While many aspects of state-diaspora relations have been explored, the role that youth play in state-led diaspora outreach remains under-researched in the literature. Democratic and non-democratic states alike, however, actively target diaspora youth for a variety of reasons. In this article, we explore how and why a non-democratic state like Turkey engages with its perceived diaspora youth by focusing on the AKP regimes' recent engagement within its European diasporas as a case study. We argue that the AKP regime has proactively bolstered transnational youth engagement policies over the last decade with the goal of creating a loyal diaspora that will serve the regime in the long run. We show that selected diaspora youth are not only empowered, but also co-opted and mobilized by the regime to ensure continued influence in the diaspora-ultimately to incorporate them into authoritarian consolidation efforts back home and to turn them into assets that lobby host country governments.

How and why do right-wing populist parties engage in diaspora outreach? This article uses populism as a lens through to study diaspora engagement, and compares strategies used by right-wing parties in power (Turkey’s AKP and India’s BJP) to access their diasporas. While we find that polarising and civilisationist discourses are adopted in both cases for uniting the diaspora behind the populist in power, we argue that these strategies are implemented for different purposes. In the Turkish case, the promotion of Turkish and Sunni-Muslim identification serves the purpose of garnering electoral support behind the ruling party, while in the Indian case, identification with Hindutva is used to achieve the financial and developmental goals of the ruling party. By comparing outreach strategies through the analysis of policies and practices employed by the parties as well as the activities of their diasporic organisations, the article contributes to debates on party-led diaspora engagement.

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