14 - Comparative Insights into States’ Support, Co-optation, and Repression of Their National Communities Abroad

Summary

The array of countries examined in this book offers a range of cross-cutting themes and propositions. Indeed, a careful sifting of the chapters suggest important similarities and differences not only in terms of how the twelve states under examination have handled common problems and challenges in their efforts to interact with their national communities abroad but also in the underlying rationale(s) for engaging (or not) in said activities in the first place. This concluding chapter first discusses general insights concerning the motivations of states’ interactions with their national communities abroad and the reasons that explain those interactions. Next, it zooms in on specific themes and trends in some greater detail, including: the contested, and at times highly politicized, nature of defining national communities abroad; the mismatch between states’ material capabilities and their willingness to engage their communities abroad; and acts of “democratic repression” which suggest that the discussion on transnational authoritarianism needs to be complemented by a systematic examination of democratic countries’ repressive actions abroad.