted?4 We argue that in the realm of ethnicity and international relations, identity politics is often more about politics than about identity. Disputes over the allocation of scarce resources, competing visions of foreign policy directions, domestic political contests, and other prosaic features of political life frequently trump any putative duty that political elites might feel toward individuals who share their language or culture beyond their own frontiers. Deªning the relationship between national states and the nations they claim to represent is often one of the major preoccupations of politicians and cultural luminaries, especially in postcommunist Europe. Like nations, diasporas are constructed by political and cultural elites. But recognizing this fact, now a cliché in writings on ethnicity and nationalism, does not explain why some efforts to use ethnicity as a tool of international politics succeed where others...