Short description:

Considering democracy and diaspora through a deterritorialised lens, this book uses the post-Euromaidan Ukraine as a central case study to show how modern diasporas are actively involved in shaping democracy from a distance, and through their political activity are becoming increasingly democratised themselves.

Long description:

This volume offers a profoundly new interpretation of the impact of modern diasporas on democracy, challenging the orthodox understanding that ties these two concepts to a bounded form of territory. Considering democracy and diaspora through a deterritorialised lens, it takes the post-Euromaidan Ukraine as a central case study to show how modern diasporas are actively involved in shaping democracy from a distance, and through their political activity are becoming increasingly democratised themselves. An examination of how power-sharing democracies function beyond the territorial state, Democracy, Diaspora, Territory: Europe and Cross-Border Politics compels us to reassess what we mean by democracy and diaspora today, and why we need to focus on the deterritorialised dimensions of these phenomena if we are to adequately address the crises confronting numerous democracies. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and politics with interests in migration and diaspora, political theory, citizenship and democracy.

"Thinking beyond the territorial mentality is a growing theme in democratic theory and empirical research on democracy. However, so far most of our theoretical reasoning about deterritorialisation of democracy focusses on economic globalization and political supranationalisation of democratic regimes. Much less do we know about the impact of diasporas on democratic development. Therefore this book is timely and important. It will contribute to further our understanding of democracy within and beyond the nation state." - Wolfgang Merkel, Professor, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung WZB, Germany

"The editors and contributors to this book dig deep in addressing the crucial question of whether territory is necessary both to the expression of national democracy and a diasporic consciousness. The answer, Oleinikova and Bayeh convincingly argue, is to see territory as becoming manifest only when multi-layered points of interaction intersect with the politics of the imaginary and reality. Their conceptual intervention and the Ukrainian case study provide original and arresting insights." - Robin Cohen, Emeritus Professor, University of Oxford, UK

Table of Contents:

1. Democracy, Diaspora and Ukraine: Thinking Beyond the Territorial Mentality  Part 1: Cross-Border Politics: Mapping the New Conceptual Terrain  2. Democracy, Diaspora and the Territorial Mentality  3. Diasporic Visions of Democracy and Territory  4. Democratic Remittances and Diaspora: Tracking the Multilayered  Political Practices of Migrants  5. Media Cultures Across Distance: The Transnational and Transcultural of Media Communication  Part 2: Territory, Democracy and the Ukrainian Diaspora  6. The Euromaidan Moment: The Making of Ukrainian Diasporic Civil Society in Poland  7. Diasporic Nation-Building: The Re-Invention of National Belonging within Ukrainian Diasporas  8. The Transnational Activism of Young Ukrainian Immigrants  9. The Digital Power of Ukrainians Abroad: Social Media Activism and Political Participation