Towards the Neo-Institutionalization of Irish State-Diaspora Relations in the Twenty-First Century

The significance of ties between ‘home’/‘sending’ states and their diasporas has only recently begun to receive scholarly attention. In this scholarship, sending states are not seen as ‘passive exit points, but […] as a set of institutions whose policies and practices play a constitutive role in emigration’ and in state-diaspora relations (Brand, 2006: 12). Indeed, such state institutional arrangements have a long history with ’emigration state’ systems being inherent in the nation-state form itself (Gamlen, 2008; Brand, 2006). Yet, there is much evidence to suggest a widespread neo-institutionalization of state-diaspora relations in recent years. And, although this neo-institutionalization is taking place at the level of states, it is shaped by the interventions and policy initiatives of supranational institutions, and by the active lobbying of religious and diaspora-based groups.¹ Indeed, a UN Economic and Social Council report on the increasing significance of diasporas noted that the recent establishment of the Irish Abroad Unit (IAU) by the Irish government was ‘precipitated largely by lobby groups who managed to demonstrate the importance of the emigrant population by producing their own data’ (2008: 7). While this points to the dynamic and relational aspects of state-diaspora engagement, my focus in this chapter is primarily on the role of the state.