Increasingly, transnational life has raised issues of overseas citizenship. I use the concept of political remittances to highlight long-distance entrepreneurship aimed at homeland politics. Emigrant demands have challenged states to institute transnational arenas. Comparing similar cases, however, a puzzle emerges in the varying openness of overseas voting (OV), especially in Latin America. Why does Mexico adopt restrictive rules, while the Dominican Republic implements open elections abroad? More generally, what makes a country choose to open, restrict or deny OV?This dissertation contributes the first systematic analysis of overseas voting. Economic remittances intensify transnational politics and put OV on the agenda in democracies, I argue, but state structure shapes the incentives to adopt open rules or not. Specifically, the foreign ministry and electoral commission form a crucial "overseas state" factor, their capacities and preferences guiding elite decisions via four mechanisms: fundraising controls, extraterritorial organization, domestic framing, and implementation. Controversial and contested, OV rules matter-- influencing both form and extent of emigrant participation. Elections abroad differ from cultural activities or government programs. The rules determine the likely range of turnout.Whereas existing scholarship emphasizes either domestic politics or diaspora, the dissertation focuses upon transnational interactions of state, party and migrant actors. Its multimethods design classifies types of cross-border politics then quantitatively analyzes institutions across time and region. Case studies of two labor export democracies empirically ground the research, drawing on interviews with insiders and activists in national capitals and abroad. Paired case studies extend the analysis to East Asia, South Asia and western Africa.The research illuminates a growing trend of world politics and the factors that condition its impact. Its original theory shows accuracy across cases and relevance for theories of transnational relations and comparative institutions. It reveals a broader transformation of the nation-state, a snapshot of what globalization is -- and is not. The reconfiguration of nations from territorial to global communities, with overlapping authority and membership, signals a paradigm shift. Concretely, the study finds that real material reorganization is incomplete, varied and ongoing.
Lieber, Matthew A.,
"Elections beyond borders: Overseas voting in Mexico and the Dominican Republic, 1994-2008"
(2010).
Political Science Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0TQ5ZSJ
