Lobbyists Abroad? : Diaspora Influence on the Relations Between the Home and the Host Country
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Lobbyists Abroad? Diaspora Influence on the Relations Between the Home and the Host Country Dissertation zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Doktors der Sozialwissenschaften (Dr. rer. soc.) vorgelegt von Platte-Burghardt, Hendrik an der Sektion Politik-Recht-Wirtschaft Fachbereich Politik- und Verwaltungswissenschaft Konstanz, 2019 Konstanzer Online-Publikations-System (KOPS) URL: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-2-tinl8ta8uy1p6 Datum der mündlichen Prüfung: 17.09.2019 1. Referent: Prof. Dr. Dirk Leuffen 2. Referent: Prof Dr. Nils Weidmann 3. Referent: Dr. Michael Becher Contents 1 Introduction1 1.1 Overview and Structure of the Thesis . .2 1.2 Defining the Diaspora . .5 1.3 Globalization, Migrant Ties and Effects . .7 1.4 Diasporas as Interest Groups . 10 1.5 Migrant Groups in the U.S. 16 1.6 New Perspectives on Migrant Groups in International Relations . 18 1.7 Predictions . 24 1.8 Outline of the Thesis Chapters . 26 1.8.1 Study I: No Calm After the Storm – Diaspora Influence on Bilateral Emergency Aid Flows . 27 1.8.2 Study II: Lobbyists Abroad? Diaspora Influence on Sanctions Against Their Homeland . 33 1.8.3 Study III: Who Gets What, How and Why? Migrant Group Influence on U.S. Foreign Aid . 44 2 No Calm After the Storm – Diaspora Influence on Bilateral Emergency Aid Flows 53 2.1 Introduction . 54 2.2 Literature Review and Arguments . 56 2.2.1 Linkage . 57 2.2.2 Lobbying . 59 2.2.3 Targeted Emergency Aid . 60 2.2.4 Synopsis . 61 2.3 Hypotheses . 62 2.4 Data and Research Design . 64 2.5 Empirical Analysis . 68 2.6 Conclusion . 74 2.7 Appendix . 76 3 Lobbyists Abroad? Diaspora Influence on Sanctions Against their Homeland 94 3.1 Introduction . 95 3.2 Literature Review and Arguments . 96 3.2.1 Migrants as Lobbyists . 97 3.2.2 Migrant Linkages . 102 3.2.3 Hypotheses . 104 1 3.3 Data and Research Design . 106 3.3.1 Variables and Operationalization . 106 3.3.2 Sample Choice . 108 3.4 Empirical Analysis . 110 3.5 Conclusion . 115 3.6 Appendix . 118 4 Who Gets What, How and Why? Migrant Group Influence on U.S. Foreign Aid 138 4.1 Introduction . 139 4.2 Literature Review and Arguments . 141 4.2.1 Migrants and Aid – The Arguments . 141 4.2.2 Synopsis . 144 4.2.3 Hypotheses . 145 4.3 Data and Research Design . 153 4.3.1 Variables and Operationalization . 153 4.3.2 Empirical Strategy . 157 4.4 Empirical Analysis . 158 4.5 Conclusion . 167 4.6 Appendix . 169 5 Concluding Remarks 214 5.1 Summary . 215 5.2 Linkage vs. Lobbying . 216 5.3 Mechanism of Influence . 219 5.4 Core Contributions and Policy Implications . 220 5.5 Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research . 222 5.6 Zusammenfassung der Dissertation . 225 5.7 Author Contributions . 231 6 Bibliography 232 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I wish to express my warmest gratitude to my supervisors, Prof. Dr. Dirk Leuffen, Prof. Dr. Nils Weidmann and Dr. Michael Becher, whose support, patience and helpful feedback made this work possible and improved it in countless ways. Being able to receive feedback at any time and always being able to openly talk about the problems and roadblocks during the last years was extremely helpful. Furthermore, I would like to thank the Graduate School of Decision Sciences and the Committee on Research (AFF) for the generous funding of my PhD studies and my conference visits. I also wish to express gratitude to colleagues for feedback on different aspects of my research and their open ears. While this list is certainly incomplete and in no particular order, I thank Hanno Degner, Max Heermann, Daniela Kroll, Kerstin Schembera, Sophia Timmermann, Daniela Beyer, Konstantin Bätz, Roman Krtsch, Sebastian Hellmeier, Philipp Lutscher, Dominik Lober, Lukas Kawerau, Katrin Schmitt, Clara Neupert-Wentz, Yiyi Chen, Daniela Behr, Annerose Nisser, Michelle Jordan, Julia Göhringer, Mario Krauser, Kai Merkel, Julian Schüssler, Maurizio Strazzeri, Patrick Weber, Eda Keremoglu as well as participants at the Konstanz-Essex PhD Colloquium 2016, MPSA 2016 and 2017; at EPSA 2017 and at the Diaspora: Diplomacy: Development Conference 2018. On a more personal note, I would like to thank my parents, my brother, my parents-in-law and my brother-in-law for supporting me during my studies in various ways. I also wish to express my deepest and utmost gratitude to my wife, who supported me during the best times as well as the worst times of my PhD. The same goes for my wonderful daughter Viola, who brought endless joy and excitement to the final phase of my graduation. I also thank my flatmates Konstantin Käppner, Johannes Bühler and Anja Radke for enduring me at my bad times and for being there to share the good times. Abstract The study of migrants’ role in international relations has brought forward a diverse range of studies that reach from single case studies over theoretical works and limited comparative studies to cross-sectional time series analyses. The dominant approach in the literature is to conceptualize diaspora communities as interest groups that lobby their host country government on foreign policy issues that concern the homeland. Beyond anecdotal and case study evidence, however, empirical support for this notion is rather scarce. Using different types of cross-sectional time series data, this thesis contributes to the literature by testing the diaspora effect across three foreign policy outcomes. The findings of the thesis suggest that on aggregate, migrants’ influence on the bilateral relations between their host and their home country is primarily driven by their function as a linkage between countries. As migrant ties enhance the familiarity between countries and increase the level of attention to home country events in the host country, they can have both positive and negative effects for the homeland government. The first study finds that host countries send more emergency assistance to the home countries of their immigrants after natural disasters. Other than suggested by the lobbying approach, autocratic donors are found to be slightly more responsive to their immigrant communities, and the effect is stronger for more distant and less severe disasters. The second study presents evidence suggesting that migrant groups enhance the probability that the host country targets the home country with a sanction. While autocratic and human rights-violating countries are more likely to be sanctioned by their diaspora’s host countries, emigrants from democratic and human rights-respecting countries do not decrease the probability of sanction onset. While the lobbying approach cannot explain why the aggregate diaspora effect can be positive and negative at the same time, the analysis of U.S. aid allocation patterns in the third study shows that certain features of migrant groups as interest groups are correlated with the amount of aid the homeland receives. The lobbying effects, however, appear to be mostly conditioned by the home country’s need for assistance. Moreover, migrant groups and their features are found to have an informative effect regarding the home country’s need for assistance. Together, the three studies of this thesis offer a more nuanced view of migrants’ role in international relations, countering concerns of disproportionate migrant influence in foreign policy making. 1 Introduction 1 1.1. Overview and Structure of the Thesis 2 1.1 Overview and Structure of the Thesis For many decades now, the causes and consequences of international migration are a central subject in public debates and scientific research. With the accelerating speed of globalization, a growing number of people is living outside their country of origin, sparking an at times irrational debate about potential negative consequences for both the sending and the receiving countries (see e.g. Collier 2013). The steady growth of international migration is a central aspect of globalization: According to Helms and Leblang’s (2019) analysis of data by the United Nations Populations Division, the number of people living outside their country of origin nearly doubled between 1970 and 1990 (from 78 million to 150 million, about 2.8% of the global population). In 2015, there were nearly 250 million emigrants in the world. Several studies have addressed the question of which factors shape peoples’ decision to emigrate and the choice of the destination country (Breunig et al. 2012, Fitzgerald et al. 2014). There is also a multitude of studies weighing up the negative economic effects of the emigration of educated people from developing to developed countries (brain drain) against the positive effects of return migration, increasing investment and enhanced remittances flows (brain gain, Leblang 2010 and 2017). Finally, there is a broad array of research on the political consequences of large-scale migration over time and across countries. Politically, diaspora advocacy is often targeted at the status of diaspora members in their countries of origin or destination, the homeland, or the bilateral relations between the countries of origin and settlement (Newland 2010). However, there are surprisingly few studies that systematically address how migrants shape the political relations between their home and their host country, if and when this influence will be of a positive or negative nature for the homeland and how this influence comes about. This thesis aims at answering these interrelated questions. I start by contrasting different options to define the term ‘diaspora,’ as different studies rely on similar, but not identical concepts of migrants, ethnic groups, or diasporas. I then proceed by demonstrating the increasing importance of migration and its effects with globalization. Migrants’ effects on various cross-border financial flows and other political-economic outcomes indicate that migrant ties exert influence by providing 1.1. Overview and Structure of the Thesis 3 critical information.