Political Parties Abroad. A New Arena for Electoral Politics

ABSTRACT This Special Issue contributes to the growing literature on parties abroad. Expansive citizenship has transformed and reinforced the civic and political links between emigrants and their home country. Political parties face the dilemma of engaging or not in this new arena for electoral politics and must consider how. However, until recently the literature on transnationalism and on party politics has surprisingly largely overlooked this issue. This introduction identifies the existing gaps in the literature, and stresses two main questions that remains largely unanswered, namely (1) why and how parties decide to campaign abroad, and (2) how voters abroad are receptive to these campaigns and operate their party choice in this specific context. The five articles offer a mix of case studies and comparative perspective, and quantitative and qualitative analyses. This case selection allows to explore the diversity of strategies adopted by political parties abroad in different settings, with different tools. The results illustrate the impact of local party branches and entrepreneurs’ outreach and local campaigns on mobilisation, turnout, and the result of elections, but also show that emigrants’ vote choice is influenced both by the context of their country of origin and of their country of residence.