Description

Why do some ethnic groups abroad receive high levels of Western-based solidarity while others do not? Prominent recipients of such solidarity include Chileans and Darfuris, while prominent non-recipients include Tamils and Kurds. Existing research on the ‘discriminatory’ patterns of Western activism has focused on where advocacy efforts of the powerful human rights NGOs, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have been directed (Bob 2005). However, the explanatory power of this hypothesis is limited as there have been campaigns run by these NGOs that have fallen on deaf ears, failing to spark solidarity movement formation. While the work of these NGOs matters, this paper suggests that part of the variations in the level of Western solidarity given to groups abroad can be explained by looking at the advocacy work of diasporas in the West. Contrary to what we might expect, groups abroad with small or relatively un-mobilized diasporas in the West are more likely to be recipients of Western solidarity than groups that have large mobilized Western diasporas. There are at least two reasons for this outcome. First, strong diaspora movements tend to generate ethnic advocacy frames rather than universal frames. Second, large mobilized diasporas create incentives for local movements in the homeland to focus their international advocacy on the diaspora and not on mobilizing non-diasporic support. This paper will show how this perspective can help to explain the formation of the Western solidarity movement for a free Tibet.

David Zarnett is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. His doctoral research looks at why some human rights abusing states provoke more widespread attention from transnational human rights activists than others. He is a recent recipient of the Ontario Graduate Scholarship and his work has been published in Democratiya and the St. Antony’s International Review. He began his doctoral work at the University of Oxford before returning to Toronto and has degrees from Queen’s University and King’s College London.

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