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Human geopolitics, the competition for population rather than territory, is an essential but weakly understood dimension of world politics today. Such competition has preceded violent conflict throughout history, but has been muted since the Treaties of Westphalia laid the territorial foundations of the modern international system in the mid-seventeenth century. Today, however, human geopolitics is being resurrected in unanticipated ways, as governments are enabled and encouraged to engage their emigrant diasporas.
How and why is this happening? Until now these questions have been difficult to answer. The majority of research attention has focused on questions of immigration policy in a handful of wealthy migrant destination countries, largely ignoring the emigration policies that preoccupy the worlds many migrant origin states. This book addresses that research imbalance, by focusing on the overlooked sending side of migration policy.
Drawing on data covering all UN members across the post-WWII period, and fieldwork with high-level policy makers across 60 states and a dozen international organisations, the book charts the re-emergence of human geopolitics through the global spread of diaspora institutions government ministries and offices dedicated to emigrants and their descendants. It calls for the development of stronger guiding principles and evaluation frameworks to govern these new state-diaspora relations in an era of unprecedented global interdependence.
List of contents
- 1: Human Geopolitics
- 2: The Global Rise of Diaspora Institutions
- 3: Exile Ingathering: An Exposition
- 4: Regime Shocks in India, Mexico, and Eritrea
- 5: Labour Export from the Asian Body Shops
- 6: Intercultural Borders in Europe and its Emulators
- 7: Human Geopolitics in the Black Sea and Beyond
- 8: Diaspora Engagement Goes Global
- 9: Orchestrating a Migration Regime
- 10: Following Diaspora Policies
- 11: Conclusion
- pendix 1: Full List of Diaspora Institutions in the Study, with Sources
- Appendix 2: Origin State Interviews and Formal Statements
- Appendix 3: International Organisations and Donor States
About the author
Alan Gamlen is a Professor in the School of Regulation and Global Governance at The Australian National University. He is an expert on human migration and mobility. Alan has previously held appointments at Oxford University, Stanford University, the Max Planck Society, the Japan Centre for Area Studies, Monash University and Wellington University in his homeland, New Zealand. He holds a Doctorate from the University of Oxford (St Antony's College), where he studied as a New Zealand Top Achiever Scholar.
Summary
This volume charts the rapid rise of various forms of diaspora institutions, across distinct historical phases and geographical regions, explaining the way that evolving models and best practices of international migration management have increasingly changed the way states see their diasporas and reconfigured the rules of international politics.
Additional text
Alan Gamlen has written an ambitious and insightful book on the emergence and spread of diaspora management institutions.....He provides a superb intellectual history of the process and unpacks the mechanisms....There is no doubt that the phenomenon under study inHuman Geopolitics is of critical importance today.... Alan Gamlen has written an important comparative book that will be widely read and debated by political scientists, sociologists, political geographers, and migration studies scholars. His empirical work documenting the spread of diaspora institutions already constitutes a seminal 'academic public good'; while the intellectual history of the emerging global migration regime he has provided us with is a well-timed and much appreciated contribution.
Report
Gamlen has produced an ambitious and compelling work that can, and should, be employed as a catalyst for further research into the complexity of global diaspora and migration policymaking. Dr. Gerasimos Tsourapas, University of Birmingham, Global Policy Journal
