{"title":"Federal structure and party politics as simultaneous opportunity and constraint","authors":"Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels","doi":"10.4324/9781003015086-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003015086-4","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines the differential inclusion of overseas Americans in the American polity; overseas Americans are included, and vote, as individual citizens in all primary and general elections but are recognized as a distinct overseas constituency only in the Democrats Abroad Global Primary. Constitutional, federal and state law shapes this differential American inclusion. The right to vote was extended on the basis of a constitutional right to electoral equality. On the other hand, an overseas constituency in which US citizens voted for dedicated representatives would be possible only with a constitutional amendment. In a state with a strong sense of itself as an immigration country, and not as a state with a diaspora identity, such an amendment is unlikely. The contestation of the profile of the overseas American population feeds into this discussion. Party-led inclusion is the strongest way in which overseas US citizens can be included as a distinct constituency.","PeriodicalId":138172,"journal":{"name":"Political Parties Abroad","volume":"214 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133636446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}