Mobilizing for Distant Rebels: Weak Diasporas and the Mass Mobilization of Solidarity Activists

This dissertation examines the causes of grassroots organizing in support of distant rebel groups. In most discussions of this kind of transnational activism, scholars often focus on the mobilization of ethnic kin, or diasporas. By contrast, I focus on the mass mobilization of grassroots activists who have no ethnic tie to the distant rebels they support. I refer to these mobilizations as "mass solidarity mobilizations." The emergence of these mobilizations is puzzling given not only that those who make them up often have weak historical, cultural and material ties to the distant rebels they support, but also that only some rebels but not others receive this kind of external assistance.;Why do mass solidarity mobilizations form in support of some distant rebels but not others? This question matters since these mobilizations can shape distant intra-state conflicts by influencing third-party state policies and distant rebel resistance strategies. Contrary to most recent scholarship which focuses on how distant rebels frame their cause internationally and on international gatekeeper NGO advocacy, I focus on rebel recruitment strategies abroad. Drawing on more than 150 interviews with solidarity activists, a statistical analysis of an original dataset, and a comparative case of the grassroots solidarity organizing in North America and Europe for Palestinians and its absence for the Kurdish struggle in Turkey, I show that mass solidarity mobilizations are more likely to form for distant rebels that cannot rely on their ethnic kin abroad for meaningful support. In the absence of a strong external ethnic constituency, rebel activists are more likely to look beyond their ethnic kin and recruit non-diasporans instead. When they actively recruit non-diasporans, mass solidarity mobilizing on their behalf becomes more likely.