The Impact of Transnational Practices on Migrants' Political Integration

1. Is ‘home’ a distraction? The role of migrants’ transnational practices in their political integration into receiving-country politics Laura Morales (Univ. of Murcia & Univ. of Manchester) & Miruna Morariu (University of Geneva) Sponsored by:

2. Research questions • What is the impact of migrants’ transnational engagement and practices on their engagement in host-country politics? • Do non political and political transnationalism have the same impact? • Does the political context of the country of settlement (POS) has an impact on the link between transnationalism and political engagement? • Are there interaction effects with important features of the settlement and migration process.

3. Transnationalism and Political Incorporation • Transnationalism: wide range of activities, defined broadly as “the processes by which immigrants forge and sustain multi-stranded social relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement” (Basch, Glick-Schiller and Szanton Blanc 1994: 7). • Far from generalised and substantially decreases with second generations. • We focus on the transnational practices of individuals and on the impact these practices have on other social and political attitudes and behaviours by those same individuals.

4. Two approaches to the effects of transnationlism: • transnational ties and identities hinder migrants’ assimilation and incorporation to the host society and polity (Huntington and others). • transnational ties foster migrants’ engagement in host country politics (Portes & several other colleagues). • We are especially interested in assessing the ways in which these practices might interact with important aspects of the migration and settlement processes. • 1st vs 1.5 & 2nd generations • Feelings of discrimination • Ethnic segmentation/segregation. • Citizenship regime.

5. Comparing the Political Incorporation of Three Groups Across Cities • Limit our analyses to 7 cities and 3 ethnic groups to maximise comparability: Ecuadorians (Madrid, Milan, Barcelona), Moroccans (Lyon, Madrid, Barcelona), and Turks (Stockholm, Zurich, Oslo). • Sufficient degree of variation in the Political Opportunity Structures (POS) that migrants face for their political integration

6. The Political Engagement of Ecuadorians, Moroccans and Turks in European Cities

7. Measuring Transnational Practices

9. Findings • interest in the host country politics: • non-political transnational practices (visits to the country of origin) has a positive effect. • counteracting effects of the political forms of transnationalism: being interested in homeland politics is highly and positively associated; the extra effort of casting a ballot in homeland elections is negatively related. • no significant interaction between 1.5 generations or 2nd generations and interest in homeland politics. • electoral mobilisation: • voting in homeland elections, positive effect • the other variables related to transnational practices have no significant impact.

10. Political action: • strongest effect for political actions that address concerns related to their homelands, • Negative impact of interest in homeland politics • Overall preliminary conclusion: • while following homeland politics is not a distraction for general interest and attentiveness of the political affairs of the countries where they live, nor for their engagement in electoral politics, ‘home’ can sometimes be a distraction to become engaged beyond the electoral realm.