Friday, March 14, 2014
Embassy (Omni Shoreham)
Nowadays, the wide majority of countries acknowledge non-resident citizens’ right to vote in elections in their country of origin. Moreover, a limited number of European and Latin American states recognize external citizens’ right to have special representatives in the parliament of their country of origin. Within the field of political behavior there is virtually no systematic study explaining the electoral participation of citizens residing outside the borders of their country of origin. This paper analyses the determinants of external turnout of six groups of EU origin emigrants, Spaniards, French, Britons, Italians, Romanians and Poles, residing in countries inside and outside the EU. These groups enjoy distinct provisions regarding external political participation. French, Italian and Romanian non-resident citizens can elect their special representatives in homeland parliaments, while Spaniards, Poles and Britons residing abroad cast their vote in a domestic constituency. Drawing on previous studies related to voter turnout in the domestic context, we examine how closeness of the race, district size and electoral system (special representation or not) play out in the field of transnational political participation. We expect that district size and type of electoral system to have a significant effect on emigrant turnout in homeland elections.
