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Complex political economy of diaspora return and investment in post-war states

New perspectives on state (dis)assembly and development politics.

This project looked at the complex political economy of diaspora return and investment in post-war states, and specifically Somalia. It developed original metrics and gathered rare data bridging the comparative scholarship on post-conflict Africa, Middle East and Southeast Asia.

How do diaspora returnees and business actors see their role as ‘social’ and ‘public’ actors in conflict-affected states?

Dr Claire Elder

Drawing importantly on more critical post-conflict and political economy work, it analysed the opportunity structures and informal market mechanisms and networks that comprised the moral economies of return and investment.

Collaborative work with colleagues at the EU Diaspora Facility, the OECD and the World Bank looked specifically at ‘diaspora finance’ as 1) a cornerstone of economic and political statecraft in developing economies in the modern era; and 2) the conditions under which it may work (or not) to build more inclusive and sustainable development outcomes.

  • Elder, Claire. 2023. When Diaspora Rule the Homeland: The Real Political Economy of the Global Somalia Agenda and State Failure (Accepted by Oxford University Press, end 2023).
  • Elder, Claire. 2022. ‘Logistics Contracts: The Making of Intra-Elite Conflict and State Failure in Somalia’. African Affairs121, 484 (July): 395–417.
  • Elder, Claire. 2021. ‘Somaliland’s Authoritarian Turn: New Perspectives on Oligarchic-Corporate Power and the Political Economy of De Facto States’. International Affairs 97, no. 6 (November): 1749–1765.
  • Claire-Elder

    Dr Claire Elder | CPAID Researcher

    Claire Elder was a Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Melbourne, teaching and researching in the fields of global conflict, international political economy, development and comparative politics. Her research draws on over 10 years of fieldwork in the Middle East, Gulf and Sub-Saharan Africa, and focuses particularly on the internationalisation of states and conflicts. She is currently interested in how transnational elites and diaspora populations affect state capacity and legitimacy and the international politics of states.

    Email: c.m.elder@lse.ac.uk