The main product of the fellowship is an edited book at Routledge on Political Parties Abroad. A New Arena for Citizenship (with Émilie van Haute). In 12 chapters, it gives an overview of the reality of political parties abroad. The main goal was to investigate (1) what parties abroad are, (2) when and why do they emerge and develop, (3) how they organize, and (4) what roles do they play.
Legal and institutional rules at home and in the host country constitute strong incentives or barriers for parties to develop abroad. Especially, the extension of suffrage and political representation of emigrants play an important role. There is a curvilinear relationship between the size of the emigrant community and the incentives for parties to invest abroad: parties won’t be interested if that community is too small, and it will fear it if it is too big.
Parties abroad often engage in socio-cultural activities. They provide help and services to new emigrants, organize sport or cultural activities, create channels of communication with the emigrant community in place, contribute to the socialization of emigrants and their integration into the political system, but also generate symbols of identification and loyalty towards the home and host countries.
Parties abroad face specific barriers and incentives to mobilize emigrants. They face a higher dispersion of their grassroots on the territory of the host country, which makes the organization of regular party activities more complex. At the system level, home countries that grant more political rights for emigrants facilitate the mobilization of emigrants by parties. They engage in various classic online and offline campaign activities, very much as parties at home. They encourage the registration of overseas voters during the election period.
In relation to the electorate, parties abroad perform the classic functions of parties: they serve as channels of communication, educate citizens, participate in their socialization and their integration into the political system, generate symbols of identification and loyalty. They also channel political participation. However, their functions as organizations are much less developed. Except in contexts where emigrants are granted specific representation (notably France), parties abroad do not engage much in the recruitment and selection of political staff. They do however perform a programmatic function.
My findings show clearly that giving full voting rights to citizens abroad, and all the more giving them representatives in Parliament, has a clear impact on the democratic and citizen involvement of emigrants. Indeed, while the French diaspora is rather small and has traditionally a limited consciousness of constituting a diaspora, French abroad are (by far) the most politically committed community of my three cases. French parties are very present abroad, campaign during elections, create a link between the diaspora and the homeland between elections, maintain alive a French political consciousness on the long term… And this trend is rather recent, linked chronologically to the creation of deputies to represent French living abroad (first election: 2012). On the opposite, the 2011’s reform which restricted the voting rights of Spanish citizens abroad (the infamous “voto rogado”) clearly weakened the political dynamism of the Spanish diaspora.
The competences I acquired during the fellowship can contribute towards European policy objectives and strategies, as well as have an impact on policy making. Transnational politics will certainly develop in the future and states will want to know the symbolical, political and sociological consequences of giving more rights to their citizens abroad. My findings will be very useful in that perspective, not only for France, Spain and the UK, but also for any state who has given representation or considers giving new rights and representation to their expatriates.
