Description
In the existing literature on exiled political activism, the case of exiled opposition groups and the effects of hosting such groups on a host state's foreign relations have been vastly neglected. Considering the existential threat exiled oppositions often represent for the governments or regimes of their state of origin however, we should expect that hosting exiled opposition would constitute a salient knot of diplomatic tension between host and home states. In this article I examine whether dissent hosting does effectively seem to affect host state-home state bilateral relations adversely. Working on several cases of Iranian opposition groups hosted by France, and collecting data from archival material and interview with MFA practitioners, I show that adverse effects often remain both limited and far from systematic. I find two key explanations to such a counter-intuitive result. First, the effects of dissent-hosting on bilateral relations are heavily reliant on pre-existing bilateral dynamics. Second, these effects are significantly dampened by an array of host state practices and strategies in navigating and mitigating the diplomatic tensions surrounding dissent-hosting. I provide an overview of those practices and strategies, and emphasise how contestation of dissent-hosting as a diplomatic signal, or non-acknowledgement of tensions constitute dominant strategies in host state attempts to mitigate dissent-hosting's adverse effects on their bilateral relations.
