This document summarizes a research article that examines why some ethnopolitical organizations receive support from their diaspora groups while others do not. It reviews previous literature that generally views diasporas as potentially destabilizing forces that can exacerbate conflicts in their homelands. However, some recent studies have found that diasporas can also play positive roles in conflict resolution. The authors analyze data on 112 minority political organizations in the Middle East from the Minorities at Risk Organizational Behavior dataset to identify factors that influence whether an organization receives diaspora support or not, such as the organization's power, ideology, political behavior, and treatment by the government. Preliminary evidence suggests that organizations that are most effective at gaining attention through

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Studies in Conflict & Terrorism
ISSN: 1057-610X (Print) 1521-0731 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uter20
Attention Getters: Diaspora Support For
Ethnopolitical Organizations in the Middle East
Victor Asal & R. William Ayres
To cite this article: Victor Asal & R. William Ayres (2017): Attention Getters: Diaspora Support
For Ethnopolitical Organizations in the Middle East, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, DOI:
10.1080/1057610X.2017.1283194
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2017.1283194
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Attention Getters: Diaspora Support For Ethnopolitical Organizations in the Middle East
Attention Getters
Victor Asal1
, R. William Ayres2,*
1
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs &
Policy, University at Albany, State University of New York, vasal@albany.edu
2
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Associate Dean of the Graduate School
Wright State University, 3640 Colonel Glenn Highway, Dayton, OH 45435,
*
corresponding author r.ayres@wright.edu
Abstract:
Why do some ethnopolitical organizations get support from their diaspora while others do not?
There is little analysis that examines why some organizations (both violent and nonviolent) get
support. Using data on 112 organizations in the Middle East we examine how factors like the
power of the organization, ideology, political behavior and government treatment might impact
the likelihood of an organization getting support from its diaspora. We argue that contentious
political behavior should have the largest impact on such support. We find that those that do the
best job of getting attention through visible action get the most support.
Biographies

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VICTOR ASAL, b. 1965, PhD in Political Science (University of Maryland, 2003); Associate
Professor of Political Science and Chair of Public Administration, the University at Albany State
University of New York (2003– ).
R. WILLIAM AYRES, b. 1969, PhD in Political Science (The Ohio State University, 1997);
Associate Professor and Associate Dean, Wright State University (2010– ); various academic
positions in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Mississippi, and Maryland. Most recent book: For Kin or
Country: Xenophobia, Nationalism, and War (with Stephen Saideman; Columbia University
Press, 2015).

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Introduction
Scholars of international conflict have long recognized that the boundaries between
―international‖ and ―internal‖ conflict have been eroding for years, and may have largely
disappeared. Rare indeed is the political conflict of any significant size and duration that does not
attract significant interest and involvement from actors outside the state. Even as ―traditional‖
international conflicts and state-on-state wars have declined, ―internal‖ or civil conflicts have
become increasingly internationalized.1
Nowhere are these international connections to ostensibly ―domestic‖ conflicts clearer than in
cases of ethnic or identity conflict. After centuries of globalized migration, nearly every
identifiable ethnic group on the planet has a diaspora somewhere else than its traditional
homeland.2
And because of the history of boundary-drawing in the modern international state
system, in many cases those homelands are divided by international borders, creating diasporas
with the stroke of a pen.
It makes sense that members of diasporas would take an active interest in what happens to their
kin ―back home‖. In many cases, there are family and economic ties between these groups.3
If
the homeland becomes embroiled in conflict, and if the diaspora lives in an area that is both
relatively safe and more prosperous than the conflict zone back home, those fighting the conflict
will naturally use whatever channels they can to find sources of support and refuge. Even if the

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homeland does not become embroiled in violent conflict, the existence of ethnopolitical divisions
nearly always creates contentious politics, giving diasporas an opportunity to take sides and
weigh in on controversial issues.4
The logic of this argument has been reinforced by some extremely visible (in the United States,
at least) cases over the past few decades. Substantial literatures have grown up around observing
and cataloging the relationships between Cuban exiles in Florida and the Castro regime5
, and
between Irish-Americans and the ongoing Troubles in Northern Ireland6
. John Mearsheimer and
Stephen Walt have written extensively about the influence of Zionist diaspora organizations in
the United States and their impact on the conflicts between Israel, the Palestinians, and various
Arab neighbors.7
Much of this attention has focused on diasporas‘ use of US foreign policy as a lever to influence
events in their homeland. But diaspora organizations are also capable of acting independently by
providing resources, money, safe space (depending on distance from a conflict if there is one),
logistics and communications support, and even diplomatic and negotiation assistance.8
Much of
the literature on outside groups‘ involvement has focused on the extent to which such external
support can exacerbate existing conflicts.9
Some recent literature has begun to re-examine this
question and explore whether diasporas can also play a positive role in conflict resolution.10

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In all of this study, the driving question has been conflict outcome – does the conflict get worse,
get better, end sooner, last longer? Those are important questions, but they assume that ethnic
diaspora groups will get involved in conflicts or contentious politics involving their kin back in
the homeland. Given the emphasis placed on high-profile cases of involvement (Israel, Northern
Ireland, Cuba), that bias is not surprising. But are we missing the ―dogs that don‘t bark‖ – that is,
the cases that don‘t happen? Despite our assumptions, there is variation in the world: some
organizations get support from their diaspora kin and some do not. What determines this
difference? This is the key question this article seeks to answer.
In this article, we do not attempt to build and test a comprehensive theory covering all factors
that determine diaspora support. Rather, we are taking a first step towards such a theory by
shedding light on this question with data from the Minorities at Risk Organizational Behavior
(MAROB) dataset, which has coded data (including the presence/absence and level of support
from diasporas) for 112 minority political organizations within the Middle East. In the next
section of the article we will survey the existing literature, largely to define what is already
known and not known, and lay out some theoretical expectations for what the drivers of
difference might be. We will then present results and analysis from the MAROB data and discuss
the implications of those findings for the expectations we lay out, for future research, and for
potential applications to the policy world.
Existing Literature

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In much of the existing literature on diasporas and their impact on conflict and politics in their
homelands, diasporas have been considered potentially dangerous and destabilizing forces.
Popular mainstream views of diasporas have characterized them as being generally more
hardline than their counterparts at home, a view often fueled by a small number of high-profile
cases. A RAND study in 2001 argued that, post-Cold War, diasporas have been a key factor in
sustaining insurgencies in light of declining support from states.11
Shain & Barth pointed out that
―[d]iasporas often support homeland struggles against neighboring states, or kin-communities‘
struggles to obtain statehood.‖12
Focusing on the Bosnian and Eritrean cases, Al Ali, Black and
Koser found much the same thing.13
As one scholar put it, ―[s]tudies about diasporas and conflict
are dominated by the negative impact of diaspora politics.‖14
The notion that diasporas are
potentially destabilizing or negative forces in conflict has become a question not of if, but if how
and why.
Writing about the Armenian-American and Jewish-American diasporas, Yossi Shain points out
that ―[i]n many respects, … diasporas are the carriers of kinship mythologies that do not always
coincide with the central national narratives as they have been constructed by their kin state‘s
governments or their homeland‘s people.‖15
In this regard, ―[d]iaspora hard-liners are said to care
less about the homeland‘s present and future than about the past‘s dead.‖16
This kind of logic is
easy to imagine: members of diasporas are often people, or children of people, who were driven
out by conflict. The trauma of involuntary relocation and the violence which preceded it thus

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become central points of identity for the group, and the defining characteristic that ties them to
the homeland – particularly when (as was the case for Armenians and Jews, among others) the
violence was ethnic and group-directed in nature. At the same time, members of the diaspora do
not live in the conflict zone anymore and are therefore immune to the ongoing effects of the
conflict. They do not pay the daily price of ongoing violence that might lead their kin to the kind
of hurting stalemate that causes organizations to seek peace through compromise.17
Diasporas as
independent actors therefore have every incentive to take an uncompromising stance with regard
to a conflict, and suffer very little if any consequence from doing so.18
In cases where diasporas
wield significant resources or influence, therefore, they can often be a significant obstacle to
peace.
Other scholars have voiced similar concerns about the potential impact that migrated diasporas
can have. Adamson pointed out that ―[e]ver larger flows of people across borders; increasingly
multicultural populations; and the emergence of informal, migration-based, transnational
networks that circulate capital, goods, and ideas—all challenge notions of the territorial state as a
bounded entity with a clearly demarcated territory and population.‖19
Moreover, because
―[g]lobalization processes are marked by an increased mobility of people, capital and goods, and
ideas and information across national borders‖, ―transnationally-organized violent political
opposition movements and nationalist-separatist movements‖ are ―transforming the international
security environment‖.20
In other words, the easier it is to move money, goods, people, and ideas
around the globe, the more impact diasporas can have on conflict in their homelands. The nature

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of the global system, in which borders serve less and less as barriers to anything and where
diasporas serve as information and resource superhighways, is thus a factor enabling diaspora
organizations to have greater impact on their homelands than ever before—an impact that is, in
the case of conflict, expected to be negative as it enables rebelling organizations to marshal more
resources than they could do on their own.
Other research has found that ―ethnic kin have a discernible impact on internal conflict‖,
although this effect was found to be conditional based on the size of the minority group within
the homeland.21
In this case, the question was not whether diaspora groups exacerbate conflict—
this the authors took as a given, based on references to other literature. Rather, they sought to
look at the question of under what conditions this is the case—looking primarily at the outcome
(onset of conflict) in cases where ―ethnonationalist triads‖ exist, as a function of the balance of
power between government and rebelling ethnic group within the homeland. The findings
suggested that, given the right balance of power within the homeland, the existence of an
available diaspora group could contribute substantially to the likelihood of conflict breaking out
in the first place—although the authors did not examine the mechanisms by which this would
occur. This establishes some correlation; but a part of the mechanism of cause must be a decision
by the diaspora to get involved – to lend support, to put some of its resources into the conflict.
That decision is the question of this article.

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Nearly all scholars agree that diasporas represent a potential actor, and that this complicates the
traditional notion of conflicts as dyads with two sides (hence Cederman‘s ―ethnonationalist
triads‖). Diasporas are not ―third parties‖ in the traditional sense, because they have a tie to one
side of the conflict that, while it can be interpreted, cannot be abandoned – so they are not
completely free to engage in rational-actor politics (switching sides, balancing, bandwagoning,
etc.) At the same time, other actors in the conflict have to deal with the existence of the diaspora
in ways that may alter their behavior. King and Melvin make just such an argument. Like many
other authors they focus on the potential danger of diasporas: ―transborder ethnic ties can or may
increase the insecurity of states.‖22
But their interest is in explaining the behavior of the
homeland state – ―to explore the circumstances under which states come to see themselves as the
national homelands of distinct ethnic groups, interpret their role as that of a spokesman for the
interests of a co-ethnic group abroad, and attempt to craft foreign policy accordingly.‖23
While
an important question, this assumes that the state is the important actor and the diaspora a
background or an object of policy.
A few scholars have looked at diasporas as actors unto themselves, whose choices are worthy of
explanation. Shain and Barth, in particular, are interested in the role that identity and interests
play in determining what diaspora groups do or do not do. They recognize that diasporas can be
passive or active players, although the latter is a much more interesting phenomenon on which
they focus their attention.24
The explanation they offer for diaspora behavior turns on the
interests of the diaspora group. These interests can be everything from the ―narrow bureaucratic

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interests of their organizations‖ to their ―definition of identity‖ and ―feelings of solidarity and
kinship‖.25
This is consistent with an interest-group theory of politics: ―diasporas are interest
groups participating in the domestic political process of the homeland.‖26
It is only because of
these groups‘ location (outside the homeland), and therefore access to resources (money, people,
international institutions) outside the typical domestic political sphere, that makes them different
from standard interest groups. This also makes them more dangerous, as they ―may be the source
for recruits, funding, or arms for violent activities on behalf of their kin-states‘ or ‗exert direct
influence through political proxies at home‖.27
Of course, assuming that a given diaspora – even a segment of it in a specific host country – is a
unitary actor is also a simplification of reality. Examining a series of diaspora groups in Canada
and their involvement with conflicts within their respective homelands, Bell finds that groups
often engaged in power struggles within the diaspora over appropriate responses to the conflict
back home, and that ―contributions‖ to the cause were not always made voluntarily.28
―Unity of
purpose‖ was sometimes enforced by implicit threats, coercion, blackmail, or even violence, and
different factions struggled for control of the centers of power within the diaspora community
(religious institutions, for example) in an effort to mobilize the community‘s resources for their
preferred position. Conflicts, like onions, have layers, and this is true especially in diasporas
which present a separate community in which existing fault lines can recreate themselves.

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More recently, some scholars examining specific cases have started to call into question the
notion that diasporas are inherently dangerous and destabilizing forces. Antwi-Boateng points
out that diasporas can play both roles – that while
―diaspora involvement in contentious politics that pits the latter‘s interests against
that of home-based citizens in the quest for power and influence is bound to stir
up conflict … noncontentious political activities aimed at lobbying host-country
support for peace building, building rational legal institutions, diaspora influence
on family and community members, and financially supporting moderate political
parties instead of belligerent homeland forces bode well for peace building.‖29
The author finds both kinds of activities in the case of Liberian diaspora in the US and the
conflict in their homeland, concluding that ―political participation of the U.S.-based Liberian
diaspora can contribute toward peacebuilding‖.30
Other scholars have reached similar
conclusions in the cases of Ethiopia31
, Somalia32
, and Sri Lanka33
. Some have even gone so far
as to point out that nonstate actors like diasporas are, in many cases, too fragmented to be treated
as unitary players at all, and therefore should be expected to have multiple sorts of impacts on
conflicts simultaneously.34

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With a few exceptions, existing literature has not addressed the question we are interested in:
when do we see diaspora support for organizations involve in homeland-based politics and when
do we not? There is a widespread understanding that such support, where it does occur, can be
both powerful and differential in its impact. What we need is to understand the potential drivers
of that relationship, to help better understand (or predict) the outcomes.
Theory & Expectations
An explanation of why some diasporas support their kin in contested politics in the homeland,
and some do not, requires taking into account a range of different factors. The self-perceived
interests of the diaspora group are surely one part of the equation, but what of other variables?35
To begin to fashion some theoretical expectations, we need to first identify the scope of our
inquiry.
Defining ―diaspora‖ has not been particularly problematic, and for the most part much of the
literature simply assumes a common understanding. Shain & Barth have a definition that seems
to apply well: a diaspora is

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―a people with a common origin who reside, more or less on a permanent basis, outside
the borders of their ethnic or religious homeland…. Diaspora members identify
themselves, or are identified by others—inside and outside their homeland—as part of the
homeland‘s national community‖.36
As such, diaspora are a particular kind of political interest group—bound inexorably by ties of
blood or faith (or both) to another group of people elsewhere, and living away from the place of
the entire group‘s ―origin‖. The nuances of social construction theory aside, diasporas have little
choice but to be diasporas, unless (as individuals) they are both willing to assimilate entirely into
a new culture and that culture is willing to accept them fully—conditions almost never
completely met in the real world.
Diasporas often find themselves removed from their homeland either because of an immediate
conflict from which they have fled in large numbers or because the homeland is in a place of
recurring conflict that flares up again and again.37
This helps explain the predilection in the
literature for looking at the interaction between diasporas and conflict. To expand our view, we
do not assume the existence of an active conflict (in terms of violent struggle) for all homeland
ethnonationalist organizations, but recognize that all such cases contain the potential for
conflict.38

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Broadly speaking, an explanation for why some ethnopolitical actors get support from their
diaspora kin and some do not must include at least three categories of factors:
1) The Characteristics of the Homeland Kin: Do the organizational, demographic, or
behavioral characteristics of the homeland-based ethnic kin differentiate it from others in
ways that make support more likely?
2) The Characteristics of the Diaspora: What factors involving the demographic,
geographic, or political nature and circumstances of the diaspora make it more likely to
support their kin abroad?
3) The Characteristics of the Situation: What characteristics of the political environment
within the homeland facilitate or deter support from diasporas?
A theory of diaspora support in such situations should therefore be interested in three things: the
nature and behavior of the homeland kin, the nature and characteristics of the potentially
supporting diaspora, and the structural characteristics of politics within the homeland itself and
the international context in which it takes place. Given the paucity of both theory and evidence to
this question, building and testing such a theory is far beyond the scope of any one article. We

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hope to shed some light on the issue, however, by testing a particular set of variables clustered in
one of these three areas. As with any effort to answer a previously unaddressed question, a
certain amount of ―fishing‖ is needed to begin to understand which factors matter and which
ones do not.
For our purposes we are going to focus on the first category—who the ethnic kin organizations in
the homeland are and what they are doing. There are plenty of explanations as to why this should
matter. Setting aside questions of the unity of the actors, support from a diaspora group to a kin
organization in the homeland requires two sides: a diaspora which mobilizes resources and sends
them, and a politically mobilized kin organization which receives those resources and puts them
to use. If the receiving organization is not going to use the resources in the way the diaspora
intends – either because of conflicting views or because the receiving organization lacks
capacity39
– the resources are unlikely to be sent in the first place. Questions of both motive and
capability of the receiving organization are therefore important in influencing whether resources
are likely to be gathered and sent by the diaspora overseas.
To focus this a little bit closer, we can fashion expectations for when diasporas might or might
not support their kin organizations based on four potential factors:
- What the homeland kin organization can do (its power and capabilities)

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- How the kin organization intends to do it (its broad approach to politics or conflict within
the homeland)
- What the kin organization is trying to accomplish (its ideology and goals)
- What is happening to the kin organization (what their circumstances are within the
homeland)
Each of these factors can generate a testable hypothesis. The first is already established in the
literature: more powerful organizations tend to attract more support.40
Given that mobilizing and
deploying resources is generally a minimally rational decision, this stands to reason – a diaspora
group is unlikely to send money, people, or anything else if there is no viable actor to receive and
deploy them. This leads to our first hypothesis:
H1: Kin organizations that are more capable or powerful are more likely to receive
support from their diaspora abroad.
If capability is a necessary condition, the manner in which that capability is deployed also likely
plays a role. Organizations in contentious politics can use all manner of strategies and tactics.
Those that use the tactics and approaches most favored by their diaspora are the most likely to
receive support. For organizations in conflict, the most basic choice revolves around the use of

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violence – will the organization use violent means to achieve its ends or not? Given that violence
tends to be a ―trump card‖ – beyond a minimal level, intentional violence largely overrides
anything else an organization does – this can be thought of as a mostly binary choice
(organizations may employ both violence and nonviolent resistance, but above a fairly low
threshold, the violence is what we see). Homeland organizations not yet involved in open
conflict also face this choice – if standard political strategies are not working to achieve their
ends, do they adopt violence as a tactic of change? Violence is also more visible and therefore
more likely to highlight the kin organization‘s plight and need for support in ways that are seen
by the diaspora. It may also be the case that the visibility of action is what is most important here,
such that highly visible non-violent behavior should also have an impact. Given the anecdotal
observation noted above, that diasporas tend to be more hawkish than their kin at home, this
suggests a pair of hypotheses:
H2a: Kin organizations that engage in violence as a means of conflict or political change
are more likely to receive support from their diaspora abroad than those that engage only
in nonviolent tactics.
H2b: Kin organizations that employ visible protest activity as a means of effecting
political change are more likely to receive support from their diaspora abroad than those
who do not protest.

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Both capacity and means are, of course, deployed in service of some particular end. What is the
organization trying to accomplish? Is it struggling simply for more recognition or power within
the homeland‘s existing political structure, or is it seeking more radical change? As with most
appeals for political support, calls for moderate change get less attention than calls for a radical
overhaul of the status quo.41
Moreover, as mentioned above diasporas are often thought to be
more extreme in their views than those living in the homeland, and therefore more likely to
support more extreme demands.42
This would be particularly true where those demands are tied
to the underlying ethnonationalist and/or religious identity that binds kin and diaspora together.
This generates a third hypothesis:
H3: Kin groups that seek change on ethnonationalist or religious dimensions are more
likely to be supported by their diaspora abroad than those that do not.
Finally, support for homeland kin organizations is often easier to mobilize on the basis not only
of what the organization is doing, but what is being done to them by the host state or surrounding
communities. Discrimination, oppression, and targeted repression are all attention-getters that are
more likely to elicit support from potential sympathizers outside the homeland. This is especially
true of diaspora communities, which often have family ties to their kin back home and may

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therefore feel the impact of state repression more immediately and directly. This suggests our
final hypothesis:
H4: Kin organizations that are the subject of significant repression or discrimination in
the homeland are more likely to receive support from their diaspora abroad than those
that are not.
While this set of hypotheses is by no means exhaustive, it gives us a starting point. In the next
section we will discuss the data available to test these expectations and the methods we use to do
so, followed by the results of our tests.
Data & Variables
In order to examine the factors that make diaspora support for ethnopolitical organizations more
likely, we use the Middle East Minorities at Risk Organizational Behavior (MAROB) dataset.43
The dataset consists of yearly data on 112 organizations that claim to represent Minorities At
Risk groups in the Middle East from 1980 through 2004. The key advantage of the dataset is that
it focuses on a comprehensive set of ethnopolitical organizations within the parameters of MAR
and does not focus only on violent organizations. Excluding nonviolent groups is a shortcoming

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of much of the current literature on political group behavior.44
MAROB, in addition to having
both violent and nonviolent organizations, also has organizations that only use traditional politics.
This allows us to examine the potential impact on diaspora support of different kinds of behavior.
The specific selection criteria for MAROB are:45
 The organization makes explicit claims to represent the interests of one or
more ethnic groups and/or the organization’s members are primarily
members of a specific ethnic minority.
 The organization is political in its goals and activities.
 The organization is active at a regional and/or national level.
 The organization was not created by a government.
 The organization is active for at least three consecutive years between
1980 and 2006.
 Umbrella organizations (coalitions/alliances) are NOT coded. Instead,
member organizations are coded.
MAROB does have some key constraints. First, the data we are using here only focuses on
ethnopolitical organizations in the Middle East, so we need to be careful of making broad
generalizations to other regions based on our results. In addition we need be cognizant of the
MAR dataset‘s constraints – for example, this analysis cannot shed light on diaspora support for
empowered majorities like Jews in the state of Israel. We believe, however, that this data set will

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shed light on our key question: when do ethnopolitical organizations receive support from their
diasporas and when don‘t they?
Table I lists the MAROB organizations that received diaspora support in the 1980-2004 time
frame. Looking at this list suggests that contentious politics – and violent contention in particular
– is likely to be associated with diaspora support. The groups here represent 105 organization
years (6.09% of the total organizational years in the dataset) where an organization received
support from their diaspora abroad.
To test our hypotheses, we need measures of our dependent variable, diaspora support, as well as
measures of organizational capability, violent and nonviolent behavior, organizational goals and
demands, and the level of repression and discrimination that groups and their constituents face.
All of these are measured within the MAROB data set.
All the variables used in our analysis, save two, are either taken directly from the MAROB data
or modified from that data. The level of violence an organization is involved in is measured
using the orgreb variable. This is an eight point scale that measures the level of violence used by
an organization in a given year from ―no violence‖ to ―civil war with rebel military units holding
territory‖. To capture the level of nonviolent contention we use the variable domorgprot which is
a six point scale that identifies the level of nonviolent contention, from ―no contentious activity‖

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to ―large demonstrations with more than 10,000 participants‖.46
To measure the electoral
engagement of an organization we use the orgst3 variable, which identifies whether the
organization engages in such strategies on a three point scale. To measure the religious ideology
of an organization we use the binary relorg scale that identifies if ―the organization advocates
policies that incorporate religion into public life.‖ To code for the popularity of the organization
we use the orgpop variable in MAROB, which codes organizations as ―fringe‖, ―one of several‖,
or the ―dominant organization‖. To capture the nature of the organization‘s demands, we created
a separatist variable from the orgpolgr variable in MAROB. This is a binary variable that is
coded 1 if an organization‘s goal is to ―create a separate state for the organization or revanchist
change in border of state‖.47
To capture the level of level of repression, we altered the existing
MAROB repression variable to create an ordered variable.48
We recoded the variable such that:
0 = Organization is legal and tolerated OR Organization is illegal but tolerated
OR
Organization is illegal but tolerated
1 = Organization is illegal and is subjected to periodic repression
2 = Organization is illegal and is targeted for ongoing repression by the state
We also want to control for the political context in which organizations operate. To capture the
possible impact of political system of the host state, we used polity as a source of data. In order

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to include states that were in transition, and so would not appear in the polity data, we created a
binary variable that is coded 1 if the state scores a 6 or above on the polity scale, separating
democracies from all other regime types.49
Finally, to measure our dependent variable of
diaspora support we use the MAROB variable diasup, which is a binary variable coded as a 1 if
the organization has received diaspora support in a given year.50
Table II presents the descriptive
statistics for the variables in the analysis.
Methods & Analysis
Because our dependent variable is binary and coded at the organizational level, we analyzed the
data using a logistic regression in STATA. To control for temporal effects we used the i.year
command in STATA, since we have time series panel data. To test for collinearity we used a VIF
test; all of our variables except the i.year dummies had VIF scores below 2. We generated
probabilities using the prchange and prtab commands in STATA.51
Table III shows the results of our analysis as well as the probabilities generated for the
significant variables using the prchange command as the independent variable moves from its
minimum value to its maximum value. As one can see from the results, these findings lend
support (at least in the Middle Eastern ethnopolitical context) to the hypothesis that organizations
that embrace contentious politics – and particularly violence – are much more likely to receive

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diaspora support. The only variables that are significant are terrorist activity, battle activity and
domestic protest. Protest has the biggest impact, increasing the likelihood of diaspora support
by 16.06%. Violence against civilians has almost as large an effect, but interestingly violence
against soldiers has about half as much impact as terrorist violence and even less when compared
to protests.
Table IV uses the prtab command to examine the joint impact on the probability of diaspora
support of all three statistically significant variables. In Table IV we use the prtab command to
see what the joint impact on diaspora support of increased contention is. This analysis underlines
the impact of contention as an attractive feature for diaspora support –the more contention (both
violent and nonviolent) rises the more intense the likelihood of diaspora support becomes.
Results & Interpretation
The results reported above stem from data involving ethnopolitical organizations in the Middle
East and North Africa only. There are a host of reasons to suspect that this region may behave

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differently from other parts of the world. All of the discussion below must be seen in this context
– this is a preliminary investigation into a part of the world which has seen a tremendous amount
of contentious politics in recent decades.52
With that said: in the context of our expectations, these results are striking. The positive finding
that contention increases the likelihood of support is not surprising – there are sound reasons for
why organizations engaged in contention and violence are more likely to receive support than
those that are not. It is likely that this is partly because of the ―trump card‖ nature of violence,
and the fact that violence and contention create greater needs (weapons, people, money, medical
support) on the part of the organization. But it is also true, from the standpoint of a diaspora, that
contention and violence make the organization more visible than when they are absent. Diaspora
are, by definition, removed from the situation. They get their information from a distance,
through media (both specific to the organization and more general international reporting).
Media organizations tend to pay more attention to contention, conflict, and violence; when things
are peaceful, attention shifts away to other things and the members of a diaspora can easily be
caught up in their own daily lives within the host country. The fact that protest and violence
seem to have an additive function (see Table IV, above) seems to support the supposition that is
it volume that is driving support.
Equally striking is the nearly complete lack of support for any of the other hypotheses. Based on
the data used here, it does not seem to matter at all how popular an organization is, how extreme

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its ideology is, or whether it is being repressed or discriminated against by the state. While there
are solid logical reasons for thinking that these things should matter, it appears based on this
analysis that they do not. If this finding holds for other regions and organizations, this is a most
important point for future theorizing: the driver of diaspora support for ethnopolitical
organizations may be simply what they do, not what they are, what they say, or what is
happening to them. In this case, these are very important ―non-barking dogs‖, which may enable
us to significantly narrow the scope of study in the future.
There is an interesting secondary implication in the finding that, while contention and violence
draw support, repression does not. If we are correct that at least part of this transmission
mechanism is about getting attention, the implication is that repression and discrimination are
not, in and of themselves, very visible to people (even diaspora) living outside the homeland.53
Another possible vector: repression is more likely from authoritarian states, which may also be
better at blocking or deterring support from diasporas abroad. Violence might loosen that control
by tying up regime resources, therefore allowing support to flow more freely from outsiders.
Both of these mechanisms have potential policy as well as theoretical consequences deserving of
further study, which we will leave to future efforts.
Conclusions

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We started with a simple question, largely unaddressed by existing scholarship: when do
ethnopolitical organizations get support from their diasporas abroad and when do they not? The
results presented here shed some interesting light on this question, but raise as many questions as
they answer. Important caveats, of course, apply: we have only looked at one region (the Middle
East), and there are a number of variables and hypotheses that we have not yet examined (see the
theoretical discussion above). But within these constraints, our results move us down the road in
some important ways.
First, the main positive finding is a confirmation of one of our hypotheses: that the more
contentious and violent an organization, the more likelihood it has of receiving support from its
diaspora abroad. This suggests that conventional wisdom may be right – diasporas really are
more hawkish than their kin at home, and so support more hawkish behavior. It also underscores
the fundamental nature of confrontation and violence: their use tends to alter the landscape, raise
the stakes, and garner a lot of attention. This is not a novel finding, but it is good to see it
strongly confirmed in this context. Moreover, this is one finding that we can be fairly confident
will hold up across other regions. It seems very unlikely that contentious politics is important
only in the context of the Middle East.
Indeed, if this correlation is a global one we should expect to see regional variations in diaspora
support around the world. The Middle East is a particularly violent region, with a long history of
intra-state disputes with significant levels of violence. We should therefore expect to see higher

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levels of support in this area than in others that have different histories and profiles of violent
conflict. This suggests another way to test this hypothesis on a broader scale – perhaps by
comparing to a different region with less violence in recent decades like Eastern Europe – which
we hope to be able to follow through in future work.
The lack of result for the other hypotheses raises a host of questions. Perhaps material power and
capability is more important than popularity, which might rescue H1. Maybe radicalism really is
not that important, despite our perceptions in the West – how would we test this more
thoroughly? Why is it that what happens to organizations (whether they are subject to
discrimination or repression) does not matter? Are diasporas just not paying attention? Is
repression invisible until someone stands up to fight it? Finally, do any of these findings hold
outside of this one regional context, and how (and why) might regions differ from one another?
The first response to these questions, of course, is to gather more data. We need to see whether
these same findings hold up for other areas of the world (Africa, Asia, Latin America, etc.) We
also need to see whether we can code into the data better measures of the concepts we have.
Finally, we need to develop data to test the other two clusters of hypotheses – the characteristics
of diaspora and the circumstances surrounding conflicts – to flesh out what additional variance
can be explained beyond these results.

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Taking the conclusions we have now, however, does raise some interesting implications for the
policy arena and political behavior. If broadly understood, these findings might make it more
likely that ethnopolitical organizations (and political organizations of other kinds) will engage in
more contentious and/or violent tactics as a means of drawing in more support, especially if they
have had difficulty getting the attention of their diaspora kin previously.54
For those on the
diaspora side who are trying to mobilize support for their kin at home, this suggests that they
should play up the ―struggle‖ and tell more tales of action and heroic resistance rather than
victimization and repression.
For those of us on the outside, the possibility that extremism doesn‘t matter (if this holds up
under further scrutiny) is extremely important, even if confined to the context of the Middle East.
Current discussions about the conflicts in Syria, Egypt, and Iraq center around the question of
whether more extremist religious organizations have an easier time getting support than their
more moderate cousins. While this may be true in specific instances, there is a tendency to
generalize a trend and sound the alarm about rising extremism (an alarm that has been going off
at least since the publication of Samuel Huntington‘s ―Clash of Civilizations?‖).55
Perhaps the
concern about a systemic effect is overblown, and we are being driven (as often happens) by a
few highly visible cases.
As we have said all along, this article represents a preliminary investigation into an important but
previously ignored question. We can now begin to see the outlines of an answer, and have some

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indications as to where to look and where not to look in future work. Diasporas will remain
important players in politics around the world, their impact rising with the increase in global
interconnectivity. Ethnopolitical organizations will continue to seek outside support as they
struggle for political change. We need to better understand the behavior of both if we hope to
have any influence on the outcomes of events around the world.

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Table I: Organizations That Receive Diaspora Support
Organization Country
Amal Lebanon
Fatah/Palestinian Liberation
Organization
Israel
Front des Forces Socialistes Algeria
Hamas Lebanon
Hamas Jordan
Hamas Israel
Hezbollah Lebanon
National Liberation Movement of
Southern Azerbaijan
Iran
Palestinian Islamic Jihad Israel
Partiya Karkari Kurdistan Turkey
Progressive Socialist Party Lebanon
Rally for Culture and Democracy Algeria
Saudi Hizbollah Saudi Arabia
Supreme Council for the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq
Iraq

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Table II: Descriptive Statistics
Variable
Variable name Obs Mean
Std.
Dev. Min Max
Diaspora
support diasup 1724 0.0609 0.2392 0 1
Popularity of
organization orgpop 1716 2.0280 0.4661 1 3
Organizational
violence
against
civilians ORGST7GTD 1754 0.1123 0.3158 0 1
Organizational
violence
against soldiers UCDPBattle~h 1743 0.0677 0.2513 0 1
Domestic
protest activity Domorgprot 1754 0.4629 1.1090 0 5
Electoral
activity ORGST3 1755 0.4570 0.6926 0 2
Nationalist
ideology natorgnew 1755 0.5271 0.4994 0 1
Religious
ideology relorg 1755 0.2536 0.4352 0 1
Repression by
the state ordinalsev~n 1720 0.2308 0.5056 0 2
Democratic
nature of the
state polity2_6o~r 1755 0.2724 0.4453 0 1

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Table III: Logistic regression and prchange probability with Diaspora support as the dependent
variable
Variable
Variable name Coef. Std. Err. P>z
Change in
probabilities
of diaspora
support from
min to max.
Popularity of
organization orgpop 0.7405 0.6554 0.258 NS
Organizational
violence against
civilians ORGST7GTD 2.0652 0.6573 0.002 12.71%
Organizational
violence against
soldiers UCDPBattle_Death 1.3898 0.5722 0.015 6.76%
Domestic protest
activity domorgprot 0.4585 0.1039 0 16.06%
Electoral activity ORGST3 -0.2502 0.3274 0.445 NS
Nationalist
ideology natorgnew -1.1340 0.9325 0.224 NS
Religious
ideology relorg 0.2495 0.9818 0.799 NS
Repression by the
state ordinalsevererepresssion 0.6698 0.4293 0.119 NS
Democratic
nature of the state polity2_6orhigher -0.1206 0.7488 0.872 NS
Number of obs=1637
Wald chi2(32)=717.87

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Prob > chi2=0
Pseudo R2=0.2964

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Table IV: Prtab generated probabilities of the joint impact on the probability of diaspora support
of three variables having a statistically significant effect
Prote
st 0 1 2 3 4 5
Battl
e
Deat
hs 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1
Use of
Terroris
m
0
1.62 6.19 2.53 9.44 3.95
14.1
6 6.1
20.6
9 9.32
29.2
1
13.9
9
39.4
9
1 11.4
7
34.2
1
17.0
1
45.1
3
24.4
8
56.5
4
33.8
9 67.3
44.7
8 76.5
56.1
9
83.7
3

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1
Lotta Themnér and Peter Wallensteen, ―Armed Conflict, 1946-2010,‖ Journal of Peace Research (2011): 525-536.
2
Melvin Ember, Carol R. Ember, and Ian Skoggard, eds. Encyclopedia of Diasporas: Immigrant and
Refugee Cultures Around the World. Volume I: Overviews and Topics; Volume II: Diaspora
Communities. (New York: Springer Science & Business Media, 2004).
3
Steven Vertovec, ―Three Meanings of ‗Diaspora,‘ Exemplified among South Asian Religions,‖ Diaspora: A
Journal of Transnational Studies 6 (1997): 277-299.
4
C. Christine Fair, ―Diaspora Involvement in Insurgencies: Insights from the Khalistan and Tamil Eelam
Movements,‖ Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 11 (2005): 125-156.
5
Maria de los Angeles Torres, In the Land of Mirrors: Cuban Exile Politics in the United States. (Ann
Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2001); Louis DeSipio, ―Cuban Miami: Seeking Identity in a
Political Borderland,‖ Latin American Research Review 38 (2003): 207-219.
6
Adrian Guelke, ―The United States, Irish Americans and the Northern Ireland Peace Process,‖ International Affairs
72 (1996): 521-536; Peter Trumbore, ―Public Opinion as a Domestic Constraint in International Negotiations: Two-
Level Games in the Anglo-Irish Peace Process,‖ International Studies Quarterly 42 (1998): 545-565; Feargal
Cochrane, ―Irish-America, the End of the IRA‘s Armed Struggle and the Utility of ‗Soft Power‘,‖ Journal of Peace
Research 44 (2007): 215-231.
7
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 2007).
8
Bard O‘Neill, Insurgency & Terrorism: From Revolution to Apocalypse, 2nd
ed. (Washington, DC: Potomac
Books, 2005), ch. 7.
9
Hazel Smith and Paul Stares, Diasporas in Conflict: Peace-makers or Peace-wreckers? (New York: United
Nations Publications: 2007); Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, ―Greed and Grievance in Civil War,‖ Oxford
Economic Papers 56 (2004): 563-595; Yossi Shain, ―The Role of Diasporas in Conflict Perpetuation or Resolution,‖

44. ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
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43
SAIS Review 22 (2002): 115-144; Jolie Demmers, ―Diaspora and Conflict: Locality, Long-Distance Nationalism,
and Delocalisation of Conflict Dynamics,‖ Javnost-The Public 9 (2002): 85-96; Charles King and Neil Melvin,
―Diaspora Politics: Ethnic Linkages, Foreign Policy, and Security in Eurasia,‖ International Security 24 (1999):
103-138.
10
Dereje Feyissa, ―The Transnational Politics of the Ethiopian Muslim Diaspora,‖ Ethnic and Racial Studies 35
(2012): 1893-1913; Nauja Kleist, ―Mobilising ‗The Diaspora‘: Somali Transnational Political Engagement,‖ Journal
of Ethnic and Migration Studies 34 (2008): 307-323; Camilla Orjuela, ―Distant Warriors, Distant Peace Workers?
Multiple Diaspora Roles in Sri Lanka‘s Violent Conflict,‖ Global Networks 8 (2008): 436-452.
11
Daniel Byman, Peter Chalk, Bruce Hoffman, William Rosenau, and David Brannan, Trends in Outside Support
for Insurgent Movements (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001).
12
Yossi Shain and Aharon Barth, ―Diasporas and International Relations Theory,‖ International Organization 57
(2003): 450.
13
Nadje Al Ali, Richard Black and Kalid Koser, ―The Limits to ‗Transnationalism‘: Bosnian and Eritrean Refugees
in Europe as Emerging Transnational Communities,‖ Ethnic and Racial Studies 24 (2001).
14
Osman Antwi-Boateng, ―The Political Participation of the US-Based Liberian Diaspora and Its Implication for
Peace Building,‖ Africa Today 58 (2011): 4.
15
Shain, ―The Role of Diasporas,‖ 121.
16
Shain, ―The Role of Diasporas,‖ 121.
17
One of the authors witnessed a case of this firsthand during the bombing campaign in Kosovo in 1999. A Serbian
graduate student at a large university in the southern United States had been in the US pursuing his studies for over a
decade. When the bombings began, he immediately took to the campus with signs and placards comparing Bill
Clinton to Hitler and calling for an end to the bombing campaign (as well as the establishment of an independent
Republika Srpska) in strident and vociferous terms. He continued his protests nearly every day for the three months
of the bombing campaign, to the point that his shouting voice became a fixture in the prominent public spaces on
campus.
18
Shain, ―The Role of Diasporas‖.

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19
Fiona Adamson, ―Crossing Borders: International Migration and National Security,‖ International Security 31
(2006): 175; emphasis added.
20
Fiona Adamson, ―Globalization, Transnational Political Mobilization, and Networks of Violence,‖ Cambridge
Review of International Affairs 18 (2005): 32-33.
21
Lars-Erik Cederman, Luc Girardin and Kristian Gleditsch, ―Ethnonationalist Triads: Assessing the Influence of
Kin Groups on Civil Wars,‖ World Politics 61 (2009): 404.
22
Charles King and Neil Melvin, ―Diaspora Politics: Ethnic Linkages, Foreign Policy, and Security in Eurasia,‖
International Security 24 (1999): 108.
23
King and Melvin, ―Diaspora Politics,‖ 110-111.
24
Shain and Barth, ―Diasporas and International Relations Theory,‖ 453.
25
Shain and Barth, ―Diasporas and International Relations Theory,‖ 455-456.
26
Shain and Barth, ―Diasporas and International Relations Theory,‖ 462.
27
Shain and Barth, ―Diasporas and International Relations Theory,‖ 454.
28
Stewart Bell, ―The Spillover Effect: The Canadian Diasporas and Terrorism,‖ in The Radicalization Of Diasporas
And Terrorism, ed. Doron Zimmerman and William Rosenau (Zürich: ETH Zürich, 2009).
29
Antwi-Boateng, ―US-Based Liberian Diaspora‖, 5.
30
Antwi-Boateng, ―US-Based Liberian Diaspora‖, 22.
31
Feyissa, ―Ethiopian Muslim Diaspora‖.
32
Kleist, ―Mobilising ‗The Diaspora‘‖.
33
Orjuela, ―Distant Warriors‖.
34
Wendy Pearlman and Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, ―Nonstate Actors, Fragmentation, and Conflict
Processes,‖ Journal of Conflict Resolution 56 (2012).
35
Shain and Barth, ―Diasporas and International Relations Theory‖.
36
Shain and Barth, ―Diasporas and International Relations Theory,‖ 452.
37
As with every rule, there are exceptions to this one. Some diasporas may come not because of conflict in the
homeland but for better opportunities elsewhere (Mexicans in the US, for example), while others may be so far

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removed from the conflict that sent them that it is no longer relevant (the Amish in the US are a religious ‗diaspora‘
from Switzerland and southern Germany—but the conflicts which sent them abroad have long since ended, and
there are no longer enough religious ‗kin‘ at ‗home‘ to matter).
38
Ted Robert Gurr, Minorities at Risk: A Global View of Ethnopolitical Conflicts (Washington, DC: United States
Institute of Peace Press, 1993).
39
For an excellent discussion of organizational capacity in insurgent groups, see Paul Staniland, Networks of
Rebellion: Explaining Insurgent Cohesion and Collapse (New York: Cornell University Press, 2014).
40
Cedarman, Girardin, and Gleditsch, ―Ethnonationalist Triads‖.
41
David Lake and Donald Rothchild, ―Containing Fear: The Origins and Management of Ethnic Conflict,‖
International Security 21 (1996): 44.
42
Joshua Kaldor-Robinson, ―The Virtual and the Imaginary: The Role of Diasporic New Media in the Construction
of a National Identity during the Break-up of Yugoslavia,‖ Oxford Development Studies 30 (2002): 177-87.
43
Victor Asal, Amy Pate, and Jonathan Wilkenfeld, Minorities at Risk Organizational Behavior Data and
Codebook, 2008.
44
Victor Asal and R Karl Rethemeyer, ―The Nature of the Beast: Terrorist Organizational Characteristics and
Organizational Lethality,‖ Journal of Politics 70 (2008): 437-449. For an important exception, see Erica Chenoweth
and Maria Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2011).
45
Asal, Pate, and Wilkenfeld, Codebook.
46
There is a measure for transnational protest but the vast majority of activity is domestic so we use that variable
instead to measure contention.
47
We should note that branches of the organization located outside of the home country are not coded as one for this
variable.
48
The original variable is not ordinal in relation to active repression because it also codes for organizational legality
and the possibility of repression is not represented ordinally.

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49
Monty Marshall, Keith Jaggers, and Ted Robert Gurr, ―Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and
Transitions, 1800–2004‖ (Maryland: Center for International Development and Conflict Management, University of
Maryland, College Park, 2006).
50
In order to account for possible endogenity issues that might exist between diaspora support and the capabilities
needed to engage in some of the activities we measure as independent variables we also created a lagged variable
such that the value of diaspora support would be measured one year after the independent variables in the equation
(so in other words, diasup for year 1991 with IVs of 1990). The results for both of these dependent variables are
substantively the same, so we report only the results for diaspora support in the same year. The lagged results are
available in an online appendix.
51
J. Scott Long and Jeremy Freese, Regression Models for Categorical Dependent Variables Using Stata (College
Station, TX: Stata Press, 2006).
52
Because MAROB data is coded only through the middle of the last decade, the various conflicts spawned by the
Arab Spring are not captured; however, the first years of the Iraq War are included.
53
An alternative logic is that diasporas adopt a ‗help those who help themselves‘ logic: that support is directed
towards organizations that are ‗doing something‘ about the discrimination or repression, whereas those that are seen
as less active or inactive don‘t get help. This distinction is impossible to tease out in the data that we have, but
suggests some interesting lines of future inquiry.
54
This, of course, assumes that the organization wants such support – which it may not in all circumstances.
55
Samuel Huntington, ―The Clash of Civilizations?‖ Foreign affairs (1993): 22-49.