How do countries of origin engage migrants and diasporas? Multiple actors and comparative perspectives

Abstract

The relationship of states to populations beyond their borders is of increasing interest to those seeking to understand the international politics of migration. This introduction to the special issue of International Political Science Review on diasporas and sending states provides an overview of existing explanations for why states reach out to diasporas and migrants abroad and problematizes in important ways the idea that the sending state is a unitary actor. It highlights the need to examine the extraterritorial behaviour of agents within countries of origin, such as parties, bureaucracies and non-state actors, and to account for why and how their outreach differs. This entails looking at how outreach is conditioned by a state’s sovereignty and capacity, type of nationalism, and regime character. This special issue starts a new conversation by delving deeper into the motivations of agents within countries of origin, and how their outreach is determined by the states and regimes in which they are embedded.