Tactical choices of diaspora movements: comparing Hongkonger, Thai, Burmese, and Ukrainian mobilizations in Taiwan

ABSTRACT

Diaspora movements are campaigns launched by migrant minorities who maintain allegiance to their homelands. This article investigates the recent mobilization of the Hongkonger, Thai, Burmese, and Ukrainian diasporas in Taiwan to understand the factors behind their tactical choices. While the existing literature pays more attention to the protester-government interaction to understand how movement leaders decide on their movement strategy, we contend that certain pre-existing characteristics of the diaspora communities matter more. The use of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) leads us to conclude: (1) ethnic discrimination, migrants’ class position, and the host government’s support do not affect the tactical choices; (2) a sufficiently large community with available mobilizing networks makes it possible to recruit and collect resources entirely from ethnic compatriots (reach-in); (3) linkages to local civil society enable it to speak to a broader audience and activate local responses (reach-out).

KEYWORDS:

• Diaspora
• democracy
• tactical choice
• civil society
• social movement
• qualitative comparative analysis

Acknowledgements

This research is supported by Taiwan’s National Science and Technology Council (112-2410-H-002-096-MY3). We are indebted to suggestions by Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang and anonymous reviewers as well as the assistance by Chun-hao Huang, Yu-Erh Li, and Hawazzi Tsang.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics statements

The research has received the approval of Research Ethics Committee National Taiwan University (202305HS091), which was granted on June 28, 2023.

Notes

1 Myanmar is now the formal name of the country, and this article uses Burmese when referring to its people and the language.

2 National Immigration Agency, https://shorturl.at/uFIPW, accessed on July 24, 2023. Figures are based on authors’ calculation.

3 National Immigration Agency, https://shorturl.at/ajvDW, accessed on July 23, 2023.

4 There were only 55 professionals and 1,079 students from Myanmar in 2021, see National Immigration Agency, https://shorturl.at/ajvDW, accessed on July 24, 2023.

5 For instance, in Zhengnan Ward of Zhonghe District, which comprises the Burmese community in New Taipei City, 49% voted for the Kuomintang candidate in the 2024 presidential election, whereas the national average was 33%. Central Election Commission’s database, https://t.ly/7LPuS, accessed May 12, 2024.

6 The immigration statistics shows 220 Ukrainians in Taiwan as of 2022, https://shorturl.at/ajvDW, assessed on July 25, 2023.

7 A TSU Facebook post, February 26, 2022, https://reurl.cc/qL45Xn, accessed on July 25, 2023. The English version is modified to more authentically reflect the message originally written in Chinese.

8 See https://shorturl.at/UX016, accessed on July 27, 2023.

9 See https://t.ly/LCj0E, accessed on December 28, 2023.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Science and Technology Council: [Grant Number 112-2410-H-002-096 “MY3”].