In this post I will try to answer the question whether the emigrants constitute a powerful
mechanism to exercise political pressure on the domestic elites to bring institutional
reforms and political representation home considering the emigrants right to
take part in domestic elections. The emigrants's non-electoral power is discussed in the previous post. I will answer the raised question by resuming
the predominant scholarly arguments based on individual observations or large
and small N analyzes. This material can be used to understand to which extent
Moldova emigration has the possibility to influence the political process home,
considering their rights to take part in elections.
Research on extraterritorial voting is still scarce
considering that historically only few states granted their emigrants the right
to vote while abroad (Barry, 2006; Rubio-Marin, 2006; Tager, 2006; Waldrauch,
2003). Yet, in the last decade, states have increasingly created frameworks for
dual nationality to allow their expats to take part, to some extent, in
elections (Ellis et al., 2007). According to Portes (1999), “[t]his policy
represents a remarkable departure from earlier times, when emigrants were
almost regarded as defectors and where naturalization in another country
entailed the automatic loss of the original citizenship” (p. 467). Nowadays
there are 115 out of 214 states that already enfranchised their co-nationals
abroad (Fierro et al., 2007). Moreover, there are cases when for political
reasons states grant citizenship, and with them electoral rights to their
co-nationals in other states, as in the case of Romania granting citizenship to
Moldovans, or Russia granting citizenship to large numbers of citizens from the
post-Soviet republics. If until recently governments treated their emigrants
only as sources of remittances (Itzigsohn et al., 1999), currently they have
increasingly “started to perceive their expatriate communities as a source of
investments, entrepreneurial initiatives, markets for home country companies
and even political representation abroad or right to advance its geo-political
interests in the region” (Portes, 1999, p. 467). This is an important change
because in highly competitive elections, migrants can have the final say on
electoral outcomes. This was the case in the Romanian presidential elections in
2014, and in Moldovan parliamentary elections in 2009 and 2014.
There is a strong debate in the literature whether emigrants
should generally preserve their right to vote from abroad. Many states with
large emigrant communities abroad undertook the necessary reforms to offer
their emigrants the right for dual citizenship with formal political
representation of their expatriates in Parliament and some governmental
agencies (Lessinger, 1992; Mahler, 1998;
Guarnizo & Smith 1998). The arguments range from procedural, to nationalistic,
utilitarian, and ethical justifications. Supporters claim that since migrants
contribute to the economic and socio-cultural development of their homeland
they have the right to preserve their political privileges to influence home
politics through voting (Itzigsohn, 2000; Wuker, 2004). This argument is also
supported by the advancement of modern technologies that facilitate the process
of voting from abroad (Barry, 2006; Baubock, 2006; Mercurio & Williams,
2004; Spiro, 2003, 2006). The ethno-nationalist argument claims that allowing
emigrants to vote keeps them closer to the motherland, and empowers their
status abroad (Baubock, 2006). Granting the right to vote also improves the
democratic image of a state on the international arena (Levitt & la Dehesa,
2003).
Opponents claim that extra-territorial voting offers the
mandate on decision-making to those subjects who do not support the
consequences of their decisions. Thus they take uninformed or less informed
decisions about the electorate candidates since they are not the ones to bare the
consequences. This principle violates one of the main ground rules of
democracy, “the governors must also be the governed” because emigrants are
participating through their vote in the process of governance without feeling
its impact since they are abroad (Fitzgerald, 2006; Lopez-Guerra, 2005;
Rubio-Marin, 2006; Baubock 2005; Blais et al., 2001). The normative arguments
state that the extraterritorial vote might bring disproportional
representation, especially valid for states with large diaspora abroad (Vertovec,
2005). Baubock (2006) argues in this regard that, “A reasonable expectation
that expatriate voters may outnumber domestic ones provides a strong argument
against enfranchising the former and for restricting the franchise to temporary
absentees” (p. 2444).
The debate on emigrants’ voting autonomy raises the question
whether emigrants can freely formulate and express their electoral priorities,
or these are influenced and controlled by the power elites from their countries
of origin. Some claim that despite receiving the right to vote in national
elections, governments can control emigrants’ electoral choices. Smith (2008)
argues that in many cases before enfranchising emigrants the power secures
mechanisms to retain control over the flow of their votes. By analyzing the
evolution of the enfranchisement process in three consecutive elections in
Mexico, Smith concludes that the ruling elite established a number of
bureaucratic institutions specifically dedicated to administer the state
relationship with diaspora. These establishments in Mexico are the Program for
Mexican Communities Abroad, Institute for Mexican Abroad, and the National
Council for Mexican Communities Abroad. These institutions were delegated to
create the official channels of communication between the state and emigrant
communities. Thus the state obtains a strong hand in guiding emigrants’
priorities.
Another argument contends that by allowing governments to
formalize the organizational activity for diaspora, makes it easier for governments
to control how the diaspora creates and delivers its political message. As a
result, the granted right to vote does not challenge the governing elites since
the state shapes emigrants’ views on home politics through modeled
institutional mechanisms (Schedler, 2007). The challengers of this view show
that reasoning is not universal and there are cases that disprove the argument.
Despite the large role played by the Mexican administrative chapters organized
for the diaspora at home and abroad, emigrants managed to overturn the dominant
party by massively voting for the non-incumbent candidate during the
presidential elections in 2006 (Cornelius et al., 2007). In other cases, such
as the Italian and Cape Verdean elections in 2006 (Baubock, 2006), and the
presidential elections in Romania in 2014, emigrants played a decisive role in
overturning the incumbents.
Assuming the high uncertainty of impact, power elites are very
cautious in enfranchising their emigrants. In some cases the legislation has
been approved, but not yet implemented, as in the case of Dominican Republic
(Levitt, 2001). A similar situation was in Mexico. First, the legislation was
voted, and later amended several times thus restricting the right to vote for
some segments of emigrants (Saldana, 1999). This was the case because the
dominant Partido Revolucionario Institucional
(PRI) was influencing the legislative process at the time. The majority
of Mexicans in California however were anti-PRI (Quinones, 1999). By extending
the right to vote, the incumbents were immanently empowering the opposition.
Governments can also use their political leverage to attract
the loyalty of emigrants abroad. Granting political representation to emigrants
at the national level is a tool to sway emigrants’ allegiance. The granted
political representation is the cost paid by the elites in exchange for
emigrants’ political and economic support in elections (Roberts et al., 1999;
Glick Schiller & Fouron, 1999). Some political elites implemented reforms that
institutionalized the migrants’ long-distance political participation. One of
the first diaspora payoffs took place in 1990 when Croatian diaspora
contributed four million dollars to the electoral campaign of Fanjo Tudjman.
Upon winning elections, the diaspora was rewarded with 12 out of 120 seats
representation (Vertovec, 1999). Collyer 2014 show also that in 13 states
emigrants have obtained the right to have extra-territorial legislative
representations. Another instance is the Dominican PLD that offered three
legislative seats to representatives of the Dominican transnational community.
The elected representatives had to act on behalf of both their home-region and
the interests of the emigrants living abroad at governmental level (Itzigsohn
et al., 1999). The Colombian case displays a similar pattern where an
individual living abroad with dual citizenship was voted to represent a
Colombian region in the national congress (Guarnizo et al., 1999).
The provision of improved socioeconomic public services is another
form of reward paid by governments to thank emigrants for their electoral
allegiance. For instance, Laguerre (1998) describes how the Haitian government
created the Ministry of Diasporic Affairs to coordinate relations between the
Haitian government and its diaspora. In Mexico, Programa Paisano aims to reduce
bureaucratic problems for returning migrants (Guarnizo, 1998). The Dominican
government worked out a range of policies to ease the migrant return and the
long-distance transnationalism. A special custom policy introduced under the
President Leonel Fernández allows return migrants to bring their possessions to
the island without paying taxes. The returning Dominicans were entitled to
purchase at a discount price housing units in Santo Domingo built by the
government specifically for returnees. Also, a special agreement was set up
with the American banks to secure long-term loans for returning emigrants under
president Fernandez. The Salvadorian government crafted a transnational credit
union that supports migrants in the United States and their relatives back in
El Salvador to secure loans (Hamilton & Chinchilla, 1999). All these and
many other measures constitute clear signals sent by the government to their
migrants abroad (Levitt, 2001). These can be treated as an invitation to return
home but also a demand for continuous loyalty. Portes (1999) however, concludes
the following:
“From these policies, it is clear that sending governments do
not want their immigrants to return, but rather to achieve a secure status in
the wealthy nations to which they have moved and from which they can make
sustained economic and political contributions in the name of patriotism and
home town loyalties” (p. 467).
Some scholars who have examined the electoral power of
emigrants’ vote conclude that emigrant enfranchisement rarely makes a
significant difference for national politics. Ostergaard-Nielsen (2003) claims
that the emigrant vote represents more of a symbolic act as it formally
reasserts the existence of a constitutive tie between a state and its citizens,
wherever they reside. This symbolic character of emigrant vote shows the
insignificant impact it can have on home politics. Moreover the benefits
emigrants get from voting are also very little. This makes them lose interest
in taking part in the voting routine. Although emigrants are enfranchised they
exert little interest to take part in elections. According to statistical
results on voting patterns of newly enfranchised Mexican emigrants in the
United States, Waldinger and Soehl (2013) notice that only an insignificant
group of Mexican emigrants registered to take part in elections since 2005 when
they were granted this right. Moreover, just half of those registered came to
express their vote. Another explanation of low participation rate of Mexicans
in elections is the lack of previous electoral experience or the low level of
political culture (Waldinger & Soehr, 2013).
The low electoral participation among emigrants is however not
characteristic only to emigrants that lack electoral traditions. The same lack
of interest to vote is observed among the French expatriates who have the right
to vote from abroad since 1946. Despite the presence of a strong political
culture among French expatriates, the turnout is way below the level of
electoral participation in France (Cariot & Clave, 2009). In the Ruget and
Usmanalieva (2011) study the authors assessed the patterns of participation
among Kyrgyz emigrants and returnees in the 2009 presidential elections. The
respondents were asked if they used their right to vote and how much they value
having this right while abroad. Only one fourth of respondents declared that
they took part in elections. And only one fourth of those who took part in
elections voted from abroad. All others voted while at home. This data shows an
extremely low electoral participation of Tajik emigrants. Boccagni (2011) also
reported that only a tiny fraction of 1.6 percent of Ecuadorian migrants
residing abroad showed up to vote in 2006 elections from the estimated 20
percent population with an electoral right.
A similarly low interest can be observed among emigrants in
regards to other forms of political participation beyond electoral
participation. Based on data from the 2006 Latino National Survey, Fraga et al.
(2006) show that 34 percent of foreign-born respondents pay no attention to
home country politics, while 23 percent stated that they pay only little
attention. Moreover, only 4 percent of respondents in the 2008 National Asian
American Survey said they participate in activities dealing with their country
of origin (Wong et al., 2011). Among Latin American emigrants, 94 percent of
Colombian, Dominican and Salvadoran expatriates surveyed in the Comparative
Immigrant Entrepreneurship Project declared that they never took part in
campaigns to support any of their home country political candidates.
Concurrently, 96 percent declared that they never made a donation to support
any of the electoral campaigns.
The low interest in political affairs among emigrants is due
to reduced levels of trust and knowledge about institutionalized social and
political activity, and the lack of an institutionalized venue where to
organize beyond the usual circle of friends and relatives, is the conclusion
Ruget and Usmanalieva (2011) came to in their study on electoral behavior of
Tajik emigrants. This type of political apathy is also noticed by Fox (2009)
who claims, in fact, that by not engaging in political life does not mean that
migrants stay apathetic to the political reality. The emigrants create an
alternative form of engagement by networks of ‘translocal citizenship’. The
transnational citizenship is a creation of a specific international community
that acts without paying much attention to the political life of countries of
origin.
Political parties also show different forms of interactions
with their emigrant communities. Some parties become increasingly interested in
getting emigrants involved in domestic politics. The literature illustrates
numerous cases when political parties opened branch offices in migrant
settlements (Levit, 2001; Kapur, 2007; Graham, 1996; McDonnell, 1997; Itzigsohn
et al., 1999). In this context, political campaigns undertaken by political
candidates became a routine activity especially among the Latin American
countries. These campaigns usually aim to capture emigrants’ attention, gather
their votes in the upcoming elections, and recruit financial donations from
these communities (Levit, 2001). The political and financial support provided
by emigrants is especially valuable for opposition parties. In the case of
Dominican Republic, the migrants’ financial contributions constitute nearly 15
percent of major Dominican parties’ annual fundraising revenue (Graham, 1996).
Levitt (2001) reports that approximately 10 to 30 percent of the Dominican
PRD’s budget and 50 percent of the budget for the 1994 Dominican presidential
campaign came from migrant contributions. Numerous scholars claim that despite
long standing residence abroad, emigrants continue to keep themselves engaged
in home politics (Kearney, 1991, 1995; Grasmuck & Pessar, 1991; Smith,
1994; Kyle, 2000).
There is also a large body of literature analyzing the
emigrants’ impact on the quality of political and economic institutions in
their countries of origin. Docquier et al. (2010) analyze the impact of skilled
vs. unskilled migration on the quality of political institutions. Based on
quantitative data analysis of migration to the OECD countries in the period
1975–2000, they conclude that low-skilled emigration positively affected the
quality of political institutions in their home countries. Emigration of the
highly skilled, on the contrary, brings positive effects only in the long-term.
Li and McHale (2009) also look at the mechanisms through which skilled migrants
can affect the political and economic institutions in their countries of
origin. Their results show positive effects on the quality of political
institutions. Skilled migration contributed to political stability, voice, and
accountability in sending countries.
Emigration of the skilled, however, negatively affects the
quality of economic institutions by decreasing the levels of government
accountability, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption. After
a detailed statistical analysis of panel data for 111 countries over the period
of 1986–2010, Berdiev et al. (2013) conclude that the influx of remittances
brought by emigrants increases the level of corruption in the country of
origin. The correlation between corruption and remittances is conditioned by
the fact that higher remittances lead to an increase in the GDP per capita.
Hence, when people are poorer there is nothing to extort through corrupt
behavior. And vice-versa, when the level of income increases it opens up
greater avenues for corruption.
Kapur (2007) also claims that the loss of human capital
through migration can adversely affect the country’ institutions. The prospect
for emigration makes the younger less eager to invest in skills relevant for
the local institutions. Instead, they invest in skills that are more
internationally marketable. This fact increases the demand for such
specializations as programmers, engineers and decreases those of lawyers and
public service workers. Consequently absence of talented individuals negatively
affects the supply of institution builders. As a result, the less trained
remains the local population the lesser demand they exercise for qualitative
institutions (Kapur & McHale, 2006).
No conclusion…
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