De facto, displaced, tacit: The sovereign articulations of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile

Based on ethnographic research on exiled Tibetan political institutions and practices in India, this paper investigates sovereignty in exile. The Tibetan Government-in-Exile (TGiE) remains internationally unrecognised and lacks de jure sovereignty over territory in both Tibet and in exile. However,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Political geography 2009-08, Vol.28 (6), p.343-352
Main Author: McConnell, Fiona
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Asia
Bgi / Prodig
China
Citizenship
Exile
Geopolitics
Government
India
International political economy
International relations
Legitimacy
Peoples Republic of China
Political Defection
Political Power
Recognition
Regional studies
Sovereignty
Territory
Tibet
Tibetan Government-in-Exile
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Summary:Based on ethnographic research on exiled Tibetan political institutions and practices in India, this paper investigates sovereignty in exile. The Tibetan Government-in-Exile (TGiE) remains internationally unrecognised and lacks de jure sovereignty over territory in both Tibet and in exile. However, this exiled administration claims legitimacy as the official representative of the Tibetan population, performs a number of state-like functions in relation to its diasporic ‘citizenry’ and attempts to make its voice heard within the international community. Rejecting arguments that such entities should be viewed merely as discrepant forms of political practice, this paper asserts that the state, sovereignty, and territory can be conceptually disentangled, opening up the theoretical possibility of entities other than territorial states claiming sovereignty. In teasing apart and problematising constituent elements of sovereignty, this paper focuses on three aspects of the TGiE's articulations of sovereignty: its claims to and production of legitimacy, authority and de facto sovereignty; its displaced sovereignty and strategies of territorial governance over non-contiguous spaces in exile; and the mediation of its ambiguous relationship with the host state India through practices of tacit sovereignty.
ISSN:0962-6298
1873-5096
DOI:10.1016/j.polgeo.2009.04.001