Mobilising the Diaspora How Refugees Challenge Authoritarianism

Over half the world lives under authoritarian regimes. For these people, the opportunity to engage in politics moves outside the state's territory. Mobilising across borders, diasporas emerge to challenge such governments. This book offers an in-depth examination of the internal politics of transnational mobilisation. Studying Rwandan and Zimbabwean exiles, it exposes the power, interests, and unexpected agendas behind mobilisation, revealing the surprising and ambivalent role played by outsiders. Far from being passive victims waiting for humanitarian assistance, refugees engage actively in political struggle. From Rwandans resisting their repatriation, to Zimbabweans preventing arms shipments, political exiles have diverse aims and tactics. Conversely, the governments they face also deploy a range of transnational strategies, and those that purport to help them often do so with hidden agendas. This shifting political landscape reveals the centrality of transnationalism within global politics, the historical and political contingency of diasporas, and the precarious agency of refugees.

1. The politics of animation; Part I. Zimbabwe: 2. The birth of the Zimbabwean diaspora; 3. Briefcase activists: death, afterlife, and performance; 4. Heroic humanitarians: a neglected contribution; Part II. Rwanda: 5. Opposing the RPF from abroad; 6. Constructing the statist diaspora; 7. Hijacked humanitarians: the campaign against cessation.

Alexander Betts is Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs and Director of the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford. He is author of Protection by Persuasion: International Cooperation in the Refugee Regime (2009) and Survival Migration: Failed Governance and the Crisis of Displacement (2013). His articles have been published in journals such as Foreign Affairs, Perspectives on Politics, Global Governance, Ethics and International Affairs, and the Journal of International Relations and Development. He has worked for UNHCR, and as a consultant to numerous international organisations. He is the Founding Director of the Humanitarian Innovation Project and has been honoured as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.
Will Jones is Lecturer in International Relations at the Royal Holloway, University of London. Previously, he was Departmental Lecturer in the Politics of Forced Migration at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, and a former Junior Research Fellow in Politics at Balliol College, Oxford. He co-founded the Oxford Central Africa Forum, is a former editor of the St Antony's International Review, and has contributed to reports by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative for submissions to the UN Human Rights Council and African Human Rights Commission.