Transnational Political Engagement Research Articles

Fixing things from the outside? Diaspora politicians and transnational political engagement

ABSTRACT Scholarship on diaspora political engagement is unfolding in novel ways exploring the participation of second-generation diaspora individuals and engagement patters of authoritarian and hybrid regimes. Focusing on the unique role of diaspora politicians, I contend that these individuals adeptly leverage their identity to impact politics and advocate for change. The article demonstrates their adaptability in different settings and evolving advocacy strategies. The article employs a multilingual analysis of social media, public interviews, and public appearances in Germany and Bosnia and Herzegovina using an exploratory case study of a German-Bosnian politician. This exploration underscores their flexibility and evolving advocacy dynamics. Furthermore, it illustrates the way these politicians enhance their profiles within the countries where they’ve been elected and in countries of their descent. This serves to strengthen their chances of re-election on one hand while also drawing attention to authoritarian tendencies, potentially clearing a path for democratic advancement on the other.

Democrats abroad: What motivates core activists to engage in political transnationalism?

AbstractResearch into transnational political engagement of non‐resident citizens has largely focused on the Global South and less on the Global North. This article focuses on non‐resident United States citizens, or overseas Americans, asking what motivates them to become politically engaged. This article contributes insights to an insufficiently explored case. Drawing from 14 semi‐structured interviews with strongly politically engaged US citizens living abroad, this article shows that they engage in political activism for many of the same reasons as individuals from other countries, as well as ones which may be unique to the US case. Key factors include mobilising to change things at home, the role of the United States in the world, civic duty, fulfilling work and reactive transnationalism. The article concludes with policy recommendations and sets the scene for future comparative research, both within the Global North and between Global North and Global South non‐resident citizen groups.

Between (de-)mobilization, polarization, and transnational repression: the Egyptian diaspora in the wake of the January 25 uprising

ABSTRACT More than a decade has passed since the Egyptian Uprising of 2011 resulted in the ouster of long-time president Hosni Mubarak. This large-scale protest episode mobilized not only tens of thousands of anti-regime protesters of various stripes in Egypt, but also inspired activism amongst Egyptians living abroad. These events, in combination with the turbulent post-revolutionary years that followed, affected deeply and were formative for many Egyptian diasporans. This article explores how these events influenced members of the diaspora both in terms of their intra-diasporic relationships as well as their transnational engagement with Egypt under the reign of the new president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Drawing on both primary and secondary sources, including semi-structured interviews with diaspora members and activists, it paints a complex picture of increased polarization – very much along the political fault lines found in Egypt – and overall lower, but still notable, levels of both national and transnational political engagement.

Yugoslav Emigrants in Brazil from the Habsburgs to Karađorđevićs: Transnational Political Engagement on the Peripheries?

Abstract This article addresses how the Habsburg Empire and interwar Yugoslavia engaged with their emigrants in Brazil, and examines emigration patterns. It suggests that despite these emigrants not insignificant presence in Brazil, both European states demonstrated minimal interest in their subjects in the largest Latin American country. By contrast, the emigrants themselves aimed at attracting their home state’s attention, thus making the Yugoslav emigrant network visible. Tracing emigrant transnational political practices on the eve of the First World War, this article examines the establishment and withering of the South Slavic community in Brazil. It does so by situating the emigrant network within the transnational social field, defined by the sending and receiving states and by emigrant activists. Without oversight from the home state, and restrictive policies by the receiving country, these activists manipulated emigrants’ interests for personal benefit, contributing to community disruption before the Second World War.

Mexicans and Colombians at Home and Abroad: A Comparative Study of Political Engagement

Although a large number of democracies have extended political rights to expatriates, relatively little is known about the depths of transnational political engagement. How attentive are expatriates to politics in the country of origin? When expatriates judge leaders “back home,” are their evaluations based on the same ideological considerations as those of citizens in the country of origin? Drawing from original surveys conducted during presidential elections in Mexico (2006) and Colombia (2010), in which both emigrants and citizens within the country were sampled, this study addresses these questions. The results indicate that for each nationality group, living abroad is not associated with a drop in political attentiveness, and time abroad does not in and of itself depress attention to politics from a distance. Moreover, emigrants and individuals in the country of origin do not vary in the extent to which ideological preferences are used to judge presidents, which is a key marker of political sophistication. These results suggest that in the context of Mexican and Colombian politics, living abroad does not markedly diminish the potential for effective democratic engagement.

“If you become a slave here, do you think they’re going to fight there?” Tamil Diaspora Mobilizations and Host-country Politics

Tamil diaspora political mobilization against the Sri Lankan government shows that, contrary to a commonly held view, migrants’ transnational political engagement can be a vector, rather than an obstacle, to their political inclusion in their country of settlement. But the articulation of a homeland-oriented struggle with the broader political participation of migrants has been a highly contentious issue in the diasporic political field, some activists seeing in these dynamics a risk of co-optation and dilution of the Tamil cause. While LTTE diasporic associations promoted a form of political inclusion which did not challenge the primacy of the Tamil cause, independent diasporic groups incorporated external ideological influences in their conception of the Tamil struggle and merged their homeland-oriented activism with a broader engagement in host-country politics. The case of Tamil diaspora politics shows that the modalities of incorporation of diaspora activists into host-country politics can be a major stake for them, leading to thorough reflections about their role as migrant political actors, to deep disagreements between various poles of a diasporic field, and to diverse pathways of insertion in the host-country political arena.

Transnational Political Engagement and the Civic Incorporation of Mexican Immigrants in the United States

Many migrants to the U.S. are engaged in public affairs in their country of origin. Whether such engagement impedes or encourages engagement in American politics remains an open question. Drawing from a unique two-wave panel survey of Mexican immigrants conducted in 2006, with surveys waves fielded to correspond to national elections in Mexico and the United States, we examine the relationship between transnational political engagement and attentiveness to American politics. The findings indicate that remote political engagement in Mexican politics is not a barrier to incorporation in the U.S. context. On the contrary, engagement in Mexican campaigns can stimulate interest and participation in U.S. elections.

Solidarity Stalled: When Chinese Activists Meet Social Movements in Democracies

This study analyzes a largely unexamined phenomenon in the studies of transnational activism: immigrant activists’ engagement in progressive social movements in their residence countries. Through participatory observation and interviews with the Chinese activist communities, this study explores how diaspora activists assess social movements in established liberal democracies in light of their experiences with organizing in a more repressive setting back home. Despite active involvement in social movements in their residence societies, these Chinese diaspora activists find the dominant models of activism in democracies to be overly institutionalized, lacking a sense of political urgency to push for real social change. The deeper and more intersectional understandings of social movements in democracies trigger positive reflections that help create new political subjectivities, but at the same time, they produce skepticism and disenchantment, lowering activists’ expectations about the power of international solidarity. By delving into activists’ transnational social movement experiences, this study critically interrogates the theoretical framework of diaspora politics and social movement learning and brings attention to the unintended consequences of transnational political engagement.

“The Transnational Engagement of Second Generations: Young People of Egyptian Background in Italia and the Arab Uprisings

The popular mobilisations of 2010-11, known as the ‘Arab Spring’, have had a global resonance well beyond the Arab world, affecting the lives of migrants with Arab- Mediterranean background living in Europe. Drawing on qualitative analysis, this article explores the impact of the Arab Spring on second generation’s young people of Egyptian origin living in Italy. This study shows that research participants have a diverse assessment of the outcomes of the uprisings, that they have participated in them in different ways, and that they have contributed to the construction of common or contested narratives around them, both in the public and private discourse. Moreover, the research discusses the impact of these key historical events on young people’s identity and sense of belonging, as well as on their transnational ties and practices. The transnational political engagement of research participants is examined to investigate how second generations experience a transnational life and build transnational identities. This study contributes to the debate on the relationship between transnationalism and second/third generations.

The Surveillance and Persecution of Slovene Antifascists in Argentina: How the Authorities Conspired in Combating “Undesired” Immigration

Opposition to the fascist policy in the Julian March, as well as to fascism in general,led to close surveillance of Slovene emigrants from this area by Fascist Italy. The author first provides an outline of the Italian surveillance of the activities promoted by emigrant associations, then analyses the pressure exerted by the Argentine authorities on leftist emigrants and the sharing of their criminal records with Italy, and finally focuses on antifascist activities promoted by female immigrants. He argues that the Italian extraterritorial surveillance depended on the type of emigrant transnational political engagement, which was motivated by increased suppression of the minorities in the Julian March.

Transnational political engagement and emigrant voting

ABSTRACT Globalisation, European integration and increased migration have made life more mobile. Consequently, electorates have become increasingly dispersed geographically. Utilising survey data compiled from Finnish citizens residing` abroad (n = 1,067), we study transnational political participation of emigrant voters. First, we examine how national identification relates with turnout in parliamentary elections and which factors influence emigrants’ voting decision. Second, we analyse how transnational political engagement of Finnish emigrants could be described. The key findings suggest that identification with the sending country has little or no influence on the likelihood of voting in homeland parliamentary elections. Instead, distance to the closest polling station, interest in politics, time lived abroad, age and educational level significantly influence an emigrant’s probability of voting. We suggest that ‘zero-sum relationship’ best describes transnational political engagement among Finnish emigrants: increased engagement in one country leads to decreased involvement in the other. This finding contributes significantly to knowledge of transnational political participation, a topic that has been rarely surveyed from emigrants’ perspectives.

The Max Planck Society and Pugwash during the Cold War: An Uneasy Relationship

When the Federation of German Scientists (VDW) was founded as the West German section of Pugwash in the late 1950s, several high-profile scientists from the Max Planck Society (MPS), especially nuclear physicists, were involved. Well into the 1980s, institutional links existed between the MPS, the Federal Republic's most distinguished scientific research institution, and Pugwash, the transnational peace activist network that was set up in 1957 in the eponymous Nova Scotia village following the publication of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. At the beginning, the two organizations’ relationship was maintained primarily by the physicist and philosopher Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. However, the relationship was difficult from the start, and the distance between them grew during the rise of détente in the 1970s, when the scientific flagship MPS was deployed more and more frequently in matters of foreign cultural policy on behalf of West Germany and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a whole. This article explores the resources and risks of transnational political engagement during the Cold War, focusing on the individual strategies of top-ranking researchers as well as the policy deliberations within a leading scientific organization along the chief East-West divide: the front line between the two German states.

Desis Divided: The Political Lives of South Asian Americans by Sangay K. Mishra

Reviewed by: Desis Divided: The Political Lives of South Asian Americans by Sangay K. Mishra Nalini Iyer DESIS DIVIDED: The Political Lives of South Asian Americans. By Sangay K. Mishra. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2016. Sangay Mishra's book breaks new ground in South Asian American studies because he moves beyond the work of earlier scholars such as Vijay Mishra, Kamala Visweswaran, Monisha Das Gupta who had critiqued the model minority discourse used to frame the experiences of South Asian Americans. Mishra builds on this earlier work but provides a systematic analysis of the divergences and schisms within the ethnic group to study how this immigrant community has mobilized politically in recent years and in particular post 9/11. Based on interviews with South Asians in New York city and Los Angeles as well as analysis of national data from the 2000–2001 Pilot Study of the National Asian American Political Survey and the 2008 National Asian American Survey, Mishra looks at the patterns of political participation amongst South Asians both within the US and transnationally. The book begins with a socio-political history of South Asians in the U.S. which is familiar territory for those working in the field but necessary to introduce the book's overall project. He continues with an analysis of theories of ethno-racial mobilization and their relevance to the study of South Asian Americans. He then proceeds to explore post 9/11 racial targeting of South Asians and how that shapes political mobilization. The book continues with an examination of dominant modes of political mobilization amongst South Asians and concludes with two chapters that examine the community's transnational political engagement and how diasporic nationalism influences the members' engagement with U.S. politics. This study is timely and conceptualized well. As an economically powerful and rapidly growing community, South Asian Americans are increasingly active in politics at the local, regional, and national levels. However, Mishra's major intervention is that the South Asian American community is not a monolith and that national origin, religion, caste, and class are important factors that complicate how we understand the community. This approach of considering vectors of identity within the group is necessary in the evolution of South Asian American studies and has a significant methodological impact on the field. There are a couple of aspects of this study that could have been nuanced. The first is the question of gender. Although Mishra does devote about a dozen pages to social justice politics in chapter four and addresses how organizations like Sakhi and Manavi among [End Page 117] others that did ground breaking work on domestic violence prevention and advocacy and provided an avenue for political mobilization, the issues of gender, sexuality, and working class issues are lumped into this section and the analysis feels perfunctory. Is gender not a major factor if turbaned Sikh men and hijabi women were targets of racial violence post 9/11? It is not clear what percentage of respondents to the interviews were women? The discussion of South Asian racialization needs to be an intersectional one that accounts for gender and sexuality in the formation of race. The second issue is that of national origins. Mishra admits in his introduction that despite his best attempts, the study is dominated by Indian American issues. He justifies this because Indian Americans are numerically the largest amongst South Asians and also because South Asian American studies as a field has not produced enough scholarship on Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and other smaller South Asian communities. Both these reasons are real and important, but this Indo-centrism skews the argument. In particular, much of the chapter on diasporic nationalism is Indo-centric. Had Mishra engaged in a discussion of a smaller South Asian community such as the Sri Lankan American community and their diasporic nationalism, a more nuanced picture would have emerged. Sri Lankan Tamils who escaped a decades-long civil war have had an active and different form of diasporic nationalism during and after the civil war. Does the different post-independence political history of India and Sri Lanka impact diasporic nationalism differently? These critiques of the question of gender and Indo-centrism do not...

Migrants’ transnational political engagement in Spain and Italy

AbstractInternational migrants’ cross-border political activities challenge singular notions of national citizenship and political belonging. Yet most sociological studies of migrants’ transnational political engagement are based on single national groups in the USA, and limit themselves to examining how assimilation and contexts of reception determine migrants’ propensity to engage with homeland politics—thereby under theorizing the influence of origin countries. This study moves beyond this approach by recognizing the multi-directionality of migration, and testing the applicability of existing theoretical approaches across two different origins and receiving contexts. We compare a sample of Colombian and Dominican migrants in Spain and Italy, analyzing how contexts in countries of origin, as well as migrants’ social networks across borders, interact with assimilation and contexts of reception to determine migrants’ political transnational engagement. Findings reveal migrants’ transnational political engagement in Spain and Italy appears to be a highly selective process dominated by a small minority of well-educated males from high social status in origin. Findings also suggest immigrant incorporation and transnational political engagement form a dialectical relationship operating at different scales that is simultaneously complementary and contradictory. Contextual conditions in origin countries explain observed much of variation in Colombian and Dominican migrants’ transnational political engagement.

Voting here and there: political integration and transnational political engagement among immigrants in Europe

AbstractIn this article, I examine voting patterns in origin and receiving country national elections among immigrants in Europe. The existing scholarship on transnational political engagement offers two competing interpretations of the relationship between immigrant integration and transnational engagement, which I classify as the resocialization and complementarity perspectives. The resocialization perspective assumes that transnational political engagement gradually declines as immigrants become socialized into the new receiving society. Conversely, the complementarity perspective assumes that immigrant integration increases transnational political engagement. I test these competing perspectives with survey data collected between 2004 and 2008 for 12 different immigrant groups residing in seven European cities. The analysis examines how immigrant political and civic participation in receiving countries affect their proclivities to vote in homeland elections. I also analyse the effects of receiving and origin country contexts on immigrant voting behaviour in homeland elections. While my findings support both the resocialization and complementarity perspectives, they also highlight the ways in which a set of origin‐country contexts shape immigrant propensities to engage in transnational electoral politics. I observe a degree of complementarity among immigrants with resources who are motivated and eligible to participate in both receiving and origin‐country elections.

Politics of Primordial Loyalties and Its Transnational Dimensions: Tamilness as Pan‐ethnic and Supranational

AbstractThe article pertains to the pan‐ethnic and transnational dimensions of contemporary political and cultural interaction and orientations between diverse ethnically/culturally and linguistically kindred ethnic groups such as Tamils. It explores the transnational dimensions and dynamics of habitats of meaning, identity formations, political cosmology/world view among kindred ethnic groups and their relation to historical processes, events of violence and trauma, and transnational communication, information, and travel technologies. The dynamics between kindred ethnic groups, facilitated by the technological advances and accessibility in the period of accelerated globalization, enhance engagement and attachment centred on primordial loyalties, cultural and ethnic/linguistic sentiments, and identity. The subsequent social interaction constitutes pan‐ethnic or trans/supra‐national political cosmologies/imagery and moral community. Beside the central role of cultural similarity and meaning, historical connectivity, or transnational technology and processes, it is historical events/moments of state violence and injustice which prove a central condition in enabling transnational political solidarity and engagement between people who would otherwise have imagined their linkages differently.

Transnational Associational Life and Political Mobilization of Ecuadorians and Argentines in Spain and Italy: What Role for Sending State Policies?

To what extent and how can sending states encourage migrant organizational efforts and transnational political engagements? This study addresses this question for the cases of Ecuadorians and Argentines in Spain and Italy. The findings show that both sending states have recently innovated, reaching out to citizens abroad through a similar combination of policy instruments: rhetorical changes, institutional developments, enfranchisement, and linkage programs. The scope, intensity, and results of outreach efforts differ not only across migrant communities but also localities, suggesting the need to explore factors such as domestic and intrastate politics, migrants’ socioeconomic and educational profile and perceptions of state institutions, spatial distance, and the type of private-public policy networks at migrant destinations. The conclusions indicate that states have been relatively effective in tapping into migrants’ symbolic and emotional attachments to the homeland, but they have obtained meager results in terms of grounding such attachment in strong organizations, persistent transnational political engagement, and partnership links. The modality of policy implementation resulted in a sporadic and “sentimental” political mobilization of both Ecuadorian and Argentine emigrant communities, which still confront serious organizational problems and remain far from working as strong influential groups at home or ethnic lobbies in receiving countries.

Empowering to engage with the homeland: do migration experience and environment foster political remittances?

This article investigates the drivers and mechanisms of emigrants’ electoral and nonelectoral political engagement with their homeland. Our analysis concentrates on the diverse experiences of Polish migrants in the UK. By utilizing original mixed-method data, including a large-N survey of Polish migrant voters across the UK, in-depth interviews with Polish migrants in the UK, and matched interviews with their family members and friends in Poland, we highlight the importance of the migrant experience and environment as factors explaining the (de-)mobilization of transnational political engagement. The quantitative analysis highlights proxies of integration in the host society as the strongest predictors of transnational political engagement, while the participation in emigrant/diaspora networks has less clear-cut effects than previous studies have suggested. The qualitative analysis unpacks the migrants’ experiences that foster homeland engagement. The composition of personal networks - whether they are primarily Polish or international - emerges as an important element of the causal mechanism behind the (de-)mobilization of engagement with Polish politics.

Transnational political engagement

Asian Americans are in the unique position of participating in American politics as well as politics related to their nation of origin. However, there is a lack of consensus about the factors that are likely to make this group participate in homeland or US politics. We examine this question using data drawn from the 2008 National Asian American Survey (NAAS). Results suggest that Asian Americans’ participation in homeland politics is positively related to their involvement in US politics. Specifically, we find that immigrants who have prior political experience in their nation of origin and high exposure to political discussion after migration are likely to engage in activities related to the politics of both America and their nation of origin. We also find that English- and ethnic-language media use affects Asian Americans’ participation in US and homeland politics, suggesting the importance of including exposure to news media when studying immigrants’ political behaviors.

A Voice Despite Exit

What explains varying levels of emigrant transnational engagement in home-country politics? The well-known difficulties in obtaining migrant profile data and restriction to a few destination countries have resulted in a lack of systematic empirical investigation of this question. We expand nascent efforts to fill this gap by offering a new theoretical framework and novel research design that stress the potential importance of destination characteristics. We argue that the experience and environment in emigration are critical factors for emigrants’ engagement with two major types of homeland-related political activities: electoral and community. Using Ukraine as a case of an average migrant-producer developing country and using count models on original survey data on Ukrainian extraterritorial voters in a diverse set of 15 countries, we show that assimilation, emigrant networks, and destination characteristics are consistently strong predictors of transnational political engagement among the emigrants who show at least a minimal concern for homeland politics.