Original citation: Koinova, Maria. (2013) Four types of diaspora mobilization : Albanian diaspora activism for Kosovo independence in the US and the UK. Foreign Policy Analysis, Volume 9 (number 4). pp. 433-453. ISSN 1743-8586 Permanent WRAP url: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/51467 Copyright and reuse: The Warwick Research Archive Portal (WRAP) makes this work by researchers of the University of Warwick available open access under the following conditions. Copyright © and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. To the extent reasonable and practicable the material made available in WRAP has been checked for eligibility before being made available. Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not-for- profit purposes without prior permission or charge. 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For more information, please contact the WRAP Team at: [email protected] http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/ Foreign Policy Analysis (2012), 1–21 Four Types of Diaspora Mobilization: Albanian Diaspora Activism For Kosovo Independence in the US and the UK 1 MARIA KOINOVA University of Amsterdam This comparative study explores the conditions and causal pathways through which conflict-generated diasporas become moderate or radical actors when linked to homelands experiencing limited sovereignty. Situ- ated at the nexus of scholarship on diasporas and conflict, ethnic lobby- ing in foreign policy, and transnationalism this article develops four types of diaspora political mobilization—radical (strong and weak) and moderate (strong and weak)—and unpacks the causal pathways that lead to these four types in different political contexts. I argue that dynamics in the original homeland drive the overall trend towards radicalism or moderation of diaspora mobilization in a host-land: high levels of vio- lence are associated with radicalism, and low levels with moderation. Nevertheless, how diaspora mobilization takes place is a result of the conjuncture of the level of violence with another variable, the linkages of the main secessionist elites to the diaspora. The article uses observa- tions from eight cases of Albanian diaspora mobilization in the US and the UK from 1989 until the proclamation of Kosovo’s independence in 2008. In the past decade, new political science research emerged to focus on the impact of diasporas on political processes in their original homelands. Security concerns triggered by the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks prompted scholars to con- centrate on conflict-generated diasporas: Albanian, Armenian, Jewish/Israeli, Sikh, Tamil, Palestinian, and others (Byman et al. 2001; Shain 2002; Adamson 2002, 2006; Sheffer 2003; Wayland 2004; Fair 2005; Lyons 2006; Hoffman et al. 2007). Conflict-generated diasporas are considered more likely to maintain a myth of return, attachment to a homeland territory, and to display radical atti- tudes and behaviors regarding homeland political processes (Faist 2000; Shain 2002; Lyons 2006). Increasingly, scholars are questioning these views and provid- ing evidence that diasporas can also act as moderate peace-makers (Smith and Stares 2007). Nevertheless, this scholarship remains largely confined to single case studies rather than comparative analysis. This comparative study explores the conditions and causal mechanisms through which conflict-generated diasporas become moderate or radical actors Author’s Note: I acknowledge the support for this research the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, a SSRC-ESRC fellowship to collaborate with Fiona Adamson, and the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College. I thank many diaspora activists who remain anonymous. Beitullah Destani, Christianne Wohlforth, Daut Dauti, Deborah West, James Pettiffer, Jennifer Erickson, Miranda Vickers, Susan Lynch, participants in the 2009 LSE Workshop “Diasporas and Activism in Europe,” and at the annual APSA meeting in 2011, as well as two anonymous reviewers who provided helpful comments or contacts for this research. 1Current affiliation: University of Warwick Koinova, Maria. (2012) Four Types of Diaspora Mobilization: Albanian Diaspora Activism For Kosovo Independence in the US and the UK. Foreign Policy Analysis, doi: 10.1111/j.1743-8594.2012.00194.x © 2012 International Studies Association 2 Four Types of Diaspora Mobilization when linked to homelands experiencing limited sovereignty. The study develops four types of diaspora political mobilization—radical (strong and weak) and moderate (strong and weak)—and demonstrates the causal pathways leading to these types. I argue that dynamics in the original homeland drive the overall trend toward radicalism or moderation of diaspora mobilization in a host-land: high levels of violence are more likely to be associated with radicalism and low levels with moderation. Nevertheless, how diaspora mobilization takes place is a result of the conjuncture of the level of violence with another variable, the link- ages of the main secessionist elites to the diaspora, which can be strong or weak. In this article, I concentrate on the Kosovar Albanian diaspora linked to the emerging Kosovo state. It belongs to a universe of cases of conflict-generated diasporas mobilized for political projects in the homeland, on par with the Israeli, Palestinian, Sikh, and Tamil diasporas and their respective territorial con- flicts in the Middle East and South Asia. Kosovo proclaimed independence in February 2008, but still experiences limited sovereignty. The state has been inter- nationally recognized by only 90 members of the 192 UN member states. Over the past two decades, Kosovar Albanians in the diaspora both peacefully advo- cated and fought militarily for Kosovo’s independence from Serbia. I researched eight cases of diaspora political mobilization and concentrated on four historical periods: the repression (1991–1998), the brief warfare (1998– 1999) prior to NATO’s 1999 military intervention in Kosovo, the immediate postconflict reconstruction period until the violent riots in 2004, and the later postconflict reconstruction period until the proclamation of independence in 2008. In addition, the United States and the United Kingdom provide the two political contexts. I chose this approach to illuminate reasons for differences in mobilization patterns. The United States and the United Kingdom both main- tained foreign policies largely supportive of the Kosovar Albanians’ human rights grievances and aspiration for territorial self-determination. They both offered civic rather than ethnic integration of international migrants. However, radical and moderate diaspora attitudes were strong in the United States and weak in the United Kingdom. Understanding patterns of diaspora mobilization could add new insights into established literatures on ethnic lobbying in foreign policy, integration and mul- ticulturalism, and the emerging scholarship on diasporas and conflicts. I seek to expand the boundaries of separate literatures by placing diaspora mobilization in the transnational realm, encompassing conditions and processes that incorpo- rate homeland, host-land, and diaspora characteristics. Hence, this article’s approach is congruent with what Sil and Katzenstein call “analytic eclecticism,” capturing broader causal complexity by focusing on middle-range theorizing and tracing “problem-specific interactions among a wide range of mechanisms oper- ating across different domains and levels of social reality” (2010:419). The rest of this article reviews scholarship on diasporas and conflicts, host-land integration regimes, and ethnic lobbying and foreign policy. It presents the research design, introduces empirics on Kosovo’s independence movement and the Albanian diaspora, and further develops the four types of diaspora mobiliza- tion. I conclude by discussing how the internal validity of these findings could extend to a larger population of cases of conflict-generated diasporas linked to polities of limited sovereignty. Major Theoretical Accounts Without seeking to resolve a substantial conceptual debate about the term “dias- pora,” I adopt a definition used by Adamson and Demetriou: “A diaspora can be identified as a social collectivity that exists across state borders and has suc- ceeded over time to: (i) sustain a collective national, cultural or religious identity MARIA KOINOVA 3 through a sense of internal cohesion and sustained ties with a real or imagined homeland, and (ii) display an ability to address the collective interests of mem- bers of the social collective through a developed internal organizational frame- work and transnational links” (2007:497). I limit the term to designate diasporas living in locations remote from their original territory rather than in adjacent areas. In Anderson’s view, such diasporas are “long-distance nationalists” who often act irresponsibly because they do not face the consequences of their actions (1998:3–13). One group of scholars consider