Strategic non-engagement: new Russian political migrants and the effects of extraterritorial spillover of authoritarianism

Abstract

This research investigates the ways in which authoritarianism constrains the transnational political engagement of recent Russian emigrants, a group known as relokanti. The study centers on three interconnected social roles of relokanti: as citizens of Russia, as family members of those who remain in Russia, and as migrants navigating life in Georgia. Drawing upon twenty in-depth interviews alongside secondary data, the research reveals that despite residing in a host country with greater democratic freedoms and possessing biographical characteristics often associated with political activism, relokanti deliberately refrain from engaging in political expression, even within the private sphere of family interactions. I conceptualize this strategic withdrawal from all transnational political action as silence after exit—a form of political non-engagement shaped by the indirect yet pervasive effects of the extraterritorial spillover of authoritarianism. Findings of this work contribute to the literature on diaspora and transnational political action by centering cases of political disengagement and underscoring the importance of incorporating constraint into our understanding of political life of migrants under authoritarian reach.