Empowering to engage with the homeland: do migration experience and environment foster political remittances?

<p>This article investigates the drivers and mechanisms of emigrants’ electoral and nonelectoral political engagement with their homeland. Our analysis concentrates on the diverse experiences of Polish migrants in the UK. By utilizing original mixed-method data, including a large-N survey of P...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ahmadov, A, Sasse, G
Format: Journal article
Published: Springer Nature 2016
Description
Summary:<p>This article investigates the drivers and mechanisms of emigrants’ electoral and nonelectoral political engagement with their homeland. Our analysis concentrates on the diverse experiences of Polish migrants in the UK. By utilizing original mixed-method data, including a large-N survey of Polish migrant voters across the UK, in-depth interviews with Polish migrants in the UK, and matched interviews with their family members and friends in Poland, we highlight the importance of the migrant experience and environment as factors explaining the (de-)mobilization of transnational political engagement. The quantitative analysis highlights proxies of integration in the host society as the strongest predictors of transnational political engagement, while the participation in emigrant/diaspora networks has less clear-cut effects than previous studies have suggested. The qualitative analysis unpacks the migrants’ experiences that foster homeland engagement. The composition of personal networks - whether they are primarily Polish or international - emerges as an important element of the causal mechanism behind the (de-)mobilization of engagement with Polish politics.</p>