More Democracy, More Violence? Diaspora presence in highly democratised host states and radical violence in the homeland.

Abstract: There is growing evidence that diaspora communities play a significant role in influencing the homeland secessionist movement’s engagement in violence. However, previous research does not offer explanation for the role of diaspora host states. In this thesis, I aim to establish how diaspora presence in highly democratised host states (HDS) affects the level of radical violence in the homeland by answering the research question: to what extent do secessionist movements with stronger diaspora presence in HDS see higher levels of radical violence than secessionist movements with weaker diaspora presence in HDS? Specifically, I hypothesise counterintuitively that stronger diaspora presence in HDS leads to a higher level of radical violence in the homeland secessionist movement. The theoretical argument I present posits that diasporas in HDS develop more categorical views towards homeland secessionism, which thus constricts the bargaining space and makes violence more likely to occur. By carrying out a structured, focused comparison on the two most-similar cases of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia I find modestly strong support for this hypothesis, however I find weak support for the causal mechanism. An extended analysis offers limitations of these results and prompts areas for further research.