Unbound State? The Nation-State and the Departed Populations in the Middle East

This project explores the future of the territorial nation state. The aim is to contribute to a better understanding of state-citizen relations in a world where political participation assumes new and transnational shapes and in which demos becomes more difficult to delineate. The relation between the political institutions of the state and the citizens is a research area which is at the core of modern political science. The interaction between state and citizens is usually assumed to take place within the borders of the state. However, due to the development of information technology, new political arenas have emerged which transgress the confinement of state territory. Even when people leave their country of origin and take up residence somewhere else, they often continue to be politically active in domestic politics, from beyond the border. Most research has studied the strategies of migrants/diasporas while the “sender-state”, has attracted little attention. The theoretical aim of this project is to develop a model which includes activities that the sender-state can use in order to include the emigrants. The overall aim is to explore whether the territorial nation-state weakens because of globalization or whether it can globalize its domestic policies and become a transnational actor in its own right.

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