Why does the presence of coethnics across the border sometimes lead to categorizing that land as part of the homeland, but sometimes not? We argue this variation is shaped by whether regimes use ethnic logics to elicit domestic legitimacy. Relying on shared ethnicity for legitimacy elevates ethnicity’s political salience, making ethnic groups living across borders socially meaningful and enabling continued claims to their land as part of the homeland. Using survival analysis, we demonstrate that coethnics’ presence on lost lands significantly influences whether those lands maintain their homeland status largely in contexts where ethnic legitimacy is prominent, such as autocracies, states that marginalize populations along ethnic lines, and countries where the government’s legitimacy cannot be based on economic performance. We also illustrate this phenomenon with a case study of Croatia. Our findings have important implications for understanding how ethnicity interacts with domestic politics to shape territorial conflict.
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