Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper develops the concept of political remittances, presenting a diaspora politics perspective for the analysis of overseas voting institutions. It links the topic to international relations theories of transnational actors, presenting migrant extraterritorial politics as one type of diaspora politics and suggesting an overlooked dimension of the transnational. Analysis of political remittances points out ongoing processes, mechanisms, and outcomes by which states and migrant societies interact to reshape national institutions for a world polity. Overlooked by IR scholars and transnationalists, the process of extraterritorial politics involves a complex recreation of the national, a redefinition of its member, policies and purposes. The mechanisms of extraterritorial politics include a distinct set of activist networks, identities, venues, political strategies and objectives-- similar to, but different from, transnational activist networks. In evaluating migrant influence upon institutional and policy outcomes, I argue that the varying expansiveness of overseas voting regimes depends upon the interaction of migrant activists with domestic political structure.

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