The Disinterested State: Negative Diasporic Policy as an Expression of State Inclusion and National Exclusion

This article engages with the understudied phenomenon of the “disinterested, denouncing” (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004) or “indifferent” (Ragazzi 2009) diaspora state. Focusing on US citizens abroad, the article argues that there is negative diasporic outreach on the part of the state—“disinterested” from the state’s perspective, but “denouncing” from that of the diaspora. Negative diasporic outreach is exemplified by the 2010 FATCA legislation, which sought to root out tax evaders resident in the US, but has, instead, affected millions of American emigrants through increased financial control and the repercussions of those policies, and has resulted in sharply higher citizenship renunciation figures. Impact on an American diaspora was not considered in the law’s proposal, debate and passage into law. Second, the article argues that this negative diasporic outreach, in combination with the continued facilitation of the right to vote, is a reflection of the inclusion of these American emigrants in the American state, but their simultaneous exclusion from the American nation.