The political participation of immigrants in host countries : an interpretative framework from the perspective of origin countries and societies

Abstract

The main goal of the present position paper is to create an interpretative framework for the role of origin countries and societies in influencing the political participation of immigrants. Considering that we are opening a new line of research within the literature on political participation of immigrants and integration, we first consider the more classic methodological approaches in this field: this is to understand better any gaps. Second we consider other fields in the literature, namely diaspora policies and transnational politics. This is to allow a deeper identification of the influence of the countries and societies of origin. Then, we map state and non-state actors implicated in the countries of origin, their strategies, and how they overcome difficulties in their actions. On the one hand, we consider state actors’ strategies and interactions with emigrants, both in conventional and unconventional forms of political participation: as well as the issue of external voting, as a paradigmatic example of conventional political participation towards origin countries. On the other hand, we look at non-state actors and their strategies to influence migrant political participation, both towards origin and destination countries. In parallel, we introduce some relevant case studies underlining and exemplifying the role and the impact of origin countries’ actors on the political participation of migrants, both in their host and home countries. Afterwards, we propose a framework to interpret the relations between the different actors in origin countries and migrants in the field of political participation. Finally, we identify gaps in scientific knowledge that deserve to be covered in the next steps of the Interact project, we point out the key factors influencing migrants’ political participation that deserve more research, and we set out the specific questions to fill gaps in our knowledge of those interactions.