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

Abstract

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.

Why are migrant campaigns different from homeland campaigns? Understanding belonging in context among UK‐Sudanese activists

“…Nevertheless, my research findings do not support the passive 'cultural diffusion' thesis seen in the works of Waldinger (2014), Pérez-Armendáriz and Crow (2010), and Ahmadov and Sasse (2016). Expressions of belonging to hostland cultures and value systems, when viewed in the context of their outward expressions, emerge as the active performance of constructed transnational belonging.…”

Migrants and their families in the home country: a bi-directional influence on voting behaviour

“…Other works stress that different diaspora groups have different interest, connections and interactions with their home country (Weingrod and Levy 2004). The integration in the host country significantly reduces electoral engagement with the homeland, while deeper integration into migrants` networks do not affect the electoral interest but increase the non-electoral engagement (Ahmadov and Sasse 2016).…”

Migranter der blev aktivister: Prodemokratisk mobilisering blandt russiske migranter i Danmark og Norge

“…Ved at anerkende migranter som politiske aktører belyser forskning inden for migration og demokratisering i stigende grad, hvordan migranter påvirker politik og demokratisering i deres hjemlande (se blandt andre Ahmadov & Sasse, 2016b, 2016aDunin-Wasowicz & Fomina, 2019;Fomina, 2019Fomina, , 2021Henry & Plantan, 2021;Piper, 2009;Piper & Rother 2020;Piper & Uhlin, 2003). Med udgangspunkt i Østergaard-Nielsen (2003) forstår jeg politisk transnationalisme som migranters direkte og indirekte graenseoverskridende deltagelse i politiske forhold i deres hjemlande (Østergaard-Nielsen, 2003, s. 762).…”