Description
Over the past half-century, there have been significant global migration flows. This, combined with the rise in power of many countries across the Global South, has led to a transformation in how states engage with diaspora populations outside their territories. Countries such as China, India and Turkey, for example, were major migrant-sending states of the past, but have now become more economically developed. As aspiring great powers that seek to exert regional and global influence, their diaspora governance policies are also undergoing a transformation. States who viewed their diasporas as a source of migrant remittances in order to promote economic development increasingly take a broader foreign policy view of diaspora engagement. More and more, diasporas are understood to be important assets in promoting sending states’ geopolitical agendas, and as tools for realizing great power ambitions. This paper explores the rise of this new “diasporic geopolitics” and its implications for the next fifty years of global politics. What are the dominant features of diaspora governance policy changes? How should countries respond to the great power ambitions of states with large diasporas abroad? How might such transformations affect overall patterns of global governance and North-South relations?
