Eva Østergaard‐Nielsen

Autonomous University of Barcelona | UAB ·  Departamento de Ciencia Política y Derecho Público

In recent years, researchers working on the nexus between migration and politics in countries of origin have started to pay more attention to the local level, but important empirical and theoretical gaps remain. By drawing upon semi-structured interviews, field observation and documentary research, this paper presents the exploratory case study of...

This paper discusses the lasting impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on research ethics in social sciences by focusing on the concept of vulnerability. We unpack the current conceptualisations of vulnerability and their limitations and argue for the need to reconceptualise vulnerability as multidimensional, consisting of both universal and contextual d...

This paper studies the dynamics of political mobilization of two transnational organizations – Assemblea Nacional Catalana and Marea Granate – formed by Spanish/Catalan migrants in different European cities. By conducting cross-organization and cross-city research, we analyze why and how migrants’ transnational networks perceive themselves to be st...

Emigrant voting rights can be broadly defined as the right to vote in elections granted to citizens who reside outside their country of citizenship. States offer different ways for emigrants to cast their vote, such as voting via post, in person in diplomatic missions, or upon physical return to the country. That said, research on emigrant enfranch...

In this chapter, we examine diaspora policies and social protection in Turkey, an EU candidate country with a significantly large emigrant population in the EU. Turkey’s diaspora engagement has taken various forms in line with the domestic and international developments over the decades. From the early 2000s, the Turkish state has adopted an active...

The role orientation of political representatives and candidates is a longstanding concern in studies of democratic representation. The growing trend in countries to allow citizens abroad to candidate in homeland elections from afar provides an interesting opportunity for understanding how international mobility and context influences ideas of repr...

The majority of states worldwide grant voting rights to citizens living abroad. A smaller but growing number of countries also have systems of special representation where non-resident citizens can vote for emigrant candidates to represent them in their homeland parliament. Within the EU, Portugal, Romania, France, Croatia and Italy now grant such...

A wide majority of countries acknowledge non-resident citizens' right to vote in elections in their country of origin. However, classical turnout theories do not take into account how electoral mobilisation has expanded into a transnational political field that reaches beyond national state borders. This paper analyses the determinants of emigrant...

Policies allowing enfranchisement of non-resident citizens (emigrants and their descendants) are now implemented in the majority of states worldwide. A growing number of case studies show that the extension of voting rights to non-resident citizens is often contested among country of origin political parties. However, there is no systematic compara...

The relationship between political parties and voters is usually analysed in a national framework. However, the majority of states worldwide allow their emigrant citizens to vote from afar. This paper analyses how parties confront the challenge of mobilising voters across borders. We present an analytical framework for comparing the scope of party...

The relationship between political parties and voters is usually analysed in a national framework. However, the majority of states worldwide allow their emigrant citizens to vote from afar. This paper analyses how parties confront the challenge of mobilising voters across borders. We present an analytical framework for comparing the scope of party...

A growing number of countries have granted their emigrant citizens the right to vote in homeland elections from afar. Yet, there is little understanding of the extent to which emigration issues are visible in the subsequent legislative processes of policy making and representation. Based on an original dataset of parliamentary activities in Spain,...

This paper explores the linkages between migrant transnationality, locality, and the transformation of local government practices within the field of overseas development assistance (ODA). A growing literature critically analyses how migrants as development agents are embedded in, as well as challenge, local and transnational power hierarchies. Thi...

This chapter explores the twin central questions of how and why countries of origin reach out to expatriate populations. It first outlines basic concepts and typologies related to sending country policies, focusing particularly on key countries of origin of migrants settled within the European Union. Second, the chapter reviews central explanations...

Focusing mainly on the European experience including Eastern Europe, this important volume offers an advanced introduction to immigrant incorporation studies from a historical, empirical and theoretical perspective. Beyond incorporation theories, renowned scholars in the field explore incorporation in action in different fields, policy issues and n...

Over the last decade both national and local actors in Spain have picked up on international trends encouraging a policy framework of migration and development. Policies of codevelopment are tied in with issues of migration management in the sense of linking current and future migration flows with processes of development in the country of origin....

Like other migrant groups in Catalonia, Moroccans can solicit financial and technical assistance to help better conditions in their localities of origin within the framework of co-development policies. This policy environment reflects international trends of integrating migration and development, including a strengthening of the participatory role...

Les effectifs de la diaspora kurde sont importants en Europe. Des personnalités politiques, sur les plans local, national ou européen, ont accordé leur soutien aux campagnes des Kurdes, qui s'appuient sur un tissu d'organisations transnationales. L'auteur étudie ces réseaux politiques, et en particulier ceux des militants kurdes de Turquie. Elle dé...

This article critically examines transnational political engagement of migrants and refugees in local, national and global political processes. Based on inductive reading of existing scholarship and in particular the author's own research on Turks and Kurds in Europe, the article discusses key concepts and trends in our understanding of why, how an...

This article critically examines transnational political practices of migrants and their local and international political ramifications. Recent literature on migrant transnationalism heralds the role that migrants or refugees can play in democratisation in their countries of origin or even as significant actors in global politics. Drawing on an in...

During the Danish local and national elections in November 2001, the scale, intensity and tone of the debates on migration took both national and international commentators by surprise. Within the first year of the new right-wing government, supported by the influential Danish People's Party, Denmark has become one of the most exclusive and restric...

This volume offers a comparative study of the policies of sending countries (and homelands) towards their nationals abroad. In so doing it bridges a gap in comparative research on migration and integration politics on the one hand and the rapidly emerging research field of transnational communities on the other. Within migration studies, research h...

The export of Turkish labour in the 1960s and early 1970s was in many ways a disappointment for Turkey. Although remittances clearly benefited the individual migrant families, they did not set off the intended economic local or, indeed, national development (Martin 1991; Abadan-Unat 1995). And the guest worker experience certainly did not facilitat...

Migration and the way it links societies, economies and politics of countries of origin and arrival provides an interesting set of options for sending countries. On the face of it, it seems as if sending countries are indeed reconfiguring their often marginal global position by reaching out to emigrants for economic and political support. Yet sendi...

This article examines how the social and political contexts in receiving countries affect the transnational political practices of migrants and refugees, such as their mobilization around political events in their homeland. The case study explores the political participation of Turks and Kurds in Germany and the Netherlands in its full complexity,...

Diasporas are transnational per definition. Their emotive, social, economic and not least political cross-border networks with their homeland — or with other segments of the diasporas — constitute one of their main resources for political influence. Indeed, as formulated by Tölöyan: ‘diasporas constitute the exemplary communities of the transnation...

SAIS Review 20.1 (2000) 23-38 The formation and politicization of diasporas is not a new phenomenon, but one that is becoming increasingly prevalent. Most studies of trans-state political activities of diasporas focus on North America, where the trans-state loyalties and activities among well-established groups such as the Jews, the Greeks, and the...