Determined diplomacy: land, law, and the strategic outreach of self-determination governments

How do self-determination groups and de facto states use diplomacy to advance their international legitimacy? Lacking diplomatic recognition, aspiring states still foster productive relationships with external actors-trading, allying, and partnering to pursue economic, diplomatic, and military objectives. They do this through ad hoc executive visits, participation in summits, and contact with party leaders, judicial bodies, and other actors. To explore these diplomatic relations and strategies behind them, I employ original data on twelve years of diplomatic visits of the representatives of the Polisario Front and Kurdish Regional Government, and I analyze the Polisario case through 11 interviews with foreign ministry representatives. I find: (1) these governments employ extensive resources to establish a constant presence in third-party states; (2) they employ their resources strategically based on the domestic characteristics and international positioning of these states; (3) their diplomatic reach depends on the kind of appeals they make to external parties.