Grounding the diasporic turn in political theory: Meta-commitment, transnationalism, and political obligation

Abstract

Diasporas remain understudied in political theory. To ground a robust engagement with diasporas and their normative challenges, we expand on current transnationalism literature to offer a non-statist framework of political community. This framework is necessary as the diaspora is a transnational community that shares overlapping narratives and practices but lacks unified institutional structures and objectives. Tracking these features, we posit that individuals constitute a diasporic community by expressing, through their practices and narratives, a joint meta-commitment to act as part of that community. Meta-commitments do not require the parties to have substantial agreements beyond mutually recognizing each other as acting on behalf of the same community. The diasporic meta-commitment grounds an obligation of answerability: Diasporic members owe each other an answer as to how their choices relate to the future of the diaspora. This account contributes to transnational political theory by explaining the conditions under which transnational relations generate obligations.