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 case

studies in this volume illustrate how potential or ongoing conflicts raise the

stakes for successful policy outcomes. Contributors provide historical and

sociological context, gauging the influence of diasporas based on population

size and length of time settled in the United States, geographic concentration,

access to resources from their own members or through other groups, and the

nature of their involvement back in their homelands. This collection brings a fresh

perspective to a rarely discussed aspect of the design of US foreign policy and

offers multiple insights into dynamics that may determine how the United States

will engage other nations in future decades.