ABSTRACT
In the early twenty-first century, scholarship on conflict processes started identifying diasporas national organizations. Yet the mounting intrastate conflicts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ethiopia,ered as shaped primarly by majorities,minorites,neighbouring and distant states,and international organizations.Yet the mounting intrastate conflicts of Bosnia-Herzegovina,Ethiopia, Kosovo, Kurdish areas in the Middle East, Nagorno-Karabakh, Palestine, Rwanda, Somater-nat Sri Lanka, among others, pointed out that diasporas affect conflicts and post-conflict dynamics by way of durable links to their countries of origin. An influential World Bank study showed that post-conflict polities that have strong links to a US-based diaspora are not likely to resolve conflicts in the long run (Collier and Hoeffler 2000). Diaspora members support their families during warfare, but also raise funds for moderate and radical political factions, lobby foreign governments, stage demonstrations and even take up arms and become part of terrorist net works (Adamson and Demetriou 2007; Brinkerhoff 2011; Byman et al. 2001; Koinova 2014; Shain and Barth 2003; Sheffer 2003). The US 9/11 attacks, together with difficult-to-resolve domestic conflicts such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, reinforced such negative views. Yet, diasporas have not been simply agents of conflicts but have participated in peace processes (Lyons 2007; Orjuela 2008; Smith and Stares 2007), democratization (Betts and Jones 2016; Koinova 2009) and development (Brinkerhoff 2008). By the late 2000s, the question whether diasporas are ‘peace-makers or peace-wreckers’ (Smith and Stares 2007) was answered – they could act as both. More productive ways to study this research agenda is to develop better conceptual tools, conduct comparative and quantitative studies and contribute to middle- and large-scale theorizing to bring more sophisticated understanding of diaspora behaviours in conflict and post-conflict processes.
