Remapping the Boundaries of `State' and `National Identity': Incorporating Diasporas into IR Theorizing

Abstract

The structural components of a state are regularly conflated with a state's national identity. In reality, however, the assumption that the boundaries of a state and its national identity are coterminous is problematic. While this has always been the case, changes in the ability of actors in the international system to use communication and transportation technologies to sustain transnational collective identities points to the need for new empirical research in this area. Contemporary diasporas are defined by a national or cultural identity, yet differ from nation-states in terms of their organizational and spatial logics. By comparing diaspora mobilization in two cases, we find that both non-state political entrepreneurs and state elites are using diasporic practices of identity formation as a means of generating economic and political support in an increasingly integrated global economy. This points to discontinuities between a territorially defined states system and deterritorialized practices of collective identity formation.