Mobilizing Diasporas in Nationalist Conflicts John Kenny University of Chicago

Introduction Why do immigrants in advanced industrialized countries support nationalist groups in their homeland? In the Kosovo crisis, the Kurdish conflict, Bosnia, the Middle East, Northern Ireland and India, to name just a few, nationalist groups have all received monetary, political and material support from those regions' diasporas. Furthermore, this phenomenon has had a long history, with Polish, Irish, Ukrainian, Korean, Croatian and Zionist nationalists all mobilizing their region's diasporas. During these conflicts diasporas have often been nationalist's most loyal supporters. Despite this there has been little in the way of comparative examination concerning why diasporas support nationalist's in the homeland. In this paper I lay out three rival explanations for why immigrants support homeland nationalist movements, my proposed research design for subjecting these theories to critical tests, and the data sources I use. Finally I present evidence from my preliminary tests. I find little support for the conventional wisdom that diasporan nationalism is a function of immigrants ongoing attachment to the homeland, low levels of assimilation, or their identity needs in the host society. Instead I find strong evidence to suggest that support for diasporan nationalism is strategically adopted by particular groups within the immigrant community as a means of generating support for their own local goals in the host society. In places where these groups were absent, support for homeland nationalism was significantly lower or non-existent. In addressing the issue of diasporan nationalism I am not seeking to explain immigrants ideological support of homeland nationalism. Instead I am seeking to explain a behavioral shift, in which some immigrants stop seeing the issue of the homeland as a low priority. In most cases support for homeland nationalism may be a social norm, but it requires at most no-cost lip service support. Successful nationalist mobilization entails arriving at a situation in which the issue of the homeland is seen by at least some immigrants as a high priority issue requiring high-cost active support1. Theoretical Approaches to Diasporan Nationalism The dominant view of diasporan nationalism sees nationalism as a consequence of the failure of immigrants to identify with the host society. In this view immigrants continue to see themselves primarily in ethnic terms and their political preoccupations remain focussed on the homeland. Among immigrants from regions where there are state seeking nationalist movements, this continuing preoccupation with the homeland ensures that
At the extreme end of successful nationalist mobilization of a regions diasporas results in support for homeland nationalism is being transformed from a social norm in which all are required to pay no-cost lip service support, to a situation in which the social norm requires at least low cost active support.
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premigratory grievances remain salient, and immigrants are responsive to the normative appeals of nationalists. For Alejandro Portes this continued preoccupation with the homeland is most apparent among those immigrants who desire to return to the homeland, such as political exiles and migrant laborers (1997: 130-134). It is least apparent among those immigrants who have made a long term commitment to the host society, such as professionals and immigrant entrepreneurs. Other authors argue that the continued saliency of ethnic ties in the economies of immigrant enclaves means that even among immigrant entrepreneurs, ethnicity remains a plausible basis of identity which leaves them open to mobilizing appeals from nationalists (Eammons 1996). Finally, Ernest Gellner argues that under conditions of discrimination in the host society, immigrant professionals will be supportive of homeland nationalism (Gellner 1966). Even if levels of discrimination are not so high as to encourage relocation, its plausible to suppose that the experience of discrimination may result in the continuing saliency of ethnicity and an empathy for discriminated co-ethnics in the homeland. A second view of diasporan nationalism sees it as a special case of continuing identification with the homeland, one which is most often seen among assimilating ethnics (Gans 1979, Berkowitz 1997, Brown 1966). For assimilating ethnics, supporting homeland nationalism is the easiest way to maintain their membership status within the immigrant community in ways that do not constrain their upward mobility. Donating money to homeland nationalists is far less burdensome than learning a language, less time consuming than participating in ethnic institutions and does not involve cultural practices that might conflict with their upward mobility. However regardless of whether supporting nationalism is a function of low or intermediate levels of assimilation, immigrants do not support diasporan nationalism in the hope of directly benefiting from the establishment of a homeland state. Rather, they contribute as a means of confirming both their public image and self-image as members of a diasporic community2. Political Conflict and Identity To understand why immigrants need to demonstrate their membership in the immigrant community and why this demonstration is expressed in terms of support for homeland nationalism requires understanding how identities are deployed strategically by political actors. In the dominant understanding of diasporan nationalism, identities arise from the informal social networks of everyday immigrant life. Political identities and their concomitant obligations for demonstrative affirmation are in this view a preexisting given that determine the patterns of political mobilization. However, a different conception of identity stresses the instrumental nature of identity. Here, political actors are seen as being capable of choosing from a variety of plausible identities and when possible make this
2 Perhaps the most significant proponent of this view is Matthew Frye Jacobson, who argues that nationalism was the primary means through which 19th century American immigrants expressed group allegiance (1995: 3). He concludes that immigrants had a "sense of undying membership in, and unyielding obligation to, a distant national community" (1995: 10).

choice based on their own perception of which identity best advances their own personal goals. Political actors' choice of identity and symbols is important because of the way in which identities and symbols attempt to classify and explain the world (Gould 1997: 14-17). Whereas a class identity classifies the relations between a boss and his employee as antagonistic, an ethnic identity might define the same relationship as harmonious or, at the very worst, paternalistic. How the world is classified in large part determines whether particular kinds of social relations are seen as antagonistic or complimentary, and whether certain events are seen as central or peripheral. As a consequence how the world is classified determines what forms of social mobilization are likely to succeed. Given then the importance of identities in classifying the world, it is not surprising that political actors go to great lengths to frame their actions in the best possible light in order to generate support and solidarity for their own goals. The value of collective identities to the mobilizing efforts of political actors is only strengthened by the fact that there often exists multiple ways in which actors can define themselves. Individuals can see themselves in terms of class, status, ethnicity and or religion. If the set of possible identities is not fixed, then it follows that individuals can be mobilized in any number of different ways. These two factors, the importance of identities for mobilization, and the multiple ways actors can be identified, create tremendous incentives for political groups to promote particular identities as a means of generating support and solidarity for their own goals and undermining dominant coalitions3. In terms of diaspora nationalism, I argue that support for the homeland should be seen as a form of agenda control, a process by which groups within the immigrant community attempt to frame political debate in terms that favor the preferred outcome. Understanding identity as a strategic portrayal of a group's identity in the public realm allows us to examine the question of diasporan nationalism in a different light. Immigrants support homeland nationalism not because of their failure to assimilate, but because supporting nationalism in the homeland will advance their position in the host society. Three examples illustrate this dynamic. In the 1860s, Irish nationalism was disproportionately supported by Irish soldiers serving in the Union Army during the American Civil War. As the war progressed, the Lincoln administration's support for the draft, the emancipation of slaves and its association with anti-Catholic nativists brought criticism from Irish civilians who feared the domestic consequences for Civil War for the Irish community. This fear in turn led to severe criticism within the Irish community of those Irish who had become associated with the Union war effort.

Readers familiar with the social choice literature will recognize that at the core of my argument lies the well known result where, in a multi-dimensional issue space (with three or more voters) there generally exists no stable predictable outcomes (Arrow 1963, McKelvey 1976, Riker 1982). Instead different agendas can produce different outcomes. As a consequence a player with control of the agenda can secure its most preferred outcome.

It was this criticism of Irish soldiers participating in the Union army that led the Irish Union soldiers to be the primary supporters of Irish nationalism during this period. Irish Union soldiers argued that the international consequences of the war would be a strong unified America, which in turn would weaken Britain's strategic position in the world, which would then improve the chances of an independent Ireland. Despite the unpopularity of Irish soldiers' participation in the Union war effort, their support of Irish nationalism enabled them to categorize their participation in the Union army as such compatible with their ongoing membership within the Irish immigrant community. In the 1890s Polish fraternal societies led the way in supporting Polish nationalism, while Polish priests actively campaigned against supporting nationalism. This outcome emerged out of American Catholicism's attempt to centralize control over the running of Polish Catholic churches in America. While Polish fraternal organizations had taken a lead role in building exclusively Polish Catholic churches, Church rules gave church ownership to the diocesan bishop, which in 19th century America generally meant an Irish-American bishop (Greene 1975). This rule created tremendous resentment from Polish fraternal organizations and generated bitter attacks on the Polish priests who were appointed to the Polish parishes, but whose loyalty lay with the local bishop. It was this conflict over community control of Polish institutions that led the Polish fraternal movement to prominently support Polish nationalism, and Polish Catholicism to be nationalism's fiercest critic. Polish Fraternals defended their claim that Polish Catholic Churches should be self regulated, arguing that the primary loyalty of Polish immigrants should be to their fellow Poles. Priests were accused of having insufficient ethnic feeling and being traitors to their nationality because they upheld the Irish-American bishop's authority. Polish Fraternals categorized their attempts to preserve the integrity of Polish institutions as equivalent to the activities of nationalists in the homeland. They also categorized the support of Polish priests for the authority of Irish-American Catholic bishops as equivalent to Poles supporting the rule of Russian Tsars. In contrast, priests argued that the primary loyalty of Poles should be to their co-religionists and argued that this meant complete loyalty to the American church hierarchy regardless of the ethnic background of that authority. Priests and Fraternals invoke rival identities as a means of bolstering their own local claims and discrediting their rivals. Finally, within the Jewish-American community the main supporters of Zionism were those German-Jews who were associated with the progressive movement. GermanJewish progressives resented the dominance of German-Jews in the running of Jewish communal institutions and German-Jews' conservative approach to assisting East-European Jewish immigrants' adjustment to American society. Instead Jewish progressives wanted a more democratic approach to Jewish communal life and to run Jewish charities along progressive lines. It was this opposition to the dominance of conservatives in the running of Jewish communal life that led German-Jewish Progressives to identify themselves with the Zionist movement. Zionism had long advocated a strategy of institutional displacement and developed a rhetoric of critique which accused Jewish elites of being unrepresentative and

out of touch with the true needs and desires of the Jewish masses, a rhetoric which appealed to Progressives. Furthermore, Progressives shifted the focus of Zionism from a cultural renaissance of American Jewry in preparation for Aliyah to a focus on fund raising for economic development in Palestine so that Zionism would be an experiment in Progressive ideas (Shapiro 1971: 119, Urofsky 1975: 132). As a consequence Jewish Progressives were able to draw analogies between their goals in America, with the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. In these accounts, understanding diasporan nationalism entails understanding how far away conflicts become strategically deployed as symbols in local disputes. Rather then diasporan nationalism being a function of immigrants failure to incorporate into the host society, it is instead a function of how old world identities get put to new uses in new contexts. Research Methods and Procedures Any attempt to define what one means by diasporan nationalism first encounters the very large literature that attempts to define what diasporas are, and how they are different from immigrants, expatriates, refugees, guest workers, exile communities, overseas communities, and ethnic communities. However as other authors have noted, much of this definitional debate has not furthered analysis of the phenomena and instead presupposes a theory of diasporan identity formation (Laitin 1998: 29-32, Tololyan 1991: 4). Similarly my goal is to explain the process whereby diasporan nationalism emerges. As a consequence I define "diasporan nationalism" as the process whereby a self-conscious community is formed to establish a political state in their real or imagined homeland (Adapted from Suny 1993). This narrow definition makes no claims as to the properties of a diaspora, but instead sees it as an outcome to be explained. In order to examine the emergence of diasporan nationalism, the bulk of my research consists of three studies of attempted nationalist mobilization of American immigrant groups during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The scope of the my research, European immigrants in America from 1860 to 1948, creates a natural laboratory for the study of diasporan nationalism. During this period over twenty million Europeans, from a wide array of regions, social classes and religions, emigrated to America. During that same period there was throughout Europe demands that political boundaries be redrawn to reflect national identities. Out of this universe of possible cases I choose to examine the experiences of the Irish, Jewish and Polish communities in America. These cases were chosen with several aims in mind. First, although the precise nature of nationalism differed in each communities' homeland, all represent cases in which it is widely recognized that nationalists attempted to mobilize their region's immigrants in America (Irish nationalism and Polish nationalism were both avowedly insurrectionary movements, whereas American Zionism was avowedly non-violent). Picking clear cases of diasporan mobilization over a variety of different types of nationalist movements reduces controversy over whether the cases chosen were appropriate for testing the theory.

Second, there is considerable socio-economic variation both within and across these cases. Jewish and Irish immigrants in America had very low rates of return migration, whereas Polish immigrants had very high rates of return migration. Within Jewish and Polish communities in America there were also considerable socio-economic and political differences between those who had emigrated from Germany and those who had emigrated from the Russian Empire. Within Jewish communities these differences between German and Russian Jewish immigrants were further exacerbated by religious differences. In contrast Irish immigration to America was relatively homogenous. All told this variation enables the hypotheses concerning diasporan nationalism to be tested in a variety of settings. Since most immigrants located in urban settings during this period, all of the chapters in this dissertation compare how urban immigrant communities throughout America responded to nationalist's appeals for support. Rather than cataloging the activities of diasporan nationalism in America, or simply highlighting the places best known for supporting diasporan nationalism, each chapter examines why diasporan nationalism was more popular in some areas than in others. In order to test the strategic deployment theory of diasporan nationalism each case first lays out a historical narrative which examines how political actors came to link local conflicts within the immigrant community to support for homeland nationalism. However these sections, while outlining the incentives for political actors to promote diasporan nationalism do not evaluate whether these incentives effected levels of support for diasporan nationalism. It may be that political groups were rarely successful in generating support for diasporan nationalism and instead tended to capitalize on it only when it was already a popular cause. In order to test the robustness of the strategic deployment theory against rival explanations, I gathered information on the levels of support for diasporan nationalism in urban areas from the records, archives and published reports of the main nationalist organizations that were attempting to mobilize their region's immigrants in the periods in question. Information on the location of nationalist branches, affiliated organizations, membership levels and fundraising were used to estimate levels of support for diasporan nationalism. For the purposes of this paper Ill focus on just the Irish and Jewish cases. My data on Irish nationalist mobilization during the 1860s comes from the 1865 national convention report of the Fenian Brotherhood, the nationalist organization attempting to mobilize Irish immigrants in America. In this document the organization listed the city and state of all 273 Fenian Branches in North America, as well as branches affiliated with regiments in the U.S. Army and Navy. By locating the counties in which these town branches were located, and excluding those that could not be reliably located I was able to identify 99 counties which had one or more Fenian branch. I collected data on Zionist mobilization from the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem4. This archive contains a record of support for Zionism among American Jews
4 These membership and fund-raising figures were constructed from documents, generally financial and audit reports, housed at the Zionist archives. Information from the following folders and files was

from 1914 to 1948. These data records how many individuals in each city or town were members of Zionist organizations and, during the 1914 to 1919 period, how much money was raised in these cities for Zionist causes5. For the purposes of analysis I examine support for Zionism in 1916 and 1919. Prior to the First World War Zionism in America was still a weak and peripheral social movement. In 1916 Zionism was responding to the crisis of East European Jews affected by the First World War. Finally in 1919, membership in Zionist organizations reached nearly one hundred and fifty thousand members, a high point that was not to be exceeded until after the end of the Second World War6. One source of measurement error is in the estimation of the 1919 membership figures. In 1919, aggregate membership dues were recorded rather than the aggregate number of members. Members choose to pay either one or two dollars for their membership dues. While most paid one dollar, a significant minority (41%) paid two dollars. If, as seems plausible, wealthier members were more likely to pay the two dollar membership dues, cities where the Jewish population was wealthier would have more members paying two dollars for their membership dues. This would bias as results as cities with wealthier Jews would be recorded as having a higher rate of membership. However, given that this bias is systematic, we can correct for it in our interpretation of the coefficients, by controlling for the wealth of the Jewish community7. Data on levels of support for diasporan nationalism was combined with city level data on the economic, social and political factors. These include the ethnic composition of the city, the size of the relevant immigrant community, its level of occupational segregation and socio-economic status, the number of relevant ethnic associations, as well as data on cleavages within the immigrant community. These population estimates were constructed from a one in five hundred sample of 1860 and 1910 census that was collected as part of the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series or IPUMS-98 (Ruggles and Sobek 1997). The IPUMS database provides information on individual persons and households, their age, gender, nativity, occupation and place of residence. Using this data it is possible to estimate the relative size of the relevant immigrant community in cities and counties, the number of immigrants employed in various occupational categories, and the degree of occupational segregation experienced by various immigrant communities8.

used; F25/100, F38/210, F38/225, F38/243, F38/247, F38/677, F38/678,F38/ 679, and F38/1051. 5 Zionism in America was not just one organization but a variety of subsidiary organizations affiliated with the national organization, the Federation of American Zionists (1897-1918) and the Zionist Organization of America (1918-present). Most members were directly affiliated with the national association, but in the analysis that follows I use the combined membership from all Zionist affiliated organizations. 6 Rates of support for Zionism were estimated by dividing the number of members, money raised and membership dues, by the number of Jews in the city in question. 7 On the flip side, it could be that those who paid the $2 membership dues were merely more committed Zionists. If this is the case then the empirical indicator for Zionism would capture not just the extent of support for Zionism but also the level of commitment to Zionism. 8 While the religious affiliation of respondents was not asked in this census, respondents in the 1910 census were asked their or their parents native tongues. Those who reported their native tongue being Yiddish I code as being East European Jews.

My indicator for level of assimilation is based on the degree to which an immigrant community was segregated into particular occupational categories. In estimating this value I use the isolation index, or (P* index), which was developed for analyzing residential segregation (Bell 1954) but has also been used to analyze occupational segregation (Olzack 1992). The P* index is defined as:

K P* =

(nijk/nij
k=1

. nijk/nik).

where the . notation means summation over the index and nijk is the number of members of the foreign born population j in occupation k in city i. So nij. is the total number of workers in the foreign born population j in city i, and nik is the total number of workers in occupational category k in city i. K is the number of occupational categories9. The index gives the probability that a randomly-chosen worker in any of the occupational categories would be have the same ethnicity (in this case Irish or Jewish) as another randomly-chosen worker from that same occupation. High levels of P* (approaching 1) indicate that the particular immigrant community were highly concentrated in just a few occupations, low levels of P* (approaching 0) indicate that the particular immigrant community was highly dispersed (Olzack 1992: 137, Liberson 1969). My indicator for level of upward mobility in the Irish case is based on the proportion of workers employed as skilled craftsmen or apprentices. In the Jewish case upward mobility refers to the proportion of Jewish immigrants employed as proprietors or professionals. In using the IPUMS databases a trade off was involved in maximizing the number of the units of analysis being examined versus minimizing the measurement error in estimating the population proportions of these cities or counties. Examining large numbers of counties or cities would involve estimating population proportions based on very few observations and very low levels of confidence. Examining very few counties or cities would reduce the number of observations. However while these sources of measurement error do reduce the efficiency of the coefficients in the analysis that follows, they represent random error, and are in no way related to the dependent variable. Consequently it does not bias the results in any way. For the Jewish case 93 cities with Jewish populations were examined. For the Irish case 429 counties with Irish populations were examined10.
In both cases I have so far focussed on the dominant occupations of the relevant immigrant group. In the Jewish case nine occupations accounted for 80% of the occupations of sampled Jews. In the Irish case sixteen occupations accounted for 80% of the occupations of sampled Irish immigrants. This method overestimates the level of occupational segregation in immigrant communities. In previous versions of this paper Ive used the level of class segregation, which underestimates the level of segregation. Either measure does not change the substantive result. Future versions of this paper will estimate occupational segregation based on all 175 occupational categories. 10 The population estimates used in this paper are based on a one in five hundred sample of the 1860 and 1910 census. A one in one hundred sample will be released later this year improving the confidence in the population estimates.
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The city level estimates on the size of the total Jewish populations were derived from the American Jewish Yearbooks 1916 and 1918 survey11. These data, combined with the estimates of the total East European Jewish population from the IPUMS data allows us to estimate the proportion of the East European Jewish population in American cities. Using this data it is possible to estimate whether areas with high proportions of recent Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe were more likely to be more supportive of Zionism than areas in which third generation Jewish immigrants and Jewish immigrants from Germany predominated. Its difficult to evaluate the quality of the Jewish Yearbooks surveys. While these studies were the work of statisticians, demographers and sociologists, on occasion these estimates for total Jewish population are actually less then the IPUMS estimate for the number of Jews whose native tongue was Yiddish. In examining support for diasporan nationalism controlling for the level of organizational resources is an important factor. Differences in the level of support for diasporan nationalism may be driven purely by the immigrant communities capacity to organize a nationalist club or a fundraising drive. Here the contrast between the Jewish and the Irish case is striking, both in terms of the quality of the historical records and the overall level of organizational resources. In contrast to the Jewish-American community, no comprehensive survey has ever done on Irish associations in America. I surveyed 90 city directories from 1860 and found that only 24% of cities listed the presence of any secular Irish associations. Nor was there any evidence of nationwide Irish organizations. Most organizations were limited to just one city. However, five years later, in 1865, 56% of these cities had a branch of the Fenian Brotherhood and were sending delegates to the Fenian Brotherhoods national convention in Chicago. Clearly support for Irish nationalism emerged in the absence of a preexisting organizational infrastructure. In contrast for the Jewish case I was able to construct city level estimates on the religious and associational ties of the Jewish community from a 1907 and 1920 directory of National and Local Organizations in the United States, published in the American Jewish Yearbook by the Jewish Publication Society of America. In 1907 and 1920 data is provided on the number and type of local associations in America cities. In 1907 information was also provided on the total number of members and branches of national associations, as well as the city location of these branches. The primary spheres of activity of these voluntary associations in 1907 and 1920 in the 93 cities in question are shown in Table 1.1. ]. Table 1.2 reports the social characteristics of American Jews in the cities of interest. [Table 1.1 here] [Table 1.2 here]

11 The American Jewish Year Book regularly conducted studies on the American Jewish population. They have been published along with other population estimates in Jacob R. Marcuss To Count a People: American Jewish Population Data, 1585-1984

For the Irish case I have been able to gather data on Irish soldiers in the Union army, the group I identify as having a locally based incentive to support homeland nationalism. County-level estimates on rates of Irish enlistment in the Union Army were constructed from a sample of 331 companies drawn from the complete set of the 20,000 white companies in the Union Army. This database was designed to analyze demographic trends among individuals recruited into the Union Army (Fogel et al: 1990). It contains data on 39,616 recruits into the Union Army, representing a 1.9% random sample of all whites mustered into the Union Army, with information on recruit's country of birth, county of enlistment and occupation. My indicator for the level of Union army mobilization is based on the estimates of number of Irish males who enlisted in a county (derived from the Fogel et al database), divided by the population estimates for the number of Irish males of eligible age for enlistment in that county (derived from the IPUMS data above). Taken together this database will allow me to test how levels of assimilation, socioeconomic mobility, and local political conflicts impacted on diasporan nationalism. If I am correct, then levels of assimilation should have no impact on levels of support for diasporan nationalism. Instead diasporan nationalism should be driven by how the political status of the homeland gets strategically deployed in local conflicts by political actors as a means of generating support for local goals. Preliminary Results If Zionism in America was driven by the premigratory experiences of East European Jewish immigrants, then it is reasonable to expect that support for Zionism would be strongest in areas where the Jewish population was disproportionately composed of recent Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. It was East European Jews that had direct experience with anti-Semitic violence, and it was East European Jews that came from areas where Zionism was most popular. Furthermore the theory would predict that premigratory experiences would remain most salient in areas where levels of assimilation into American society among East European Jews were relatively low. How does this theory of diasporan nationalism fare? The answer can be found by turning to the results displayed in Table 1.3. The first section examines the pattern of support for Zionist fund-raising in 1916 when Zionism was responding to the crisis of East European Jews affected by the First World War. The second section examines membership support for Zionism in 1919, the year in which the movement had nearly one hundred and fifty thousand members, a high point that was not to be exceeded until after the end of the Second World War. This table reports ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates. [Table 4.3 here] The results in Table 4.3 provide mixed support for the dominant understandings of diasporan nationalism. Most striking is the role of occupational segregation and upward mobility. Cities in which Jews were concentrated into a few occupational niches and experienced little upward mobility were not more likely to support Zionism.

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Moreover, this result is robust throughout the period in question. These results directly contradict the conventional understanding of diasporan nationalism. An interesting finding is the impact of premigratory experiences on support for diasporan nationalism. Cities with a high proportion of Jews from Eastern Europe were significantly more likely to have higher rates of support for Zionist fund-raising efforts. Looking at model 1 in 1916 we see that for every 10% increase in the Eastern European proportion of the Jewish population, the amount of money raised per 1000 Jews for the Zionist emergency fund increased by $10.51. However East European support for Zionist fund-raising did not translate into East Europeans being a significant factor in the growth of Zionist activists during this period. Looking at either model 1 or 3 in 1919 we see that cities with high proportions of first and second generation Jewish immigrants were not more likely to have higher rates of membership in Zionism. Michael Berkowitz has argued that the success of Zionism lay in its ability to offer upwardly mobile secular Jews a social outlet to express their Jewishness though philanthropy (1997). If this is true Zionism would be most popular in areas where Jews were becoming more economically successful and Jewish associational life was becoming more secular and philanthropic in nature. The evidence, displayed in model 2 both in 1916 and 1919 directly contradicts this theory of diasporan nationalism. In cities that were rich in Jewish charitable institutions less money was actually raised for Zionist causes. For every additional charitable institution per 1000 Jews, the level of monies raised per 1000 Jews dropped by over $40. The presence of Jewish charitable institutions did not have a significant impact on levels on membership in Zionism. Nor is this finding affected by the upwardly mobility of East European Jews. The wealth variable refers to the proportion of the Eastern European population employed as professionals, managers or proprietors. Areas in which East European Jews had moved up into these professions were not significantly more likely to support Zionism, either through fund-raising or through activism. This lack of a significant causal relationship between either the upward mobility of East European Jews or Jewish charities undermines the idea that Zionism in America was primarily a philanthropic activity for the upwardly mobile Jews. However, the evidence in Table 1.3 does indicate a strong relationship between rates of membership in Zionism and the emergence of secular Jewish associations. The fewer the Jewish congregations in a city, the higher the support for Zionist membership. However a focus on the emergence of secular associations alone fails to explain nearly 70% of the variance in rates of support for Zionism. Cities such as Bridgeport Connecticut., Buffalo New York, Springfield Massachusetts, Boston Massachusetts, Toledo Ohio, and Denver Colorado, all had high levels of secular organizational resources but very different rates of support for Zionism. Despite the positive relationship between secular organizational resources and Zionist membership, many cities significantly under- or over- performed their predicted level of support for Zionism. A more reasonable interpretation of these coefficients concerning organizational

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resources would suggest the following. Zionism, like most Jewish organizations, was more likely to recruit members in cities where the Jewish population did not socialize and organize exclusively within the bounds of local religious congregations. The question then becomes why did secular organizational resources translate into support for Zionism in some cities, but not in others? To summarize, this empirical survey of support for Zionism gives little support for traditional theories of diasporan nationalism. First, cities with a high proportion of Jews from Eastern Europe were not more likely to have high rates of membership in Zionism. Nor did the level of occupational segregation effect support for Zionism. However cities with a high proportion of Eastern European Jews were more likely to support Zionist fundraising. This suggests that Zionism is less directly affected by premigratory experiences and levels of assimilation into the host society, than has been commonly thought. Second, rates of Zionist membership were not effected by the upward mobility of East European Jews. This contradicts the argument that Zionism was primarily supported by upwardly mobile Jews attempting to express their Jewish identity in secular ways. Secularism was a factor that was positively related to Zionist membership rates. However even after controlling for these variables, significant variations between cities persisted in the support of American Jews for Zionism. Turning to the Irish case allows us to test the theory of strategic deployment against the dominant understandings of diasporan nationalism. The results in Table 1.4 confirm what we found in the Jewish case. Levels of ethnic occupational segregation are not correlated with support for diasporan nationalism. Furthermore this result is robust no matter how the model is specified. This indicates that support for homeland nationalism was no higher in towns where Irish immigrants were segregated from the native born community, then in more integrated towns. In both the Jewish and Irish cases the conventional understanding of diasporan nationalism performs poorly in explaining variance in the support of immigrants for homeland nationalism. I suggested above that the issue of Irish independence was strategically deployed by Irish Union soldiers as a means of defending their support for the Union during the American Civil war. If this is true then areas with high rates of Irish enlistment into the Union army should be more likely to support the Fenian Brotherhood. The evidence concerning Union army mobilization is clear. The proportion of Irish enlisted in the Union army is a highly significant predictor of Fenian Branch formation. To illustrate the interpretation of the logit estimations, a hypothetical example from the fully specifed model (5) is useful. In a county with mean levels of Irish population, occupational segregation (.30) and upward mobility (.12), counties whose rate of Irish enlistment into the Union army were in the lower quartile, the model predicts at best a .24 probability of having a Fenian Branch. If the countys rate of Irish enlistment was in the upper quartile, the model predicts at least a .74 probability of having a Fenian Branch. However if there was no recorded enlistment in the Union army, the model predicts only a .17 probability of having a Fenian Branch. Controlling for level of occupational segregation and levels

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of upward mobility, areas with high rates of Union Army enlistment had dramatically higher odds of having a Fenian Branch. Furthermore the overall statistical performance of the model is good, passing the likelihood ratio test (given its chi-square value of 93.39) and being robust no matter how the model is specified. One explanation for the correlation between Union Army mobilization and Fenian branch formation might focus on who was recruited into the Army. While 14% of the general Irish population was employed as artisans, 28% of Irish enlistment into the Union army was artisans. Perhaps, passe Herbert Gans, those who were recruited into military life were from the most upwardly mobile section of the Irish immigrant community, and it was this fact, not their Union army participation that led them to support the Fenian Brotherhood. The evidence presented in models two, three and five, indicate that Gans theory over-predicts the relationship between upward mobility and diasporan nationalism. While models two and three show that high rates of upward mobililty were associated with support for Fenian Branch formation, model five indicates that the strength and significance of this relationship was contingent on rates of Irish enlistment into the Union army. This indicates that it was not upward mobility per se that led Irish artisans to support the Fenian Brotherhood. To be sure, the Civil war created opportunities for upwardly mobile immigrants to further associate with the host society through military service. However it was only when serving in the Union Army resulted in political controversy that upwardly mobile Irish immigrants felt a need to support Irish nationalism. One rival explanation of my analysis might focus on the experience of military life itself. The Civil war brought men together from a variety of settings, forging connections within and across states, and laying the foundation for the tremendous postCivil War growth in all kinds of civic associations (Skocpol forthcoming: 33). Perhaps military mobilization created organizational resources for the emergence of the Fenian Brotherhood? A focus on organizational resources alone however, fails to explain the lack of Fenian mobilization among Irish soldiers in the Confederate Armies. Like the Union army, the Confederate army had a large component of first generation Irish immigrants, the Irish being the largest foreign component in the Confederate armies. Also similar to the northern armies was the presence of exclusively Irish regiments. However despite this, and in contrast to the significant numbers of Fenian circles in the Union armies, there was not one Fenian circle in the Confederate army. Military mobilization may have delivered organizational resources to Irish immigrants, but in the absence of opposition to their serving in the Army, Irish soldiers did not support Fenian activists. Taken together, the Irish and Jewish cases provide little or no support for the conventional theories of diasporan nationalism or ethnic mobilization more generally. Most striking is the poor performance of occupational segregation in explaining support for diasporan nationalism. This result is surprising because it is precisely in those areas

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where occupational and ethnic social networks overlap that conventional wisdom suggests that ethnic identities would be a more plausible basis of identity and mobilization. It appears that, within immigrant communities at least, ethnic identities are more fluid and strategic then has previously been thought. This is confirmed in the Irish case. It was only among those Irish immigrants who had a local incentive to stress the political status of the homeland that support for homeland nationalism prospered.

Conclusion Despite the pervasive involvement of diasporas in nationalist conflicts, the reason why immigrants remain involved in the politics of the homeland has received little systematic attention. Perhaps the reason for this lacunae lies in the availability of an intuitive reasonable explanation, immigrants lack of assimilation into the host society. This paper has laid out the research design for testing this explanation. By comparing immigrant communities in 19th and 20th century America we can begin to better understand this important and understudied phenomenon. The preliminary results of this research project reveal little support for the conventional understanding of diasporan nationalism. More promising evidence suggests that support for diasporan nationalism may be driven by how premigratory identities are strategically deployed in disputes originating in the host society.

14

Table 1.1 Jewish Associations in America: Spheres of Activity Sphere of Activity Percentage of All Associations 1907 23 15 40 4 8 Percentage of Local Associations 1920 29 13 37 7 9

Religious Charitable Fraternal Educational Miscellaneous

Constructed using data from the Directory of National and Local Organizations in the United States in American Jewish Yearbook , 1907-1908 and 1919-1920.

15

Table 1.2 Indices of Jewish Life in American Cities, 1907-1919

City State Zionist Zionist Membership Fund Dues Raising Per 1000 Per 1000 91.63 86.59 44.43 55.83 82.33 102.98 190.50 83.55 291.54 151.00 200.11 92.09 19.63 72.46 32.99 23.56 30.58 21.97 0.00 71.53 7.61 133.52 51.53 151.74 88.15 111.46 15.13 97.50 73.44 12.29 47.35 378.75 210.65 23.38 78.74 57.69 3.50 101.88 58.67 30.79 139.50 0.13 46.03 25.75 298.00 119.00 42.39 78.75 66.73 161.48 40.68 128.94 0.21 168.50 86.53 44.90 103.04 19.57 32.24 1.53 45.40 35.71 121.34 68.42 60.50 54.93 0.27 10.50 27.17 66.83 8.62 13.44 0.67 0.00 0.63 0.32 3.44 28.60 31.87 2.30 26.67 1.33 0.00 24.29 1.29 0.00 1193.23 50.90 0.00 17.99 8.96 0.00 35.00 21.33 28.48 133.42 200.13 33.50 22.22 103.50 0.00 18.71 0.00 18.50 2.43 0.00 0.00 39.36 84.00 5.15 Jewish Level of Population Occupational Segregation Proportion of Jewish Population East European 0.46 0.38 0.14 0.83 0.30 0.34 0.14 0.63 0.17 2.00 0.35 0.19 1.00 0.54 0.34 0.16 0.22 0.06 1.00 0.13 0.64 0.16 0.05 0.22 0.10 0.83 0.13 0.45 0.47 0.29 0.30 1.50 0.20 0.35 0.04 0.04 1.00 0.25 1.00 0.11 0.22 0.25 0.13 0.44 1.00 0.83 0.14 0.50 0.18 0.37 0.45 0.30 0.86 1.00 0.08 Level of Number of Upward Jewish Mobility Associations Per 1000 57% 34% 100% 100% 100% 20% 100% 46% 25% 0% 50% 67% 100% 46% 40% 25% 40% 100% 50% 100% 36% 100% 60% 100% 0% 100% 50% 0% 40% 50% 67% 100% 50% 57% 0% 0% 100% 0% 67% 100% 75% 0% 0% 63% 100% 60% 50% 100% 57% 36% 100% 100% 33% 60% 67% 3.90 3.37 5.00 5.83 1.80 2.18 4.57 2.81 2.25 7.33 1.70 0.75 4.00 1.75 0.87 1.96 0.89 2.00 4.00 2.13 3.45 5.63 0.70 3.04 3.80 10.00 3.07 11.82 2.63 4.00 2.00 7.00 2.60 1.50 1.92 2.00 12.00 6.00 1.33 1.39 3.22 1.17 1.73 1.44 18.00 7.33 2.86 7.00 1.35 2.33 5.00 6.06 2.57 2.40 1.80 Number of Religious Congregations Per 1000 1.31 1.21 0.71 2.50 0.50 0.68 0.86 1.11 0.75 1.33 0.45 0.38 2.00 0.92 0.49 0.56 0.38 0.78 2.00 0.38 1.27 1.56 0.38 2.17 0.80 2.50 0.80 2.73 0.63 1.14 0.80 3.00 0.80 0.70 0.64 0.92 8.00 1.50 0.67 0.39 0.78 0.33 0.67 0.56 4.00 1.67 0.71 1.00 0.40 0.60 0.91 2.42 1.43 1.20 0.55 Number of Charitable Societies Per 1000 .95 1.22 1.29 0.83 0.60 0.50 1.71 0.55 0.42 2.00 0.75 0.00 0.00 0.42 0.18 0.52 0.21 0.67 2.00 0.00 0.64 2.19 0.16 0.43 1.40 5.00 1.20 2.73 0.81 1.71 0.40 0.00 0.60 0.20 0.32 0.58 0.00 0.50 0.00 0.67 1.33 0.17 0.00 0.44 6.00 2.00 0.71 3.00 0.55 0.60 2.27 1.21 0.00 1.20 0.25

Mean SD Albany Allentown Atlanta Baltimore Birmingham Boston Bridgeport Brockton Buffalo Cambridge Camden Chelsea Chicago Cincinnati Cleveland Columbus Council Bluffs Dallas Denver Des Moines Detroit Duluth Elizabeth Elmira Fall River Galveston Hartford Haverhill Hoboken Holyoke Houston Indianapolis Jersey City Kansas City Kingston Lawrence Lewiston Los Angeles Louisville Lowell Lynn Malden Manchester McKeesport Memphis Meriden Milwaukee Minneapolis Mobile Montgomery New Bedford New Britain New Haven

NY PA GA MD AL MA CT MA NY MA NJ MA IL OH OH OH IA TX CO IA MI MN NJ NY MA TX CT MA NJ MA TX IN NJ MO NY MA ME CA KY MA MA MA NH PA TN CT WI MN AL AL MA CT CT

31846 157763 7000 1200 10000 60000 3500 77500 12000 1500 20000 8000 2000 12000 225000 25000 100000 9000 1000 8000 11000 3200 50000 2300 5000 1200 7500 1100 16000 3500 5000 1000 5000 10000 12500 12000 500 2000 1500 18000 9000 6000 7500 9000 500 3000 7000 1000 20000 15000 2200 1650 3500 2500 20000

0.16 0.17 0.10 0.12 0.16 0.16 0.08 0.15 0.06 0.11 0.15 0.05 0.22 0.56 0.07 0.08 0.13 0.03 0.50 0.12 0.20 0.09 0.03 0.09 0.06 0.33 0.06 0.00 0.12 0.01 0.06 0.30 0.00 0.12 0.00 0.17 0.14 0.00 0.40 0.03 0.04 0.34 0.04 0.19 0.25 0.48 0.50 0.14 0.04 0.03 0.13 0.14 0.04 0.38 0.06

16

Table 1.2 (cont)

City

State

Zionist Zionist Membership Fund Dues Raising Per 1000 Per 1000 69.53 11.08 26.24 31.26 0.75 284.00 221.40 162.67 51.75 54.63 59.29 31.42 0.00 28.48 42.65 480.00 214.30 122.12 71.53 47.08 106.95 71.43 25.35 93.36 117.23 100.20 170.00 61.23 21.00 11.60 43.89 55.17 233.91 63.78 0.00 21.42 200.14 126.90 92.51 192.25 66.57 27.50 13.64 9.02 0.00 13.00 122.60 217.69 1.10 7.50 9.17 12.06 2.86 3.17 3.44 285.00 0.00 34.14 9.60 29.20 0.20 55.21 36.77 66.23 17.99 2.60 7.00 34.35 0.00 0.67 45.21 1.00 126.88 1.95 0.00 12.43 81.15 87.53 10.10 16.20

Jewish Level of Proportion of Level of Population Occupational Jewish Upward Segregation Population Mobility East European 8000 3000 1500000 55000 1000 500 5000 1500 10000 2000 6000 15000 1750 200000 60000 1000 2500 15000 20000 60000 10000 30000 5000 3500 7500 5000 6000 12000 500 7500 7000 3000 1600 10000 500 3000 3500 10000 5000 5000 0.00 0.10 0.24 0.11 0.21 1.00 0.10 0.67 0.31 0.19 0.44 0.23 0.06 0.11 0.08 0.06 0.17 0.19 0.14 0.17 0.05 0.10 0.07 0.50 0.06 0.02 0.03 0.09 0.06 0.04 0.10 0.09 0.12 0.02 0.00 0.60 0.33 0.13 0.10 0.20 0.06 0.33 0.48 0.32 1.00 1.00 0.10 0.67 0.25 1.00 0.33 0.37 0.57 0.43 0.25 1.00 1.40 0.80 0.28 0.26 0.30 0.13 0.10 0.29 0.13 0.10 0.42 0.17 1.00 0.13 0.07 1.00 0.63 0.20 1.00 1.00 0.29 0.50 0.30 0.30 0% 50% 38% 49% 100% 0% 100% 50% 40% 50% 50% 73% 0% 37% 50% 50% 14% 75% 55% 35% 67% 50% 100% 0% 50% 100% 40% 75% 100% 50% 100% 50% 100% 75% 0% 100% 100% 10% 67% 100%

Number of Jewish Associations Per 1000 2.75 1.00 2.42 1.13 7.00 10.00 3.20 4.00 1.70 2.50 1.50 1.20 4.57 1.44 1.08 11.00 14.00 2.60 1.95 1.10 2.10 1.33 4.00 3.43 1.33 5.80 3.67 2.75 16.00 4.13 3.43 3.00 9.38 1.20 4.00 3.00 4.57 2.20 3.80 5.00

Number of Religious Congregations Per 1000 0.75 0.33 0.57 0.31 2.00 4.00 1.20 2.00 0.60 1.00 0.83 0.40 1.14 0.71 0.42 4.00 2.80 0.73 0.80 0.48 1.10 0.37 0.80 2.29 0.80 1.20 1.33 1.00 4.00 0.93 1.14 1.33 5.00 0.50 4.00 1.33 1.14 1.10 0.80 1.20

Number of Charitable Societies Per 1000 1.00 0.00 0.11 0.27 0.00 2.00 0.40 0.00 0.40 0.00 0.00 0.20 2.86 0.22 0.30 2.00 5.20 0.67 0.45 0.28 0.70 0.60 1.80 0.29 0.13 2.20 0.67 1.00 6.00 1.33 0.86 0.00 0.63 0.20 0.00 0.00 1.14 0.20 1.40 0.80

New Orleans New Rochester New York Newark Newport Newport Norfolk Norwich Omaha Orange Passaic Paterson Peoria Philadelphia Pittsburgh Portland Portland Providence Rochester Saint Louis Saint Paul San Francisco Savannah Schenect Scranton Seattle Springfield Syracuse Tacoma Toledo Trenton Troy Utica Washington West Hob Wilkes-Barre Wilmington Worcester Yonkers Youngstown

LA NY NY NJ RI KY VA CT NE NJ NJ NJ IL PA PA ME OR RI NY MO MN CA GA NY PA WA MA NY WA OH NJ NY NY DC NJ PA DE MA NY OH

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Table 1.3 East European Jews and Support for Zionism in America, 1914-1919 (standard errors in parentheses)

Zionist Fundraising in 1916

Zionist Membership in 1919

Intercept

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 18.05 20.87 -23.03 40.09 33.32 47.92 (127.65) (127.73 (125.98) (80.89) (77.88) (77.97) -4.29 (28.65) -1.75 (5.48) 12.97 (83.78) 105.05* (44.84) 25.11 (39.87) -0.05 (0.06) -43.21* (18.75) -0.03 (0.06) -37.38* (18.66) 80.52* (43.67) -2.89 (28.49) 18.31* (7.70) 6.01 (28.43) 12.73 (8.18) 1.02 (18.05) 10.58** (3.47) 46.65 (53.09) -2.48 (28.41) .52 (24.31) -0.10** (0.04) -3.70 (11.40) -0.11** (0.04) -4.88 (11.55) -17.35 (27.03) 5.65 (17.37) 15.52** (4.69) 3.23 (17.60) 16.77** (5.06)

Log of Jewish population in 1918 Level of Organizational Resources Level of Occupational Segregation Proportion of Yiddish Jews in Jewish Population Upward Mobility

Religious Organizations

Charitable Organizations

Adjusted R2 Prob > F *P<.1 **P.01 ***P<.001 N=93

0.05 0.00

0.06 0.07

0.08 0.02

0.14 0.02

0.21 0.00

0.21 0.00

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Table 1.4 Logistic Regression of Fenian Branch Formation (Standard errors in parentheses)

Model 1 Variable Log of the Irish Population .963*** (.122)

Model 2

Model 3

Model 4

Model 5

.949*** (.118)

.968*** (.122)

.916*** (.117)

.949*** (.123)

Level of Occupational Segregation

-.664 (.663)

-.493 (.657)

-.440 (.688)

Proportion of Irish employed as Artisans

.988* (.538)

.924* (.549)

.908 (.554)

Proportion of Irish enlisted in Union Army

.143* (.064)

1.34* (.062)

Constant

-8.527 (.950) 84.85

-8.738 (.970) 86.84

-8.733 (.972) 105.61

-8.464 (.949) 90.31

-8.699 (.980) 93.29

Log Likelihood

*P<.1 **P.01 ***P<.001 N=429

19

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eds by C. Peach, V. Robinson and S. Smith Marcus, Jacob R. 19xx. To Count a People: American Jewish Population Data, 1585-1984 Olzack, Susan. 1992. The Dynamics of Ethnic Competition and Conflict Portes, Alejandro and Ruben G. Rumbaut 1996. Immigrant America: A Portrait Ruggles Steven and Matthew Sobek 1997. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 2.0 Minneapolis: Minnesota Historical Census Projects, University of Minnesota Shapiro, Yonathon. 1971. Leadership of the American Zionist Organization, 1897-1930 Skocpol, Theda. Forthcoming. "How Americans became Civic," in Civic Engagement in American Democracy, ed Morris Fiorina and Theda Skocpol Suny, Ronald. 1996. Looking towards Ararat Tololyan, Kachig 1991. "The Nation State and its Others: In Lieu of a Preface," Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 1, no. 1 Urofsky, Melvin I. 1975. American Zionism From Herzl to the Holocaust

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