This is a major study of the vast - but until now unappreciated - influence of kinship and diaspora on international politics. This essential new work by the author of ""The Frontiers of Loyalty"" examines the importance of diasporas, kinship networks, and communities of exiles to the international political landscape. Yossi Shain's unexpected insights require a full reckoning with the limitations of territorially-based models of international relations. In their place, ""Kinship and Diasporas"" offers a new vision of international politics, in which national boundaries are permeable, and formal institutions mingle with informal networks of blood and belief. Shain's ""politics of belonging"" will require the reassessment of standard social scientific ideas about the nature of the international political order.