Global Networks
Volume 18, Issue 3, 2018, Pages 437-460

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

Chaudhary A.R.*
  • a Department of Sociology, Rutgers University, Davison Hall, 26 Nichol Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, United States

Abstract

In 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. © 2017 Global Networks Partnership & John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Author Keywords

IMMIGRANT VOTING Transnational citizenship transnational migrants Europe

Index Keywords

urban area European cities political integration complementarity National elections Transnational migrants TRANSNATIONAL CITIZENSHIP Electoral politics immigrant population survey data voting behavior IMMIGRANT VOTING Europe integration election Regional planning

Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85048466880&doi=10.1111%2fglob.12171&partnerID=40&md5=d539e43af2acf2a2b619846313a2626e

DOI: 10.1111/glob.12171
ISSN: 14702266
Cited by: 4
Original Language: English