Only in the last ten years have analysts of migration turned their primary focus from economic push-pull factors to a host of more political factors that not only influence migration decisions, but also play a role in shaping the migration policies of both states of origin and host states. Among these works, increasing numbers have explored the range of institutions that states establish to maintain ties with their diasporas: to cultivate continuing interest in national affiliation through language and cultural programs; to surveil or control through the extensions of political party and security apparatuses in the diaspora communities; or to encourage political participation through according the right to vote from abroad. This paper attempts to move the empirical and theoretical exploration one step further by initiating an investigation of the ways that the very presence of communities abroad may have influenced various forms of political development in the MENA region. To cite just two very different and historically early examples: it was in the diaspora community of Algerian (largely Kabyle) workers in France that the demand for Algerian independence was first articulated, and this community played a key role in the independence struggle; and in the case of Lebanon, the fact that at the time of the 1932 census, the Lebanese state counted expatriates as part of the national population for purposes of confessional quotas, had a significant effect on the proportional representation of Muslims and Christians in the state bureaucracy and in the parliament. The paper will draw from both primary and secondary research on the historical relationship of the Tunisian, Algerian, Lebanese and Jordanian diasporas with their homelands and will place this against the backdrop of (largely, but not exclusively) post-independence political developments in order to construct a framework for understanding the mechanisms of diaspora impact on sending state political development. The results of the research should have broader implications for understanding the potential political role of Arab diasporas in the on-going Arab uprisings or associated political transitions.