House of Lebanon: How host states use diasporas---the George W. Bush Administration and the Lebanese-American lobby

The central argument of this dissertation is that host governments can use diaspora members to promote their policies, in a mutually beneficial relationship, and that in all such cases, a uniform set of characteristics must be present. The proposed four-factor theoretical model for host state use of diasporas is tested with six empirical cases from Lebanese diaspora organizations and Iraqi-American, Cuban-American and Indian-American organizations. The dissertation also proposes a classification of the ways in which host states use diasporas.;The research draws on two academic bodies of literature: on transnationalism and on ethnic lobbies. Nonetheless, to paraphrase John F. Kennedy's famous words, the mechanism as described in the majority of the existing literature is by and large one where the ethnic groups ask what their [new] country can do for them and the homeland. The dissertation focuses on the reverse relationship, on the cases in which the host government seeks help from diaspora members to advance its agenda.;The theoretical model proposed in this work hypothesizes that four characteristics need to be present for host state use of diaspora members to occur: the homeland has to be an area of foreign policy interest to the host country; host state policymakers and the diaspora members have to share a general convergence of policy outlook; the diaspora members must possess a connection to the homeland; and they must have relatively high degrees of social capital.;The six cases in which the model is tested include the two central cases with a focus on the Lebanese diaspora: a) the relationship between the American Lebanese Coalition (ALC) and the World Lebanese Cultural Union (WLCU) and the George W. Bush Administration in the period 2003-2005, which also included the passage of the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act in 2003 and the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1559; and b) the relationship of the World Council for the Cedars Revolution (WCCR) and the International Lebanese Committee for UNSCR 1559 (ILC 1559) and the George W. Bush Administration from April 2005 until the end of the Bush term. The secondary cases are of the Cuban American Committee (CAC) and the Carter Administration, the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) and the Reagan Administration, the Iraqi National Congress (INC) and the George W. Bush Administration and the US India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) and the Bush Administration.;The dissertation concludes that a uniform set of four factors is present across the empirical cases, and the analysis upholds the validity of the theoretical model. The final section offers an overview of the implications and suggestions for future research.;The contribution of this dissertation is broadly applicable not only to the fields of diaspora studies, Middle East politics, foreign policy analysis and American government, but also to public diplomacy and political communication.