Introduction

Abstract The Introduction lays out the book’s theoretical and empirical foundations, based on large-scale research conducted among the Albanian, Armenian, and Palestinian diasporas in the UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland. Two questions are of core interest: (1) why do conflict-generated diasporas mobilize in more or less contentious ways; and (2) why do they pursue their mobilizations through host-state, transnational, and supranational channels? Diaspora entrepreneurs are studied with their linkages to contested states experiencing challenges to their sovereignty, specifically de facto states with limited international recognition, Kosovo, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Palestine, respectively. The chapter presents a novel typology of four types of diaspora entrepreneurs based on configurations of their socio-spatial linkages to different global contexts: the Broker, Local, Distant, and Reserved. A two-level typological theory features interactions between diaspora entrepreneurs and homeland governments, parties, non-state actors, and critical events or limited global influences. This chapter presents other intellectual contributions of this book: going beyond analysis of diasporas as groups but focusing on individual agency; considering the socio-spatial positionality of diaspora entrepreneurs to different global contexts, not simply to host-states and home-states; shedding light comparatively on little explored diaspora lobbying in Europe, and integrating scholarship on migrant integration into the study of contested statehood. Scope conditions, methodology, coding, and dataset based on 146 interviews with diaspora entrepreneurs are presented next. The Introduction finishes by laying out the content of the individual chapters.