Protest and military action raised the prospect of regime change in Iran and Venezuela, and the voices of both countries’ diasporas were heard loud and clear through the media of their host nations.

Venezuelan exiles in the U.S. were, according to the popular narrative, broadly behind President Donald Trump and his plan to “run Venezuela,” as the nickname “MAGAzuelans” suggests. Meanwhile, the Iranian diaspora rallied behind Prince Reza Pahlavi as he positioned himself as a leader-in-waiting, projecting an image of unified exile support.

Diasporas are often treated by media and policymakers as monolithic blocs — politically unified, ideologically coherent and ready to be mobilized for regime change. But as a scholar of migration and security in Latin America, I know this assumption misunderstands how diaspora communities form, evolve and engage politically.

Iranian and Venezuelan émigrés might broadly oppose their current governments — having left them, this is unsurprising. But they are far from unified on what should replace those governments, who should lead or how change should come about.

Migration waves shape politics

Diasporas are not uniform because their constituent populations did not arrive all at once, from the same places or for the same reasons. Each migration wave carries distinct political orientations shaped by the circumstances of departure.

The tendency of diasporas to become politically frozen at the moment of departure appears across contexts. El Salvador’s diaspora in the United States, which first left during the 1980s civil war, developed a reputation for being “stuck in the ’80s” — mentally still fighting battles that had long since ended at home.

This temporal displacement has consequences. Iranian-American sociologist Asef Bayat, writing about the Iranian diaspora, argues that exile opposition to the ruling government back home “suffers from a political disease, positioning itself against the movement it claims to support.”

In other words, diaspora activists may advocate positions that resonate with Western audiences but find little support among those actually living under authoritarian rule. This lack of accountability to political consequences back home can rankle the constituencies on whose behalf they seek to advocate.

Research on the Venezuelan diaspora reflects similar dynamics. A 2022 study found that Venezuelan exiles hold more extreme anti-government views than those who remained.

Despite this presumed disconnection, homeland politicians often devote disproportionate attention to those who have left. The logic is simple: emigrants send money home — accounting for as much as 25% of gross domestic product in some Central American and Caribbean countries. Politicians assume that this financial power translates into political influence over remittance-receiving relatives.

One party official in El Salvador told me: “If we get one Salvadoran in Washington to support us, that gives us five votes in El Salvador — and it doesn’t even matter if the one in Washington votes.”

My own research tested this assumption using polling and voting data across Latin America and found it to be exaggerated. Remittances and family communication mostly reinforce existing partisan sympathies rather than swing votes.

But the belief in diaspora influence matters politically — and diaspora voters can be weaponized by authoritarian leaders. El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, in his successful and plainly unconstitutional 2024 reelection bid, expanded external voting through online balloting, increasing diaspora votes by 87-fold over the previous election.

Diasporas can influence home-country politics through several channels: direct voting, financial support for opposition movements, lobbying host governments and transmitting democratic values through what sociologist Peggy Levitt calls “social remittances.” Other research has found that remittances can undermine dictatorships by helping fund opposition activities.

Yet authoritarian governments have developed sophisticated countermeasures. Freedom House recorded more than 1,200 incidents of physical transnational repression against dissidents — including assassinations, abductions and unlawful deportation — between 2014 and 2024 involving 48 governments.

The limits of exile politics

For Venezuela and Iran, these lessons counsel caution. Nearly 8 million Venezuelans have fled their homeland — the largest displacement crisis in the Western Hemisphere. Iranian emigration accelerated after the 2022 protests.

Both diasporas contain passionate activists, wealthy donors and would-be leaders positioning themselves for future rule. But passion does not equal unity, and visibility does not equal representation.

The loudest voices on social media — or those amplified by U.S. officials and media — may represent narrow slices of diverse communities. There may be consensus on opposing the government back home, but far less agreement on what should be done or how change should occur.

Nor does diaspora opposition necessarily translate into regime vulnerability. Authoritarian states have learned to insulate themselves from diaspora pressure while simultaneously using emigration as a safety valve, turning potential dissidents into remittance-senders.

Diasporas can contribute to democratic change through funding, advocacy and the transmission of democratic values. But ultimately, the path to democratic change in Venezuela, Iran and elsewhere will be determined by those who remain, not those who left. Diasporas can support that struggle; they cannot substitute for it.

About the author: Michael Paarlberg is Associate Professor of Political Science at Virginia Commonwealth University.

This article is reproduced from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence.

The extraction of Nicolás Maduro on Saturday was meant to signal the end of an era. Instead, it has exposed an uncomfortable truth that may loom over Washington weeks and months after the “shock-and-awe” attacks in central Caracas have waned from headlines: was Venezuela’s democratic opposition sidelined at the very moment it appeared closest to victory?

Just weeks earlier, María Corina Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the symbolic leader of Venezuela’s opposition, had laid out her Freedom Manifesto — a sweeping blueprint for a Venezuelan-led democratic transition rooted in dignity, elections, free markets and the return of millions of exiles. She framed the coming moment not as an American intervention, but as a national rebirth steered by Venezuelans themselves.

That vision now appears to be colliding with a far more transactional reality.

Following Maduro’s capture in a U.S.-led operation, President Donald Trump declined to elevate Machado or her movement into any formal role. Instead, senior U.S. officials have coalesced around Delcy Rodríguez – Maduro’s longtime lieutenant and overseer of the oil sector — as Washington’s primary interlocutor in Caracas. Trump publicly praised Rodríguez’s cooperation while dismissing Machado as a “very nice woman” who “lacks the support” to lead the country.

On Monday, Delsy Rodríguez took the oath of office in the presence of the Ambassadors to China, Iran and Russia. The scene from the National Assembly recalls the sham investiture of Maduro on January 10, 2025,  and sends a dire signal to the internationl community:  Does oil security matter more than a secure democracy?

White House insiders told U.S. media that Trump had never warmed to Machado, “because his feelings got hurt”, reads the Daily Beast. According to an article on Monday in The Washington Post, the president declined to pick Machado because she committed the “ultimate sin” of offending his pride, after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. “If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today,” cites the newspaper’s sources.

Having lost the Oslo podium as the world’s “peace president,” personal grievance and strategic calculation have marked the White House’s decision to annoint a “moderate” in Miraflores. But Rodríguez is no moderate, and her penchant for state repression remains intact. A  recent article in the Wall Street Journal affirms that Washington is willing to tolerate a Maduro 2.0 — a Chavista continuity government — so long as it cooperates on oil, narcotics enforcement and geopolitical alignment.

On the ground in Caracas, the mood reflects that ambiguity. There have been no mass celebrations, no release of political prisoners, and no clear roadmap. Power remains concentrated within the same military-backed elites that have pillaged Venezuela for over three decades, even as Maduro himself awaits trial in New York on charges expected to exceed those once brought against Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

U.S. officials insist this is realism, not betrayal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has argued that squeezing the regime economically and forcing compliance on security and oil will eventually produce leverage. But he has stopped short of demanding immediate elections — a notable omission given that the opposition already won one.

Machado’s Freedom Manifesto now reads less like a transition plan and more like a rebuke. It imagined a Venezuela where sovereignty flowed from the ballot box, not from foreign capitals; where dignity, not expediency, guided reconstruction; and where Venezuelans — not external powers — chose their leaders.

Instead, Trump has suggested that the United States will “run” Venezuela, even as it leaves the same repressive security apparatus intact. The contradiction is stark: maximum news coverage abroad, minimal transformation on the ground.

The question, then, is not only whether Trump sidetracked María Corina Machado, but whether the United States has traded a rare democratic opening for short-term gains. If Chavismo survives without Maduro — its prisons full, its generals untouched, its oil flowing under U.S management — the Nobel laureate’s blueprint may yet stand as the document of a revolution deferred.

And history may judge that Venezuela was not lost for lack of courage at home, but for lack of conviction abroad. In the words of Mexican historian Enrique Krauze, the end-game is inevitable: “If geopolitics seeks to turn Venezuela into a pawn on its chessboard, the people will take to the streets. They have chosen a legitimate president: Edmundo González. And they have a moral leader: María Corina Machado. Obstacles may arise, but Venezuela’s liberation is irreversible.”

Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, triggered yet another diplomatic rupture in South America on Sunday after denouncing Chile’s president-elect, José Antonio Kast, as a “Nazi,” rejecting the legitimacy of Chile’s democratic choice and sharply diverging from the cautious language typically observed between regional leaders.

Petro’s remarks came within hours of Kast’s decisive victory in Chile’s presidential runoff, in which the conservative candidate secured more than 58 per cent of the vote, defeating hard-left contender Jeannette Jara. Jara conceded promptly, saying that “democracy has spoken loud and clear” and wishing Kast success “for the good of Chile.”

Petro, however, used his social media platform X to frame Kast’s victory as evidence of an advancing wave of fascism in Latin America. “Fascism advances. I will never shake hands with a Nazi or a Nazi’s son, nor will I; they are death in human form,” the Colombian president wrote.

In a retort that called for Chileans to “take care of Neruda’s tomb,” Petro went on to equate Kast’s electoral mandate with the legacy of former dictator Augusto Pinochet. “It’s sad that Pinochet had to impose himself by force, but sadder now is that the people choose their Pinochet: elected or not, they are sons of Hitler and Hitler kills the people,” Petro said, adding that Latin Americans “know how to resist.”

The language marked one of the most explicit attacks by a sitting South American president on a democratically elected counterpart in recent years and raised immediate concerns about the state of Colombia – Chile relations, historically among the region’s most stable.

Kast’s victory completes a broader rightward shift in South American politics, following the election of Javier Milei in Argentina, Daniel Noboa in Ecuador and Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, while Bolivia recently ended nearly two decades of socialist rule with the election of centrist Rodrigo Paz. Petro, the region’s most unhinged left-wing leader, with just eight months remaining in his presidential term, appeared to ignore the potential diplomatic fallout of his remarks.

Within hours of Petro’s statement, US Republican Congressman Carlos Gimenez responded sharply, writing: “This guy (Petro) went too far with the drugs and alcohol. This is the real Gustavo Petro: incoherent, hateful, and schizophrenic.”

Former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe Vélez praised Chile’s electoral process and congratulated Kast, saying the vote had taken place peacefully and reflected citizens’ concerns about security and institutional stability. Uribe described Kast as “a guarantee for democratic institutions” in Chile and the wider region.

Another former president, conservative Andrés Pastrana, issued a sharply worded rebuke of Petro, saying the comments were “inappropriate and irresponsible” and did not represent Colombians nor the long-standing spirit of cooperation between Bogotá and Santiago.

Criticism also came from current lawmakers. Federico Hoyos, a congressman from the department of Antioquia, said Petro had “abandoned his role as head of state” and was acting instead as an “ideological agitator “unwilling to engage with leaders who do not share his views. Andrés Forero, a House representative from the opposition Centro Democrático party, accused Petro of disrespecting the sovereign will of Chilean voters, telling Colombians: “Let’s not fool ourselves, Petro is not a democrat.”

While Petro reviles diplomacy, Kast received public congratulations from international figures across the hemisphere. María Corina Machado, Venezuela’ opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, praised Chile’s election as “an extraordinary electoral day, an example for many nations of Latin America and the world.”

Addressing Kast directly, Machado wrote: “To the president-elect of Chile, José Antonio Kast, I send my affection and congratulations for the trust he has received. In the name of the Venezuelans, I wish him great success in his government.” She added that Venezuelans hoped to count on Kast’s support “to ensure an orderly transition to democracy in Venezuela” and to help build “a safe, prosperous and free hemisphere.”

Machado’s intervention was notable given her continued persecution by the regime of Nicolás Maduro and her public appearance at the Nobel ceremony last week in Oslo, her first in more than a year.

The United States also welcomed Kast’s victory. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington looked forward to working with the incoming administration “to strengthen regional security and revitalise our trade relationship.”

Kast’s transition team said the president-elect would travel to Argentina this week to meet President Javier Milei, signalling an intention to align closely with like-minded governments in the region.

For Petro, the episode reinforces international perceptions that he has become an anachronism of regional politics — reliant on social-media provocation and historical revisionism.

For all the historical accuracy that seems to elude Petro, membership in Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist Party was not voluntary. While many Germans joined out of conviction, others were pressured or effectively compelled to enrol, particularly to obtain employment, documentation or travel permits. During and immediately after the Second World War, Germans seeking to live or work abroad — including in South America — were often required to disclose or document prior party affiliation to secure passports and legal work status, complicating later assessments of individual responsibility.

Michael Kast, born in 1924 in Thalkirschdorf, Bavaria, emigrated in Chile in 1946. His youngest son, José Antonio Kast (born 1966, Santiago) has repeatedly claimed his father was a Third Reich conscript.

Whether the outburst leads to lasting diplomatic consequences remains uncertain. But it has underscored how electoral change in Latin America is now accompanied not only by sharp policy shifts, but by open rhetorical conflict by a Colombian leader increasingly isolated among his regional peers, except for one ally, Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.

On Monday afternoon, Chile’s Minister of the Interior, Álvaro Elizalde, confirmed that a Letter of Protest will be sent to President Petro, stating in no uncertain terms that: “A decision has been made to uphold the point of view that has to do with Chilean democracy. Ultimately, the people of Chile decide, and we all have to respect that outcome”.