num_pages: 320
description: As a nation of immigrants, the United States has long accepted that citizens who identify with an ancestral homeland may hold dual loyalties; yet Americans have at times regarded the persistence of foreign ties with suspicion, seeing them as a sign of potential disloyalty and a threat to national security. Diaspora Lobbies and the US Government brings together a group of distinguished scholars of international politics and international migration to examine this contradiction in the realm of American policy making, ultimately concluding that the relationship between diaspora groups and the government can greatly affect foreign policy. This relationship is not unidirectional--as much as immigrants make an effort to shape foreign policy, government legislators and administrators also seek to enlist them in furthering American interests.From Israel to Cuba and from Ireland to Iraq, the casestudies in this volume illustrate how potential or ongoing conflicts raise thestakes for successful policy outcomes. Contributors provide historical andsociological context, gauging the influence of diasporas based on populationsize and length of time settled in the United States, geographic concentration, access to resources from their own members or through other groups, and thenature of their involvement back in their homelands. This collection brings a freshperspective to a rarely discussed aspect of the design of US foreign policy andoffers multiple insights into dynamics that may determine how the United Stateswill engage other nations in future decades.
language: English
title: Diaspora Lobbies and the US Government: Convergence and Divergence in Making Foreign Policy
publisher: NYU Press