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.

Various external state-level actors have contributed to the dynamics of the Arab uprisings. Western states have been active participants in these unfolding dramas, notably France in the case of Tunisia; the United States in the case of Egypt, and the United Kingdom, France and the United States in the Libyan and Syrian cases. In addition, Western supra-national bodies have also been actively involved, if in different ways and varying degrees, specifically NATO in the Libyan case and the European Union in the Egyptian case, and to these can be added the influential role of the International Monetary Fund. Non-Western state actors from outside the MENA region that have exerted influence include, above all, Russia but also, if more discreetly, China. At the same time, important external state actors in the MENA region have also had major interests - and been deeply implicated - in most of these events, notably Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran. As a result, the unfolding of the Arab uprisings has been shaped not only by strictly internal political dynamics but also by the assertion from outside of important ideological influences (the Western discourse of democracy promotion and neo-liberal economic doctrines, Qatar’s support for the current of Islamism identified with the Muslim Brothers, Russia’s opposition to contemporary doctrines justifying humanitarian intervention, Saudi Arabia’s promotion of Salafi movements, etc.) and by active political interventions by these various external state actors in defence or promotion of their own particular interests in each case. This paper represents a preliminary attempt to theorize the resulting complexity of these external influences on the Arab uprisings, to identify the logics of these various interventions and to evaluate their cumulative impacts on particular cases. Specifically, it will put forward the thesis that external actors have played a crucial role in determining the outcomes to date of the Arab uprisings and consider the theoretical implications of this conclusion. In doing so, it will draw on wide-ranging research, including intensive study of documentary sources and Western (American, British and French), Russian, Middle Eastern and North African media coverage; fieldwork conducted in Egypt in 2011, 2012 and 2014; and interviews conducted by the author since early 2011 with officials and policy advisers in London, Paris and Washington and with Egyptian, Libyan, Syrian and Tunisian actors in these events.

The paper addresses the following question: has emigration from Arab countries affected revolts and their outcomes in migrants’ countries of origin? Emigration can impact migrants’ homeland’s politics through the three following channels: Channel 1: Involvement of returned émigrés. Former students abroad, migrant workers or exiles have been involved in the revolts and/or have taken over positions in the governments born from the revolts. Channel 2: Participation of current migrants in elections in their homeland. Interestingly, granting émigrés political rights in their country of origin was the most recent step pre-revolution Arab states took in a series of actions aimed at strengthening their expatriate nationals’ inclusion in homeland society and citizenry. Channel 3: Indirect and often unconscious influence émigrés exert on families and communities left behind in the origin country through a mechanism of ideational or political remittances. The direction in which such remittances work is unclear. Ideas and political models migrants convey to their community or even to society as a whole through the media can be mainstream models and values of the host society, and their transmission by migrants may, then, be interpreted as a sign of successful integration. But they might also be values and models reflecting protests against the established order, and then, they may be connected with failed migrant integration. The paper explores the hypothesis of political remittances in three countries: Egypt and Tunisia, where revolutions have in the first instance brought about Islamist majorities in parliaments and governments, and Morocco, where a shift towards Islamism has taken place without a revolution. Specifically, the study is based on an analysis of the correlation between, on the one hand, votes in the 2011 -2012 elections at district/region/province level (in terms of turnout and scores obtained by parties/candidates) and, on the other, the emigration rate. Isolating the impact of emigration from other factors is not easy, however. Indeed, migration is one dimension of the connectivity between peoples and it works in combination with other dimensions, and notably: the overall mobility of people, of which migration is only a small part; the indirect links between peoples created by economic activities; the virtual communication between peoples through their exposure to global media and their interconnection by phone or by internet.