Description
How do emigration states influence interstate bargaining politics in the international system? While international relations scholars of migration have highlighted the 'weak' negotiating power of Global South states in the international system, they have yet to feature emigration states' multilevel diplomatic strategies to overcome structural power asymmetries vis a vis powerful host immigration state. Building on Hollifield's migration state framework via the Philippine state, I argue that emigration states deploy multilevel diplomatic strategies via norm diffusion across national (learning), regional (cooperation), and global (signaling) levels toward multiple state and non-state actors (international organizations) to increase their global power in interstate bargaining. Second, these multilevel diplomatic strategies reflect their complex foreign policy agencies toward host states in the Global South. Using semi-structured interviews with Philippine state and non-state officials, process tracing, and document analysis of English, Arabic, and Tagalog state and policy documents, the study provides empirical insights into emigration states' multilevel diplomatic practices in interstate bargaining in the Global South. Theoretically, the study highlights Global South states' intricate cooperative diplomacy strategies that go beyond the conventional zero-sum game approach.
