Long-Distance Nationalism and Peace Settlement Preferences

Across the world diasporas engage with the politics of their country of origin and diaspora activism can play a critical role in homeland conflicts. While some scholars claim that stronger nationalist preferences on the part of diaspora lead to conflicts becoming intensified and prolonged there has been little empirical investigation into how diaspora and homeland preferences may differ. Drawing upon the literature on long distance nationalism this article develops a framework that operationalises and tests expectations that there will be differences in the preferences between populations living in conflict zones and those living abroad as they relate to potential conflict resolution and peace settlement solutions. These expectations are evaluated in a study of preferences towards peace settlements across two deeply divided communities in Cyprus and their overseas diasporas. In contrast to claims that members of the diaspora have more nationalist views than homeland members our investigation finds that diaspora and homeland preferences either mirror each other or diaspora preferences are more peace supporting. We discuss implications for theory and policy.