Political Parties and the Transnational Mobilization of the Emigrant Vote

The relationship between political parties and voters is usually analyzed in a national framework. However, the majority of states world-wide allow their emigrant citizens to vote from afar. This paper analyses how parties confront the challenge of mobilizing votes across borders. We outline an analytical framework for measuring the transnational mobilization of parties and explaining variance across electoral systems and different types of parties.  Drawing on a contextualized qualitative comparative analysis we compare the extent to which parties seek to mobilize the emigrant vote in the most recent national elections in Spain, France, Italy and Romania. We find that a cost-benefit analysis of electoral incentives can explain the motivation transnationalization of a large part of the political parties, despite the high dispersion, uncertainty and volatility of the emigrant vote. Yet, it is also necessary to locate party strategies in the particular context of migration and the contestedness of emigrant citizenship rights.