Endorsers,challengers or builders? Political parties’ diaspora outreach in a post-conflict state

Abstract

How do parties in government and opposition in a contested post-conflict state reach out to their diasporas abroad? Do their policies overlap or differ, and if so why? Scholarly accounts of sending states’ outreach towards diasporas have paid little attention to the variety of actors and processes within sending states, and have grouped states with contested sovereignty in the same cluster as states for which sovereignty is not a salient issue. This article focuses on one of these contested states, Kosovo, and on the party engagement with diasporas abroad that has emerged there. I conceptualize three types of extraterritorial party outreach – state-endorsing, state-challenging, and party-building. I argue that parties that emerge from secessionism and warfare are more likely to reach out to the diaspora through a state-endorsing or party-building approach, depending on whether they are in government or opposition. Parties that are newly institutionalized in the post-conflict polity seek to engage the diaspora through a state-endorsing or state-challenging approach.