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ELECTIONS BEYOND BORDERS: OVERSEAS VOTING IN MEXICO AND THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, 1994-2008 BY MATTHEW A. LIEBER B.A. CARLETON COLLEGE, 1992 M.A. JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, 1998 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AT BROWN UNIVERSITY PROVIDENCE, RI MAY 2010
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ELECTIONS BEYOND BORDERS

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Page 1: ELECTIONS BEYOND BORDERS

ELECTIONS BEYOND BORDERS:

OVERSEAS VOTING IN MEXICO AND THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, 1994-2008

BY MATTHEW A. LIEBER

B.A. CARLETON COLLEGE, 1992

M.A. JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, 1998

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

IN THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AT BROWN UNIVERSITY

PROVIDENCE, RI

MAY 2010

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© Copyright by Matthew A. Lieber 2010

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This dissertation by Matthew A. Lieber is accepted in its present form

by the Department of Political Science as satisfying the

dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Date _____________ _________________________________

Peter Andreas, Advisor

Recommended to the Graduate Council

Date _____________ _________________________________

Richard Snyder, Reader

Date _____________ _________________________________

Ulrich Krotz, Reader

Approved by the Graduate Council

Date _____________ _________________________________

Sheila Bonde, Dean of the Graduate School

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Curriculum Vita

Matthew A. Lieber was born in New York City on May 13th

, 1970 and raised in New

Haven, Connecticut. His research and teaching focus on foreign policy, global

development, and the politics of transnational flows beginning with human migration.

His primary regional interest lies in Latin America and the Caribbean, and he has also

conducted extensive research on Europe as well as projects on Asia and Africa.

He completed his B.A. with honors in history at Carleton College in Northfield,

Minnesota in 1992. In 1998, he earned an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins University

School for Advanced International Studies in Washington.

Matthew was awarded the Craig M. Cogut Dissertation Writing Fellowship for 2007-

2008 by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Brown University. In

2009, his paper ―National Institutions in a World Polity: Transnational Diasporas,

Political Remittances and State Responses‖ was awarded the Martin Heisler Award for

best conference paper by a graduate student by the International Studies Association. In

2007, he conducted field work in the Dominican Republic and participated as a graduate

member of the InterDom project of the Fundación Global de Democracía y Desarrollo in

Santo Domingo. In 2006, he was awarded a Research Fellowship at the Center for Inter-

American Studies and Programs of the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. Also

in 2006, he was sponsored by the Mexico-North Transnationalism Project to conduct

field work as a Visiting Investigator at the Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. In 2006, he

was sponsored by Brown University and the Consortium on Qualitative Research

Methods to receive intensive research methods training at Arizona State University.

His publications include a chapter on the U.S. Enterprise Funds in Carol Lancaster, ed.,

Foreign Aid and Private Sector Development (Providence, RI: Watson Institute, 2006),

and he was co-author of an article with primary author Scott Siegel entitled ―Trends in

Multi-Method Research‖ that was published in the newsletter Qualitative Methods (5, 1

Spring 2007). He has presented research papers and organized conference panels at the

International Studies Association, the American Political Science Association, the

Midwest Political Science Association and the Latin American Studies Association.

Presently, he is a Visiting Instructor at Beloit College in Wisconsin. He teaches courses in

International Relations, U.S. Foreign Policy and Latin America and Global Development.

He has earned language certificates in German, Italian and Spanish. In 1991 he interned

in the office of Senator George Mitchell, and he returned to work in the U.S. Senate after

completing his undergraduate degree. From 1993 to 1996, he worked in the Clinton

Administration as a staff member in Vice President Gore‘s office and the U.S. Treasury

Department legislative affairs unit. He later held the position of County Field Director for

the 2000 Democratic Coordinated Campaign in New Jersey. From 2001 to 2003, he was

employed by a private university in Mexico City to teach courses and help manage the

first Associate Degree program accredited in both Mexico and the U.S.

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Acknowledgements

The major individual effort that this dissertation has been would be nothing without the

help and support of numerous others. First, a deeply appreciative thank you to my

dissertation advisor, Peter Andreas, whose input and guidance has always been smart,

wise and wonderfully punctual. He has been expert in the light but regular prod, and his

incisive responses are always dead-on. To Richard Snyder, my very, very special thanks

for a steady stream of sound criticism and enthusiastic encouragement, which

accumulated force as constructive support at every stage of the project. I was fortunate to

work closely with Tom Biersteker, to whom I am grateful for indispensable advice in the

early going. I am especially grateful to Ulrich Krotz for joining the committee and

providing his deep knowledge of bilateral politics and international relations theory.

At Brown, I have been privileged to enjoy the University's support for six years, which

begins with the Political Science Department. Thank you to all of my professors whose

lessons made their mark on a slightly older graduate student. Thank you to Professors

Schiller, Orr, Jones Luong, Krause and Morone for shepherding me through the program

with sensible counsel at regular intervals. Helping me learn and digest the new tricks

were my lively graduate student colleagues: thanks to a special group. The third leg of the

stool is the Department‘s vital support system; here my thanks go especially to Suzanne

Brough, who has been a rock, and also to Patty Gardner and Elaine Kenner.

I would like to thank Brown University‘s Center for Latin American and Caribbean

Studies; the support of the Center‘s Cogut Fellowship enabled me to complete the

chapters and present them at four conferences in 2007-2008. Professor James Green and

Susan Hirsch provided wonderful support and encouragement at different stages. The

graduate students of CLACS were well-organized, dedicated and fun to work with.

The field work was supported by the Mexico-North Research Project on

Transnationalism and by the Center for Inter-American Studies at the Instituto

Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). Special thanks go to Greta DeLeon for

facilitating my research and to Dr. Samuel Tovar at the Universidad Autónoma de Puebla

(UAP) Department of Law and Political Science for graciously hosting me during my

field work in Puebla. Beyond logistical support, my conversations with student and

faculty colleagues at the UAP enriched my understanding of the deeper social and

political problems wrapped up in the Mexico-US relationship as I confronted them in my

daily field outings. Thank you also to Dr. Tovar for taking me to the university hospital

and seeing that I received such good medical care when I got sick in Puebla.

At ITAM in Mexico City, many thanks to Dr. Rafael Fernández de Castro and Jennifer

Jeffs. Rafael‘s ability and willingness to open doors that would have otherwise been

closed helped me kick the research into a new gear, with sharper focus and more political

salience. The CEPI staff, students, investigators, and faculty supported my ambitious

project and made me feel at home in Mexico City. As well, I offer thanks to Ana Vila

Freyer for sharing her great knowledge and many practical insights into my research

topic, Anaily Castellanos Valderrama for research assistance, Gema Santamaría for help

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at crucial times, and James Robinson and Sandra Borda for their feedback and

encouragement on my research. At the Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, my thanks to

Professors Miguel Moctezuma and Rodolfo García Zamora for advising me so

generously during my field work in Zacatecas.

In the Dominican Republic, Mary Elizabeth Rodriguez at the Fundación Global de

Desarrollo y Democracía deserves special thanks for enabling me to access the institute‘s

library, resources and events. Eve Hayes at InterDom helped me adapt to Santo

Domingo‘s unique social and physical infrastructure. Edward Gonzalez-Acosta

generously provided expert feedback and shared valuable research contacts. Among

these, Arq. Henry Estévez Santos of the municipal administration of La Vega greatly

aided my research in arranging and accompanying me to nine interviews in La Vega.

Brown University and the Consortium for Qualitative Research Methods supported my

participation in the training institute at Arizona State University. Thank you to Professors

James Mahoney and Melani Cammett for reading my early work, introducing me to

qualitative historical analysis, and supporting my presentation of the case study research

to the Society for Comparative Research at Harvard University in 2008. At the Watson

Institute, the vibrant intellectual environment and the dedicated group of scholars and

staff helped me to launch the project and get traction at key moments. Thank you to

Katrina Burgess, José Itzigsohn and Robert Smith for insight and encouragement.

Geoffrey Kirkman has my gratitude for encouraging me to study the Dominican

Republic, which not only generated a paradigmatic case of overseas elections but also

grounded the research in Providence and opened it up to the fascinating field of

Caribbean studies. Thank you to Susan Costa and Zelia Silveira for logistical help and

friendly support. Special thanks to my other East Side supporters Uncle Hal Hamilton,

Professor Luiz Valente, Dr. Scott Johnston and Koji Masutani.

The dissertation builds on earlier studies: my teachers at SAIS, Carleton, and Taft have

been in my thoughts many times in recent years. You know who you are – and now I'll be

in touch again. To Dr. Michael Levy, I am grateful for my first applied lessons in political

science over a decade ago in Washington and for your support since then.

My parents made key contributions as only they could. Thank you each and all: to my

mother, for being there when I needed you; to my step-mother, for pushing me to write

my applications; to my father, for reminding me to glance out periodically at the larger

picture on our tattered earth. Academia‘s slings and arrows are real, but the community

just beyond campus offers a reality check and a reminder of the purpose of it all.

Finally, and most importantly, to Georgia, thank you for your patience and loving,

balance-tipping support. In miraculously coming along when you did, you humanized a

harrowing process and then spurred me to finish the job. Thank you for providing

perspective when I was discouraged and friendly reminders when I was distracted.

This dissertation is dedicated in loving memory to Bodine Lamont and Dorothea Jones

Wilkie.

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Table of Contents

List of tables and illustrations viii

List of acronyms ix

Ch. 1 Introduction: Political remittances and overseas voting 1

Ch. 2 Overseas voting in global historical perspective 45

Ch. 3 The Dominican Republic: Exporting the polity 94

Ch. 4 Mexico: Demobilizing the diaspora vote 138

Ch. 5 Overseas voting in Asia and Africa 191

Ch. 6 Conclusion 252

Appendices

I A. Terminological glossary 283

B. Chronology: OV Institutions as a Two-step Process 286

C. LEND Index: Labor Export New Democracies 287

D. Nation-states with greatest overseas populations, top 50 288

II A. Time-series output, Overseas Voting Law 289

B. Time-series output, Implementation 290

C. Heckman selection model output 291

D. Description of variables, indicators and sources 292

E. Basis for diaspora population estimations 295

III A. Consular patronage system 298

B. Capital city residents among Mexican overseas voters 299

References: List of author‘s field interviews 300

Bibliographical references 305

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List of Tables & Illustrations

Page

Table 1.0 Overseas Voting Trend 3

Table 1.1 Variance in implementation globally 4

Table 1.2 Focused comparison: OV Rules, 1994 – present 5

Table 1.3 Overseas voting in three views of transnational politics 16

Table 1.4 States accounting for remittances, 1975 – 2005 18

Table 1.5 Political Remittances 20

Table 1.6 Two-stage process 24

Table 1.7 Overseas state structures 27

Table 2.0 Overseas Voting Trend 47

Table 2.1 Six main explanations: overseas voting laws and implementation 52

Photo Seminario Internacional Sobre el Voto en el Extranjero 54

Table 2.2 Characteristics of voting rules 67

Table 2.3 Independent Variables 68

Table 2.4 Country size and OV in Latin America 72

Table 2.5 Descriptive Data 79

Table 2.6 Summary Results 84

Table 3.0 Instituting OV: A Two-Step Process 97

Table 3.1 Overseas Voting in Dominican Historical Context 101

Table 3.2 Pitching for Diaspora Support 116

Table 3.3 State structure beyond the territory 128

Table 4.0 Chronology of Overseas Voting in Mexico 144

Exhibit Mexican Diaspora Propaganda 157

Table 5.0 Overseas state Structures 193

Table 5.1 Developing democracies with transnational politics in three regions 200

Table 5.2 Philippines OV Chronology 201

Photo Filipina migrants rally in Hong Kong, 2001 206

Table 5.3 South Korea Chronology 209

Table 5.4 India OV Chronology 216

Table 5.5 Indonesia OV Chronology 225

Table 5.6 Senegal OV chronology 232

Table 5.7 Ghana chronology 238

Table 5.8 Implementation & Participation Outcomes 247

Table 5.9 Overseas state Characteristics & OV Outcomes 250

Photo Outside the money counter, Atlixco, Puebla 273

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List of Acronyms

CENA National Electoral Commission, Senegal (formerly the ONEL)

COAV Committee for Overseas Absentee Voting, Philippines

COFEM Council of Mexican Federations

COMELEC Commission on Election, Philippines

DANR Dominican-American National Roundtable

DFA Department of Foreign Affairs, Philippines

ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States

GDP Gross Domestic Product

GNP Grand National Party, South Korea

IDEA Institutional Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance

IFE Federal Electoral Institute, Mexico

IFES International Foundation for Election Systems

IFS Indian Foreign Service

IME Institute for Mexicans in the Exterior

INC Indian National Congress

IOM International Organization for Migration

JCE Junta Central Electoral, Dominican Republic

KPU Komisi Pemliham Umum (National Election Commission), Indonesia

MDP Millennium Democratic Party, South Korea

MEA Ministry of External Affairs, India

NDC National Democratic Congress, Ghana

NPP New Patriotic Party, Ghana

NRI Non-Resident Indian

OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

OSCE Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

OWWA Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, Philippines

PAN National Action Party, Mexico

PBD Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, India

PC Participación Ciudadana, Dominican Republic

PIO Person of Indian Origin

PLD Party of Democratic Liberation, Dominican Republic

POEA Philippine Overseas Employment Agency

PR Reform Party, Dominican Republic

PRI Institutional Revolutionary Party, Mexico

PRD Dominican Revolutionary Party (ch. 3), Party of Democratic Revolution (ch. 4, Mexico)

PS Parti Socialiste, Senegal

ROPAA Representation of the Peoples Amendment Act, Ghana

SD Senegalese Democratic Party

SRE Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (Ministry of Foreign Relations), Mexico

TKI Tenaga Terja Indonesia (Migrant Workers), Indonesia

TPE transnational political entrepreneur

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

UNEAD United Nations Electoral Assistance Division

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Chapter 1

Introduction: Political Remittances and Overseas Voting

1

As remittance-sending diasporas grow in prominence, they present a complex

political challenge to nation-states, particularly in the developing world. The challenge

consists of adapting territorial institutions to increasingly global nations. Since 1991,

economic remittances sent home by migrant workers have soared ten-fold, to $328 billion

in 2008, touching every major region, surpassing total official development assistance

and rivaling foreign direct investment as a revenue source for developing countries.1 For

nation-states, the massive flows of labor export are an ambiguous fruit—unplanned and

uncontrollable, difficult to justify yet useful in relieving economic distress and stabilizing

the balance of payments. As remittances become evident in national accounts, they raise

powerful issues of national obligation and access to democratic participation.2

For many emigrants, transnational life has stimulated a desire to participate in

home-country politics as independent advocates of reform. Migrants' economic gains and

learning represent a new resource with potential political influence in the country of

origin. Abetted by liberalization and communications technologies, their long-distance

bids to break onto the scene from abroad have invigorated national politics in the

extraterritorial spaces of countries like Mexico and the Dominican Republic. Seeking a

political opening, migrant activists highlight the diaspora's economic contributions,

invoke global norms, and demand the right to vote for emigrants.

So far states have taken half-steps towards instituting elections beyond borders.

1 Ratha et al (2009) of the World Bank expect remittances to decline between 7 and 10% in 2009 due to

the global recession, and then to bounce back. Including unrecorded transfers leads to higher base

estimates (IFAD 2007).

2 See Glossary for definition, and notes on usage, for diaspora and other terms. Remittances are private

cross-border financial transfers at the household level. Labor export refers to situations with net

emigration and corresponding remittance inflows, whether home states are active or passive in

managing the flows.

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Home country political elites increasingly recognize the political potential embodied in

the diaspora but remain wary about full-scale electoral participation from abroad. They

have redefined citizenship and begun moves toward expatriate voting as a part of

democratization reforms. In 1994, Mexico's President hailed the ―global Mexican

nation,‖ committing the government to incorporate overseas nationals as citizens.

However, in Mexico, diaspora impact has mainly been limited to changes in discourse,

not laws, policy or resource flows.

The question of overseas voting rules, the topic of choice, has become a central

issue in the extraterritorial politics of developing countries. The realization of migrants'

political potential requires access to public spaces and channels of decision-making.

Globally, voting in democratic elections has become the universally recognized and

legitimate means for political participation. Between 1991 and 2006, the number of

countries that had formally approved overseas voting rights grew from 32 to over 100.

However, overseas voting raises controversial issues about the format for diaspora

political mobilization, including the extent of activation, whether it is directed in support

of or in opposition to the government, and whether it is organized by political parties,

civic groups or state actors.

A global take-off in overseas voting adoption has accompanied the remittance

boom. Table 1.0 depicts the OV trend of recent decades specifically in regard to

implementation, showing the number of countries that have held overseas elections rising

to 63 by 2005, up from 31 in 1991. Global growth in the practice has continued in recent

years, too, so that by 2007 over 115 countries had passed OV laws, and roughly 70 had

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implemented overseas elections.3

Table 1.0 Overseas Voting Trend

What does it mean to implement overseas voting– how seriously have these

countries moved to transnationalize their elections? As the phenomenon of migrant

diaspora politics has become more generalized, there has been considerable variance in

the openness of overseas voting (OV) rules as implemented. Some offer rules that favor

expansive participation, while others introduce rules that are restrictive or prohibitive.

Table 1.1 shows how in 2004 the 149 largest nation-states were divided between open

implementers, restrictive implementers and non-implementers.

3 Ellis, Navarro et al, eds., Voting from abroad (Stockholm: IDEA-IFE, 2007), p. 3.

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Table 1.1 Variance in implementation globally

Openness to participation is a basic characteristic of democracy. My research for

chapter two‘s large-n study investigated the OV experience of 149 countries. It estimates

the openness of OV rules on the basis of five elements, including who is eligible to vote

from abroad, as well as the rules for long-distance voting, registration, regulation and

representation. The data showed that, through 2004, 23% of countries had implemented

open elections overseas, while 32% had implemented OV in restrictive or delayed

manner, with the remaining 43% not extending elections beyond the territory.

Exemplifying much of the global variance, the comparison of the Dominican

Republic and Mexico shows a puzzling divergence in the institutions that have resulted in

two otherwise similar cases. As remittance-dependent democratizers with diaspora voting

bids, they both experienced the overseas voting process along the same timeline: in the

1990s, remittances surged following crisis-induced emigration, and national legislatures

reformed the constitution establishing expatriate rights to dual citizenship and voting,

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leading both to implement OV in recent years (Appendix I-B). As instituted over the last

two decades, the Dominican Republic‘s rules organize voting in public spaces and permit

full-scale overseas campaigns, generating significant overseas turnout. Meanwhile,

Mexico has prohibited campaigns abroad and deliberately established a complicated,

expensive voting process that has ensured extremely low participation. These starkly

different institutions form the dissertation's outcome variable in Table 1.2 and drive its

research questions.

Table 1.2 Focused comparison of OV Rules, 1994 - present

Case Outcome

Dominican Republic Expansive

Mexico Restrictive

Why does the Dominican Republic adopt expansive overseas elections, while Mexico

institutes a highly restrictive set of rules? More generally, what makes a nation-state

choose to adopt, restrict or prohibit voting by overseas nationals in domestic elections?

The questions point out a continuing gap in research upon varying home state

responses to cross-border phenomena, originally identified by Bauböck (2002, 8-9). This

dissertation first identifies the global pattern of labor export and overseas voting in a

large-n quantitative analysis. It concentrates its research on the two core case studies of

the Dominican Republic and Mexico in search of the main causal factors. Before

concluding, it extends the analysis to compare six theoretically relevant country cases, in

pairs from each of three regions in Asia and Africa.

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Understanding the politics of overseas voting requires analytic grounding in the

country of origin and a focus on the transnational relationship between diaspora society

groups and home country political structure. Findings from the global analysis confirm

that, on average, more political openness favors expansive forms of overseas voting by

enabling rights claims and spurring party competition for migrant votes. As well,

independently, more economic remittances are correlated with the same. But it is not

simply remittances plus competitiveness that determine outcomes; rather state structure

mediates political remittances. Thus, in any given case, the interaction between diaspora

actors and regime structure reveals the causes of OV outcomes.

Based on case study findings, I argue that the key structural characteristics lie in

the institutional capacities and preferences of the overseas state, defined as the foreign

ministry and the electoral bureaucracy. These two bureaucracies play crucial roles in

shaping the institutions of transnational politics, influencing whether these include

elections abroad and, if so, how accessible overseas voting is. Strong overseas states are

distinguished from weak ones by i) a greater level of professionalism of government

officials with more independence from societal pressures and ii) a greater degree of

centralized, hierarchical control over resources and personnel decisions. State preferences

can become a factor when bureaucratic doctrines and practices prioritize liberal rights

norms that may conflict with traditional state norms of territorial jurisdiction. In many

developing countries, including the two in question, states‘ normative dispositions have

not been an independent variable but rather a function of their capacities; later, in chapter

five, the analysis introduces a different type of case in which preferences become

significant and require a more complex, two-dimensional view of the overseas state.

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In the Dominican Republic, the foreign ministry follows a patronage system:

strong political incentives lead party-linked appointees to favor engagement with local

diaspora communities as a greater priority than any broader policy of state. Expansive

overseas voting is attractive to partisan consular chiefs in remittance-sending cities,

presenting a means to develop patronage networks and tap the diaspora for funds, talent

and political organization. As well, the Dominican Republic‘s electoral authority is

divided and dominated by political party interests, lax in enforcing national controls on

fundraising, and disposed to accommodate overseas voting agenda for the additional

resources and overseas postings the charge bestows. In the absence of bureaucratic

hierarchy, party-led entrepreneurship can occur more freely.

Politics in the Dominican Republic are dominated by strong parties and other

private actors, not the government. In the aftermath of a national political crisis in 1994,

Dominican political leaders agreed on basic electoral rules that increased competitiveness

and established the right of all citizens to vote from abroad. Amidst loosely regulated

national political processes, with a tradition of overseas activism by opposition parties,

party leaders harnessed the diaspora's dense social networks and remittance economies to

build parallel party structures in the extraterritorial spaces. In the process, the clientelistic

interactions between home-country principals and overseas agents make the two sides

difficult to distinguish. The result is an expansive institution with vibrant participation:

permissive rules for overseas organization; party branches embedded throughout diaspora

society; and a consular infrastructure incorporated into political machines. Perceptions of

political opportunity spurred the initial adoption of expansive rules, while party

governance via cross-border patronage networks has sustained its implementation.

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Interestingly, the Dominican case features a reverse flow of ideas opposite in

nature to that of Mexico, as the Dominican practice of extraterritorial politics results in a

one-way export of political culture from the home country to the diaspora. In other

words, transformation occurs not in the Dominican diaspora's intervention into the home

country, but rather in the export of domestic political practices and norms. As chapter

three details, political patronage in the consulates has led to violations of Geneva

Convention norms, outraging reform-minded Dominican-Americans but passing as

―honest graft‖ within the standard bounds of domestic political norms. Moreover, for

party elites, the ample revenues captured personally by Dominican Consuls in New York

and New England are a well understood fact and a reason to stay close to the diaspora.

By contrast, in Mexico, the foreign ministry is run and staffed by career officers

committed to interstate diplomacy, who view overseas voting as a fruitless and risky task

certain to inflame anti-Mexican xenophobia and preclude a bilateral migration accord

with the U.S. The foreign ministry controls the consulates and sets their budgets,

upholding institutional barriers to diaspora communities and privileging political elites of

the national capital. Of equal importance, Mexico‘s Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) is a

vast, slow-moving Leviathan committed to free, fair and secret elections within the

national territory; it reflects the elite consensus across Mexico‘s three parties of risk

perception and aversion and enforces a strict ban on foreign financial contributions. At

home and abroad, Mexico‘s two overseas state actors have together used their prestige,

infrastructure and control of information to frame overseas voting as a risky, costly

project for party elites and the nation – deliberately influencing the content of the law.

Thus, Mexico‘s migrant organizations encountered powerful resistance, as party

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leaders took political cues from state elites and opted for a law that barred them from

mobilizing and incorporating the overseas electorate. The foreign ministry remained the

predominant actor in diaspora cities, collaborating with the electoral authority to monitor

closely overseas voting and political activities. A binational network of Mexican diaspora

leaders kept sustained pressure upon the political class to enact open overseas voting. In

the end, party and government elites deliberately crafted and implemented a restrictive

reform. Overall, the Mexican state directed political remittances in the way that it

structured overseas participation. The foreign ministry's programs for Mexicans abroad

incorporated the masses administratively, issuing five million consular identification

cards not valid for voting. It co-opted diaspora elites, recruiting overseas professionals

and entrepreneurs to join state-directed consultative councils. Meanwhile, as a key

subplot running counter to the state-led rollout of bureaucratic structure, Mexico's

diaspora network linked up with progressive forces inside the bureaucracy to effectively

lobby Mexico‘s Congress to hold an open vote on a voting bill in 2005. In the end, the

restrictive law that passed did contain an element of migrant-led change.

What do findings from the two Latin America cases reveal about the broader

research question? The type of OV institution adopted depends in large extent upon how

the government is set up. Overseas state capacities shape the political incentives guiding

the interactions between diaspora entrepreneurs and insider elites. As the cases will show,

state capacities take effect through four mechanisms: overseas fundraising controls;

overseas organization; issue framing; and implementation. Across regions, the same four

mechanisms occur in sequence from the first surfacing of an overseas voting claim:

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Fundraising controls: Domestically, strong electoral commissions that uphold

bans or normative prohibitions on foreign fundraising deter overseas outreach and

party-building; weaker, more client-sensitive units favor a laissez-faire posture.

Overseas organization: In diaspora cities, strong foreign ministries staffed by a

professional foreign service present a pre-existing means and venue in the

consular infrastructure for organizing the diaspora along non-partisan lines,

driving transnational entrepreneurship to state and civic sectors. Strong state

capacities also raise concerns about government manipulation of overseas voting

in favor of the incumbent party, making opposition leaders more risk averse in

deciding whether to support OV or not.

Issue framing: In the legislature, the foreign ministry and electoral commission

frame the domestic politics of the overseas voting issue when they weigh in with

the media and legislators about the costs, logistics and consequences for external

relations with resident countries; foreign conflict and hostile states are inimical to

overseas voting; in states founded on principles of nationalism and territorial

organization,4 bureaucratic actors make overseas voting politically toxic when

they invoke potential risks to state interests.

Implementation: Abroad, strong overseas state structures disposed to minimize

risks to state and ruling party can obstruct expansive implementation of diaspora

voting, seen concretely in the coordination between electoral commission and

foreign ministry. Generally, in developing democracies that have suffered

4 Indicators of such ―state nationalism‖ include strong adherence to territorial organization, national

jurisdiction and non-intervention in the operational plans of the foreign ministry and electoral agency.

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economic crises, state and ruling party elites perceive potential opposition in the

diaspora and so tend to tread with caution there, notwithstanding the complex,

varied nature of diaspora preferences across cases.

Thus, in a strong overseas state, bureaucracies composed of a professional foreign

service and independent electoral authorities possess stronger relative capacities in

transnational organization; given their preference for the continuity of national-territorial

organization, they exert their pivotal influence to guide overseas activism away from

open OV. By contrast, democracies lacking authoritative structures dedicated to

territorial controls are more conducive to the development of open OV rules.

I Alternative explanations

Existing studies of overseas voting fall into three general categories of

explanation, which respectively emphasize external normative influences, domestic

incentive structures and historical-structural factors. Each sheds light on certain dynamics

of state-diaspora politics shaping OV outcomes, however, none has yet to develop or

even suggest a theory capable of explaining variance across multiple cases. This

dissertation is the first attempt at such a systematic theorization. What knowledge does it

build on? Interestingly, of the three rival explanatory perspectives, the scholarship

emphasizing diaspora consciousness is by far the most empirically and theoretically

developed, whereas research applying conventional political science approaches of

rational choice theory and statism to overseas voting lacks volume and depth. On the

whole, the body of academic research on the topic remains narrow, lacking theorization

of causal mechanisms and without systematic empirical testing across cases. Against this

lacuna, experience offers useful references for theory-building. Interviewees voiced

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different hypotheses based on factors such as population size and diaspora profiles, which

the empirical chapters test. Chapter two outlines a historical typology of national

experiences and evaluates certain single-factor hypotheses.

Reflecting a norms-based approach, the transnational communities research of

recent decades was the first to focus on overseas voting as an instance of broader forces

of global political change. The political anthropology and sociology literatures that make

up this body of work share a sociological or social constructivist approach defined by an

analytic focus on identity, normative change and social relations. On overseas voting, this

transnationalist approach has focused attention upon diaspora agency and contributed

valuable empirical building blocks, but it lacks explanatory leverage across cases. It

implies more open OV institutions than in fact occurred in Mexico.

Sociological theories of globalization make positive predictions of political

changes on the basis of underlying social change. For example, Sassen emphasizes

―denationalized citizenship‖ and argues that undocumented migrants have utilized

informal transnational networks to realize their rights in the countries of origin (2006,

295-6) and to recover a history-making capacity linked to broader world change (2006,

319-321). However, the logic of globalization theory fits poorly with the global variance

in overseas voting outcomes and calls our attention to the key Mexico case, in which

politics set limits on the impact of migrant agency. Moreover, the denationalization thesis

is misleading in relation to the political contestation spurred by overseas voting, namely

the re-creation of the national in global spaces.

Anthropology contributed the first main empirical writings to touch upon overseas

voting. Luin Goldring (2002) introduced the political remittances concept, referring

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specifically to the ideational contributions made by remittance-sending emigrants to the

home-country polity. Goldring and several others5 explored the political implications of

transnational life and identified overseas voting and dual citizenship – topics generally

overlooked by political scientists. This transnational politics literature was part of the

multi-disciplinary research project focused on migrant communities and dedicated to a

novel ―transnationalist‖ analytic lens. The transnationalist approach is committed to

detailed ethnographic studies that illuminate conceptual and practical problems of

existing structures, including world politics. The approach is evident in the title of a

seminal work: Nations unbound: Transnational projects, postcolonial predicaments, and

deterritorialized nation-states (Basch et al 1994). The notion of a contradiction between

international capitalism and nation-state units was not new (Zolberg 1989, 409), but the

transnationalist project animated it with a rich empiricism and pointed to the OV topic.

With its ethnographic approach, transnationalist research has lacked a systematic

comparative analysis relevant to the research question about political institutions. Initial

works focus on the description of activities and remain based on single cases, rich in

detail yet lacking conceptual development as well as comparative leverage, let alone

statistical inference. Bauböck argued for a broad definition of political transnationalism

that includes not only the cross-border political activities of migrant communities but the

impact that they have upon the polity, of both home and resident countries:

This standard conception of political transnationalism is still too narrow and ought to be

broadened . . . it should not only refer to politics across borders but ought to consider

how migration changes the institutions of the polity and its conception of membership.

(2003, 702).

5 Among these multi-disciplinary works are Guarnizo 1998, Itzigsohn 2000, Levitt 2001, M. Smith

2003, R. Smith 2003a and 2003b, and Moctezuma 2004.

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Without such careful conceptualization, the transnational concept has been problematic

when applied to political institutions. Instead, the scholarship has emphasized multiple

alternatives to national citizenship—voluntary, economic, social, transnational, post-

national— along with ―globalization from below.‖ Celebration of diaspora influence has

generated criticism for suggesting that the nation-state no longer matters.6

Political sociologists made several refinements to sharpen transnational research.

Recent work by Itzigsohn points out the contradictions of Dominican overseas politicking

(2008, 2004); Levitt and De la Dehesa distinguish variance in Haiti and Brazil on the one

hand, from Mexico and the Dominican Republic, on the other. Despite lumping the latter

two together, they make a good move in identifying political costs and benefits to

established national actors (2003, 601-2). Still, while breaking new ground and

documenting vibrant diaspora political activities, the analytic commitment to begin with

the diaspora too easily overlooks the powerful domestic interests and state structures that

intermediate the new diaspora calls for voting rights. As well, firm commitments to an

ethnographic methodology taken in some works, e.g. Smith and Bakker (2007),

deliberately limit the relevance of such accounts for my research questions.

A second alternative perspective emphasizes domestic incentive structures. The

rationalist argument focuses on the preferences and strategic interaction of domestic party

elites, exemplified by Parra's game theoretic analysis of the Mexico case that identifies

the party consensus against expansive reform (2005, 102-3). However, this analysis

assigns preferences retrospectively, without questioning their origins; and in its exclusive

focus upon domestic party actors, it overlooks the Mexican diaspora network's influence

6 See Bauböck 2002 and 2003 and Waldinger and Fitzgerald 2004 for critiques along this line.

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and the broader implications for institution-building. More generally, the rationalist

literature has emphasized immigration, arguing that much will depend on how migration

is managed by the more powerful liberal states (Hollifield 2004, 905). On OV, its

exemplars are entirely case-specific, offering no theory to explain variance.

From a structural point of view, political scientists have viewed the transnational

communities research with skepticism, raising valid questions about migration's newness

and impact that are explored in this study. Migration's incurrence in politics has a long

history (Koslowski 2002), and any assessment of its role today should take care to avoid

exaggeration (Cortina, interview) and also to establish proper historical context. A large

portion of emigrants engage in the politics of integration, not long-distance nationalism,

and many first-generation Latinos show a stronger interest in access to education and

economic opportunity in the residence country than in homeland development (De la

Garza 1998). However, in my view, today's flows show significant scale and changing

organization, raising the stakes of the diaspora constituency for home country politics.

While other disciplines have led the way in identifying political aspects of such a vast

and thriving human space, political science has yet to contribute new knowledge in equal

measure. The deficiency is surprising in light of the discipline‘s deep intellectual base.

Table 1.3 summarizes the treatment of overseas voting by the three different views

of transnational politics. A structural perspective is emphasized more or less in the

writings of historical-institutionalists, government practitioners and international legal

scholars. These strands have contributed three edited volumes, identified as exemplars in

the table, with many case studies tracing the history of emigration politics, state programs

and formal OV outcomes by country. Alternatively, committed realists or state-

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nationalists alternate between skepticism and hostility on the topic (Huntington 2004,

Carpizo 1998), instead of treating it as something that varies empirically.7

Table 1.3 Overseas voting in three views of transnational politics

Structural

Rationalist Social

constructivist

Analytic

framework

Historical-institutional

Statist or realist

Legal analysis

Rational choice Transnational communities

Key

Factor(s)

State policy programs

Historical emigration

politics

Sovereignty norms

Domestic incentive

structures

Elite bargaining

Diaspora consciousness

Diaspora talents and

mobilization

Exemplars

Calderón, ed., Votar en la

Distancia (2004).

González Gutiérrez, ed.,

Relaciones Estado-

diaspora (2006).

Ellis et al, IDEA Handbook

on External Voting (2007).

Hollifield, The emerging

migration state (2004).

Parra, Overseas voting and

Mexico‘s Chamber of

Deputies (2005).

Duarte, Political

implications of the

Dominican overseas vote

(2003).

Sassen, Territory,

Authority, Rights (2006).

Goldring, The Mexican

state and transnational

organizations (2002).

Levitt, The Transnational

Villagers (1998).

General

orientation

&

predictive

tendency

Transnational politics is

not new, but OV outcomes

vary by case. For some

statists, OV is unlikely

and/or mistaken due to

sovereignty concerns.

Emphasizes immigration

politics. OV rarely moves

beyond artificial symbolic

politics. Domestic insiders

decide on, obstruct

overseas voting bids.

Transnational migrant

activism is a new force.

Diaspora appeals for OV

are reshaping democracy.

Strengths

&

weaknesses

Deep within-case analysis,

but disengaged from

theoretical reasoning and

comparative analysis.

Cross-national work

remains descriptive.

Accepts national-territorial

structures as largely fixed.

Existing research is

limited, assigns legislator

preferences arbitrarily,

lacks comparative analysis.

First to identify the topic

have contributed

significant empirical

research. Diaspora focus

can overlook crucial state

and party intermediation.

7 I address the normative debate over OV among legal scholars in the conclusion (Baubock 2007, Rubio-

Marín 2006, López-Guerra 2005).

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II Political remittances amidst democratization

With economic power comes political power, scholars from Marx to Moore have

argued.8 This principle of political economy presents an interesting puzzle as we

contemplate the remittance boom. When and through what mechanisms do economic

remittances translate into political power? Do remittances drive states to institute open

overseas voting rules? As economic migrants generate more earnings, it is natural to

expect a corresponding formation of political interests and capacities. A conventional

approach to this topic has been the study of immigrant incorporation. However, this

dissertation chooses to ―follow the money‖ to the country of origin.

Remittances are not new, but the recent remittance boom is. According to the

World Bank (2006a, 92-99), a doubling in global flows to developing countries recorded

since 2000 has resulted from increasing scrutiny of flows, lower sending costs, improved

recording techniques, U.S. dollar depreciation, and growth in migrant stock and

incomes.9 The arrival of more complete remittance accounting highlights the labor export

trend as well as states' recognition of their ever more globally dispersed nations. As

indicated in Table 1.4, the number of countries with remittance data listed by the World

Bank increased from 41 to 127 between 1975 and 2005. The period has also seen a

tendency to greater remittance-dependency, with the number of states with remittances

equal to or greater than three per cent of GDP rising from 7 to 50.

8 Karl Marx, ―whenever through the development of industry and commerce, new forms of intercourse

have been evolved, the law has always been compelled to admit them . . .‖ (1846, 188). Barrington

Moore restated the idea negatively: ―no bourgeoisie, no democracy‖ (1966, 418).

9 In other words, states are better recording the growing real volumes that more, richer emigrants

increasingly send by bank transfers, and depreciated dollar units further inflate the global figures.

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Table 1.4 States accounting for remittances, 1975 - 2005

# of States

1975 1985 1995 2005

with recorded remittances listed

41

78

113

127

Remittances

as a

% of GDP

> 10% 3 3 8 19

7 - 10% 1 6 1 10

3 - 7% 3 9 23 21

1 - 3% 9 15 27 24

0 - 1% 25 45 52 53

source: World Development Indicators.

The recent remittance boom has occurred along with a global trend among nation-

states to cultivate diaspora favor with overseas voting rights. Since 1991, the number of

countries with overseas voting laws in effect has increased from 31 to more than 100.10

Other main national issues of cross-border diaspora politics in the labor export countries

are dual citizenship rights and equal access to home-country governance, which includes

customs and consular service reforms. More ambitious projects include coordinated

lobbying and extraterritorial representation in the national legislature. Overseas voting

has been the most salient issue in the two cases here and an important item across labor

export cases globally.

I define political remittances as the transfer of political resources for influence in

the home country by expatriate citizens, i.e. political actions undertaken outside of the

territory to affect the national polity. This conceptualization suggests a typology of the

10 Over 100 nation-states have adopted overseas voting laws (Ellis et al 2007), while 70 states had

implemented overseas voting, according to Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute (IFE 2006).

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ways that an expatriate individual or group can act to influence the politics of the country

of origin.

Table 1.5 analyzes political remittances first according to the content sent, of

which three major types stand out. First, expatriate nationals have frequently intervened

in home country politics by sending crucial material resources in the form of arms or

funds. Secondly, they have sent back new ideational resources in the form of political

information, doctrines and mentalities acquired abroad. A third intermediate category of

direct electoral resources refers to the active elements of modern democratic politics such

as candidates, votes, party units and lobbies-- a less traditional type linked to recent mass

migration and democratization. Across all types, political remittances are composed of an

overseas political action and a specific resource that is sent home. These interventions

have occurred across a range of historic and current cases, as column four shows.

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Table 1.5 Political Remittances

Type Political Action Resources Illustrative Case

Material

Fund Campaign funds raised from

strategic donors overseas.

Dominican parties NY, New England;

2000 ―Amigos de Fox‖ case;

Liberia, Ghana debates in Washington.

Arm

Military or human arms in

support of warring party,

insurgents.

NORAID transfers to Irish Republican Army

in 1970s.

Destroy / Invade

Coup or invasion blows by

exiled partisans with external

ally.

Alcibiades with Sparta on Athens;

Cuban exiles with US at Bay of Pigs;

Aristide with U.S. in Haiti;

Ahmed Chalabi with U.S. in Iraq.

Electoral

Lobby

High-level access and skills to

influence internal debates via

US foreign policy or directly.

―La Coalición‖ (Mexico), COFEM;

Dominican-American Roundtable;

American Israeli PAC.

Vote Voters and ballots sent in to

home country elections.

Dominican Republic 2004, 2008;

Mexico 2006;

90 states globally, 7 in Latin America.

Organize

Means to mobilize diaspora

voters, by state, party or civic

groups.

Federación Zacatecana;

Political party cells and comités;

Consulates state offices, 3 X 1, IME;

Migrant marches & Hispanic radio.

Run / Campaign Emigrant politicians. ―El Rey Tomate‖ Zacatecas;

Diputados migrantes.

Ideational

Inform / Educate /

Connect

New political information

about regime, opposition,

actors, networks, strategies.

Los Angeles Opinión, 1929 -- ;

Emigrant calls home, 2000 elections;

MX Sin Fronteras (Chicago 1999 --).

Persuade / Activate New demands, ideologies

about HC governance.

Lenin, José Vasconcelos, Juan Bosch;

Mexican towns (Goldring);

Indian diaspora liberalization (Kapur).

Demonstrate Transfer of political skills,

leadership developed abroad.

Transnational political entrepreneurs as new

actors (Zacapala, Dallas interviews).

Reformulate

Notions of identity;

Attitudes affecting political

behavior, democracy.

Focus group evidence;

Return migrant actors, officials;

Remittance recipients‘ surveys.

Elections beyond borders form one crucial type of political remittances in the

western hemisphere. The table above shows us how overseas voting fits within the

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historical span of long-distance politics. Political remittances are not new as an activity,

nor have they normally been associated with labor diasporas. However, technological

change has made emigrants more visible and relevant in a greater number of situations.

For emigration states, the conjuncture of liberalization, emigration, and new technologies

has democratized diaspora politics and brought the voting issue to the fore.

Case selection: Mexico and the Dominican Republic

The concept of political remittances is a useful heuristic for the study of

transnational politics; it points out the relative newness of overseas voting along with its

historical precedents in other, different but analogous forms of long-distance

participation. Overseas voting rules call for qualitative analysis at the core of the multi-

methods framework, in two regards. First, the outcome results from a process involving

transnational interactions at multiple levels across time—a process that is affected by

many potentially significant causal factors. Secondly, the newness of the topic has

required descriptive analysis to confirm outcomes. For these reasons, initial scholarship

has mainly taken the form of qualitative single-case studies based on historical process

tracing (Calderón 2005, Itzigsohn 2000, Levitt 2001). The comparative case analysis

builds on existing social science research with a carefully paired comparison.

The case selection is consistent with Mill‘s method of difference, in which cases

with ―most similar‖ values on the independent variables nonetheless generate divergent

outcomes in the dependent variable (Ragin 1987, 39). In this approach, the strict rules of

case selection for quantitative analysis do not apply to the qualitative case studies

(George & Bennett 2005, 23). In the paired comparison of the two cases, the research

design reduces the number of potentially significant causal factors, identifying a few such

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factors that do vary for ―structured-focused‖ investigation using qualitative techniques.

The factors with different values in Mexico and the Dominican Republic include overseas

state strength, subnational dynamics, diaspora dispersion, and size of diaspora and

remittances relative to the national economy and population. By tracing the role of each

through the process and evaluating its causal significance, the qualitative-comparative

analysis offers promise of greater accuracy as well as theoretical insights about the

different factors.

Mexico and the Dominican Republic are two of the most prominent remittance

democratizers. Similarities on salient characteristics of region, remittance dependency,

and recent political and economic liberalization make the two cases well-paired. Both are

U.S.-dependent developing countries and labor export leaders. For both, overseas citizens

are estimated at ten percent or more of national population. Mexico was second after

India among countries in total remittances, receiving $25 billion in 2007, while the

Dominican Republic was among twenty labor export leaders with remittances greater

than 10% of GDP, with $3.4 billion received in 2007. As well, the two have a particular

meaning to the U.S., since their emigrants and their descendants form the first- and third-

largest national identities within the U.S. Hispanic population.11

Both Mexico and the Dominican Republic are part of a common historical

conjuncture within the developing world characterized by democratization and neoliberal

economic adjustments, emigration and remittances.12

The 1994-2008 period covers a

coherent chapter in each of the two national histories, from the onset of dual transitions

11 Cuban emigrants and Cuban-Americans compose the second largest segment of the U.S. Hispanic

population, however the home country regime and the polarized relationship rule out any question of

overseas voting. Rather, political remittances occur through other channels, on other questions.

12 Kapur and McHale (2003) identify the complementarities linking labor export and neoliberal reforms.

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into reform's second generation. Both cases exhibit increasing electoral competitiveness,

massive labor export, and the neoliberal pattern of growth amidst poverty, inequality, and

a large, growing informal sector.

My argument

The dissertation‘s macro-analysis finds the inclusiveness of overseas voting

institutions to be contingent upon three factors of economic remittances (R$), political

competitiveness (PC), and the institutional autonomy of the overseas state in relation to

diaspora actors. The first two establish the scope condition: democratic countries with

some portion of citizens abroad who maintain ties to the homeland. As the case studies

document, the bureaucratic capacities and preferences of the overseas state form the

decisive factor in determining whether the country expands democracy to include the

diaspora and mobilizes the overseas population in national elections. The thesis draws

upon Evans' conceptualization of state autonomy as i) the capability to formulate goals

for the polity independently, along with ii) the ability of organizations to rely on

personnel to implement those goals and identify them as important to their own careers

(1995, 45). Of course, autonomy abroad depends upon the balance of capabilities

between government, party and diaspora actors. In weaker states, non-state actors may

mobilize and penetrate the government (Risse-Kappen (1995, 20-28). In formerly

authoritarian polities, the overseas state may structure and guide the participation of

overseas citizens (Stepan 1978), very likely toward non-electoral activities.

The dependent variable is the OV rules as implemented, an outcome that occurs

following a process of legislation and bureaucratic rule-making. Participation levels are

an essential part of overseas elections, affected to some degree by behavioral and

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attitudinal variables. However, I hold that legislation and implementation set the range of

likely participation levels. Therefore, the dissertation focuses upon the nature of the rules

as implemented, which is determined by the following process.

Table 1.6 Two-stage process

Overseas voting rules as implemented = (R$ * PC) * overseas state capacities

Stage one: legislation

R$ * PC ==> overseas voting law

Stage two: implementation

Negative case (Mexico)

overseas voting law * strong overseas state ==> restrictive implementation

Positive case (Dominican Republic)

overseas voting law * weak overseas state ==> expansive implementation

The two-stage process modeled in Table 1.6 begins with legislation and concludes

with the implementation of overseas voting (see also Appendix 1-B). First, economic

remittances lead diaspora activists to call for overseas voting rights, but the impact of this

bid depends upon political openness in the home country. With openness, resource-

seeking political actors act to enfranchise the diaspora, passing an overseas voting law as

the positive result of the first stage of the process. The second stage of implementation

requires inter-party agreement on rules of the game for extraterritorial activities along

with deployment of state resources to organize voting. During this part of the process,

parties play a crucial role in determining the implementation outcomes arrived at by

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electoral authorities, who are generally cautious and ready to stall, though also eager to

acquire international assignments that entail overseas budgets, travel and postings.

What then determines the actions of party leaders in competitive multi-party

environments on extraterritorial institution-building? Existing comparative research is of

little help in generating hypotheses.13

The leading research on developing country

systems is oriented to quantitative analysis of formal outcomes such as the number of

parties and electoral volatility (Morgenstern & D'Elia 2007, Mainwairing & Torcal 2005,

Jones & Mainwairing 2003).

In the absence of systematic analysis across cases, existing accounts of overseas

voting cases point to particular factors that are undertheorized and lacking in cross-case

generalizability, while academic research has yet to grapple with the topic and apply its

main theories in a way that captures the nuanced reality. As potential leading factors,

some interviewees mentioned population size and considered migratory status. These

factors can be important, but they did not determine the outcome in either case, I argue.

Many interviewees have pointed to the size of the Mexican diaspora as a factor that

prohibited the expansive implementation of overseas voting. However, there is no

correlation between country size and outcomes in Latin America, and large diasporas

have not precluded expansive voting rules in the Philippines, nor in the U.S. and the

U.K.. To emphasize the size factor confuses population scale with more direct causal

factors of state capacities and elite perceptions of national interest. While large diaspora

populations are generally correlated with closed voting, more research is necessary to

13 The comparative institutional research on party systems has a long history, with seminal works by

Duverger and Sartori, and is highly developed empirically.

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confirm any determinate causal mechanism involving diaspora population scale. In this

light, and given the intensity of overseas interest in voting, the Mexico case raises the

question about why elite political actors have not regarded the large-scale overseas

population as a source of potential support, funds and future votes to be cultivated and

organized for electoral purposes.

The issue of migrants' legal status is a secondary factor in relation to overseas

voting, relevant only after implementation. For undocumented migrants primarily

interested not in voting but in avoiding authorities and obtaining valid working papers, an

illegal status may have a negative effect upon participation, in the event that overseas

voting is held. But it does not directly affect the actions of legislation and

implementation. Moreover, as in the case of Mexico, large diaspora populations feature

substantial internal heterogeneity, a fact that clouds efforts to theorize on the basis of any

average or summary characteristics of the overseas population.

Case study evidence points to the balance of political autonomy between

government forces and societal actors, across the polity and in the extraterritorial space.

When the balance favors the government over migrant actors, party leaders have more

reason to join with government officers, adopting their view of overseas elections as a

potential danger, and co-opt and demobilize new extraterritorial actors, rather than to

prioritize the struggle of those pushing for transformational reform from outside of the

system. In such cases, the implementation of overseas voting will tend to be restrictive.

By contrast, in party-led polities, in which political appointees dominate the national

state, party leaders and diaspora groups find little resistance to overseas politics, rather

consular access provides motive and infrastructure to further such activity. In this context,

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extraterritorial voting institutions will tend to be expansive.

In the overseas state argument, remittances and political openness are necessary

but not sufficient for open rules. Rather, remittances and openness are mediated by a

structural characteristic of the polity, namely the institutional strength and preferences of

the overseas state. As Table 1.7 shows, the key factors are whether the electoral authority

and the foreign ministry are run by professional civil service committed to territorial

sovereignty or by political appointees serving a political party.

Table 1.7 Overseas state structures

Strong: professionalized,

independent, hierarchical

(Mexico)

Weak: politicized, client-led

(Dominican Republic)

Who governs? bureaucratic state political parties & societal actors

Foreign ministry &

Electoral authority

professional diplomatic corps,

independent board

political appointees,

weak electoral unit

Mechanism consulates oppose diaspora

voting and highlight its risks.

unrestricted party-diaspora links

transform consulates into vehicle for

pursuing overseas resources.

OV rules outcome prohibitive or restrictive expansive

In all countries, consulates play a central role in diaspora politics as monopoly

provider of national law and legitimacy, a reality rooted in the sovereignty principle and

sanctioned by the international system. For labor exporters, the capacities of the foreign

ministry and electoral agency compose the key factor shaping the overseas voting

institution. With career diplomats appointed by the government in charge, the consulates

possess institutional strength in relation to emerging migrant groups; when this is coupled

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with a capable electoral agency, the government is able and disposed to blocking

activities that run against its agenda such as overseas elections. By contrast, the absence

of strong transnational structures opens the organs of state to prevailing non-state actors,

enabling diaspora entrepreneurs and party actors to develop clientelistic relationships,

which support expansive rules, tap into remittance networks, and integrate consulates into

cross-border patronage networks.

III Critical contributions

Generally, political science has dealt with labor export as immigration not

emigration, and so it has devoted little attention to either remittances or overseas voting.14

Interventions by overseas voters have been noted for mainly low participation levels

rather than their occasionally dramatic effects or a more subtle but persistent upward

drift. The discipline‘s applied research is unable to account for the extent of variation we

see in overseas voting rules. This gap is striking in light of the field‘s body of work on

bureaucratic politics, domestic structure and transnational relations (Allison and Halperin

1972, Katzenstein 1978, Evangelista 1997). The overseas state framework developed in

the dissertation draws on Evans' state-society framework and International Relations (IR)

theories of transnational actors that look across different levels of analysis. Such an

approach captures cross-border activities, incorporates the diaspora as a field of

potentially autonomous activity, and allows for feedback over time.

The subfields of IR and comparative politics use different labels for their

theoretical perspectives, but in their overarching conceptual bases, they fall into a basic

three-paradigm classification. The main theoretical perspectives in contemporary IR

14 See Rosenblum and Cornelius 2005 for a review of the political science literature on immigration.

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theory are realism, liberalism, and constructivism;15

in comparative politics, most

research falls into structural, rationalist, or culturalist approaches (Lichbach 1997, 242-

245). In both IR and comparative politics, state-centric and rationalist theories form a

broad mainstream, merging conceptually in the form of neoliberal and rational choice

institutionalism, which accept institutional legacies and then analyze the strategic

interaction of utility-maximizing actors within given constraints. In this division of labor,

IR focuses upon more highly aggregated units at the macro-level of the international

system. Underlying this arrangement, however, is the premise that nation-states are the

basic unit of all politics, an assumption that Zürn labels ―methodological nationalism‖

(2001, 248). As a result, the mainstream orthodoxy has deemphasized transnational

linkages and cleavages across its units. Taken too far, the rationalist framework may

allow myopia about changing perceptions and norms, emerging actors, and effects of

policy feedback and institutional learning over time. In such dynamic situations, it is

appropriate to consider the kind of politics involved, policy content, and the basic

principles underlying particular rules of the game. In the study of developing countries,

territorial nation-state organization should be seen empirically, as a variable.

The evolving reality of political remittances poses a problem to the structural-

rationalist synthesis, since institutional legacies are not fixed but rather precisely the

subject in question. In one useful effort to address this problem, behavioral analysis has

confirmed that a sizable portion of the Mexican diaspora is indeed interested in home-

country politics with the desire to participate (McCann et al 2006). But it cannot easily

explain why the voter turnout rate of overseas Mexicans was so extremely low in 2006.

15 Koslowski's classification (2002, 376) refers to Walt 1998 and Katzenstein, Keohane & Krasner 1998.

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An important difference between the subfields has been the counter-conventional

movement among a set of IR scholars to study politics at different levels of analysis,

which has generated most of the existing transnational relations research literature in the

discipline. This move, first associated with Keohane and Nye (1977) and Gourevitch

(1978, 2001) and advanced by Risse-Kappen (1995), opens the analysis to questions

about the nature of the units and to a sociological perspective, affording an ample new

topical reach including feedback effects over time. Keck and Sikkink (1998) connect the

world polity to distinct political contests within states, combining micro-politics with the

evolving perceptions and norms of networked actors across different levels. Their work

also better specifies transnational actors, who are differentiated by the nature of their

projects and whether these are motivated by instrumental goals, causal beliefs or

principled beliefs. Their concepts of issue-specific activist networks and the use of moral

leverage are directly relevant to remittance diaspora politics. The transnational advocacy

framework moves the analysis closer to the ground by linking external activists in global

networks to indigenous social movement leaders and elite technocratic networks. They

make the world polity framework more tangible and usable by embedding norms in

motivated actors and including domestic level outcomes in the study of global processes.

Migrants, nations and states

Overseas voting has important concrete and conceptual significance for political

studies. Overseas votes have decisively affected recent election outcomes in democracies

of both South and North—in South Africa in 1994 (Navarro 2002, 61), Italy in 2006

(Battiston and Mascitelli 2008), and the U.S. in 2000 and 2008. As Mexico and Ghana

will show, decisions to exclude or restrict overseas participation have been crucial in

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determining election winners in recent close elections decided by extremely narrow

margins. In these cases, research shows instances of consequential (mis)calculations to

oppose expansive OV by individual politicians whose parties would have been aided by a

strong diaspora vote. By structuring the nature and scale of overseas participation, OV

rulemaking is very much a political matter of consequence for who governs.

Regarding theory, OV illustrates the complex politics of institutional change in a

transnational context. It shows how the conventional IR approach fails to animate the

study of globalization in the developing world, in which constructs of unitary actor states,

systemic norms and the North-South divide can be misleading. When political struggles

become transnational, national interest means little (even as a framing device), and

borders have long been permeable for those with know-how and status. Political rules of

the game are contingent upon domestic realities, even as their evolution is shaped by

networked actors able to reach across borders.

The explanation goes beyond rationalist accounts such as Parra (2005), capturing

novel remittance effects in a richer fashion, but stops short of the transformational

argument that remittance diasporas are subverting nation-state institutions with post-

national forms of citizenship, as implied by Levitt (2001) and Moctezuma (2004). The

dissertation offers new empirical knowledge on OV with implications for broader debates

related to political change and periodization.

This research fits into a broader debate about whether today's globalization

heralds ―an epochal transformation‖ in political institutions, or rather is just the latest

instance of incremental adaptation to the Westphalian nation-state. Overseas voting

regimes adopted by states typify the ―micro-transformations‖ referred to by Sassen that

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―reorient institutions and practices toward global logics and away from historically

shaped national logics‖ (2006, 1-2). However, Sassen emphasizes denationalization, and

along with transnationalist advocates of ―globalization from below,‖ she views migrant

agency as a progressive form of escape from state hierarchy.

By contrast, this study points out the enduring power of nationality and its

ambiguities as a political resource for migrant agency. The struggle to define and build

new institutions for participation in a deterritorialized context reveals the evolving nature

of the nation as bounds of the polity, and it calls into question the de-linking of nation

from state. While Sassen's denationalization implies convergence to a global logic,

diaspora projects go the other way, even in the most liberal form imaginable, invoking

global norms of democratic participation in pursuit of particular national projects.

Extraterritorial politics thus has as its center the transformation and perpetuation of an

ascriptive group identity16

as vehicle for civic participation.

While state-centric theorists hold that nation-states continue to direct the terms of

political membership, the overseas voting case studies document how actors linked to

cross-border processes and flows are driving state moves to re-construct these rules. The

analysis offers a telling lens on party politics, within and between countries, to evaluate

how parties of left, right and center have responded to diaspora actors. Whether these

interactions reflect a change in the condition, nature or function of parties, and whether

their intermediation of society and polity reflects a different organizing logic—the case

studies offer concrete tests of these questions, both internally, of the party and the polity,

16 Ascriptive citizenship refers to the bounding of political participation to national citizens who meet the

jus soli or jus sanguinis condition, i.e. to those born in the national territory or as children of citizens

(Sapiro 1987, 116).

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as well as externally, at the level of the global polity. A paradox to explore is why the

Dominican Republic's expansive institution reflects aspects of external transformation in

the consulates and at the U.N, while the account of Mexico's restrictive rules nevertheless

involves processes of internal transformation.

The study of remittance politics places an even greater emphasis on national

institutions within the unit level than does the Keck and Sikkink approach, and it points

out another category of non-state actor in diaspora society groups focused on national

political goals. Transnational political entrepreneurs (TPEs) are those who pursue

political power in the domestic arena through the use of external ties and resources,

connecting diaspora politics to the center of the domestic arena.

Transnational political entrepreneurship may be concentrated in government

efforts, diaspora civic society organization, or political party mobilization, depending

upon the case. It refers to the institution-building that galvanizes the activism and talents

of overseas nationals to impact the polity. This may take the form of colonizing the

diaspora, instituting an extraterritorial state, or driving the formation of an elite global

policy network. TPEs are similar to the coyotes and remeseros who facilitate cross-border

economic flows: they hold the tickets sought by domestic players seeking political

support abroad, and they broker the activities that link distant senders back to the

imagined community. They include overseas party liaisons and expatriate activists,

consular officials and their clients at home and abroad. Nationality ties them to the home

country, even as they are agents of globalization, fluent in today's language of democracy

and rights, its economic logic of competitive prices and Internet options.

If labor export continues to grow globally, then we should study remittance

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diasporas in relation to both comparative and international politics. Gourevitch argued

that internal structure affects not only international relations but also filters international

pressures into the arena of domestic politics. In this study, too, state structure mediates

the impact of diaspora politics upon the national polity. However, diaspora politics also

flow in two directions to generate effects externally. As the case studies show, the

dynamics involved in particular national processes affect a reshaping of the international

system through transnational fora and learning from one another. There is a two-way flow

of influence and ideas, within global nations—but also in relation to multiple resident

countries and international NGOs and authorities.

As diaspora politics evolve in the contemporary setting, this process has

implications beyond the unit level. It reminds us of Anderson's historical lesson about the

original spread of nationalism, in which provincial functionaries and print capitalists

conspired to shape the modern consciousness (1991, 65). This was a process of truly

epochal change, with the formation of a new kind of unit. By contrast, today's

extraterritorial nation-building is a more modest and less radical enterprise, combining

equal parts perpetuation and transformation. If we look only at the low tallies of overseas

votes in Mexico's 2006 election, a trend to global nations may appear quite unlikely.

Given today's demographic, technological and economic realities, however, remittance

diasporas may persist. The incremental construction of extraterritorial institutions points

out the resilience of state structures, evolving as necessary in the face of change. In this

scenario, an arrival of re-imagined communities appears less radical.

IV Research design and methodology

The dissertation's research design introduces a multi-method home-country

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35

framework for studying transnational politics that stands in contrast to the main existing

approaches utilized in transnational politics research to date. With its mix of qualitative

and quantitative methods across multiple sites, it links diaspora society at local, national

and global levels to domestic institutional outcomes. In contrast to the ethnographic and

often translocal nature of most transnationalist work, this research goes beyond the

description of transnational political activities to investigate their effects upon national

institutions; also in contrast to the deep case studies of the same niche, it develops a more

prominent comparative component in its attention to multiple cases. Responding to

globalist theories of Sassen, Friedrichs and Zürn, the dissertation‘s empirical work

provides an ample, rich basis for an original interpretation about the state of world

politics that is varied and changing while marked heavily by nation-state structures.

Similar in its methodology to the multi-sited research of Keck and Sikkink and others, it

traces transnational networks across borders to interview political actors in different sites,

but its topic of diaspora politics is linked more closely to domestic politics arenas and so

permits a supporting large-n analysis. Finally, while most transnational research by

comparativists remains rooted in a conventional immigration politics perspective, the

framework's home-country focus targets a greater scholarly lacuna.

The research began with books and documents, moved to direct engagement with

analysts and practitioners in the field work stage, and then in the third stage shifted to

online research to build a broader database across cases and region. The sequence of

consulting documents, actors, and online sources became a cycle throughout the research

with recurring iterations that sharpened the research question and extended its range.

The research is based on over 120 interviews of analysts, government bureaucrats

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36

and experts, elected politicians, party leaders and activists, and migrant organizers and

advocates. The bulk of the interviews took place in Mexico in 2006 and in the Dominican

Republic in 2007, with a significant additional portion carried out in New York, Los

Angeles, Providence and Washington, DC. The interviews followed a structured-focused

format, averaging between sixty and ninety minutes but extending further with the most

important sources. The government managers, politicians and lobbyists with the richest

firsthand experience of the recent overseas voting campaigns also had the greatest interest

in the topic, and fortunately, they were open to multiple follow-up exchanges. In both

Mexico and the Dominican Republic, the field research was enriched by multiple

opportunities to participate as a special visiting researcher in conferences, workshops and

focus groups dedicated to state-diaspora relations that were organized by government and

civic groups (see references section for a detailed listing). In turn, at least four

presentations of preliminary findings to my host institutions also generated useful queries

and comments from the resident experts there; these insights are integrated into the

chapters and the overall research conclusions that follow.

A number of substantive reasons justify the home-country focus. The most basic

signal lies in the direction of transfers, a fact that reinforces associations between sender

and home country. With remittances flowing to countries such as Mexico and the

Dominican Republic, we should look there for evidence of their political impact.

Additionally, for home countries, economic migrants represent a human resource for

long-run development, not only for remittances but for trade, investment and leadership,

and as well for their strategic importance as fellow nationals in more powerful resident

countries. Home countries need them, but they also owe them. Advocates of overseas

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voting find powerful moral grounds for support not only in global norms of democracy

and rights, but also in particular shared memories and bonds of national history, as

polities commit themselves to democratization. Obligation alone is insufficient to force

change, but the home country focus points out a vibrant, varied topic.

The multi-methods research design is based on a cross-national comparison of

two most similar national cases that are contextualized within an accompanying

quantitative analysis. The primary goal is to explain the different institutional outcomes

in Mexico and the Dominican Republic; it is based on an investigation of how remittance

diasporas have intervened on the overseas voting issue. Thus the research traces the

micro-political mechanisms that activate (or obstruct) electoral competitiveness and link

remittances to the expansion of overseas voting. Complementing the dissertation's core

research is a secondary goal of advancing mid-level theories about political remittances

and the determinants of expansive overseas voting institutions. In the quantitative

analysis, research required locating sources and forced thinking about how the political

processes involved in OV rulemaking play out in different contexts. The process of

testing the explanation across all of the states in the system stimulates comparative

thinking, disciplines the analysis of the case studies, and evaluates the extent to which

they are part of larger global processes at work.17

The transnational factors involved in the topic require integrating different levels

of politics, which cohere in support of a clear research focus upon national institutional

outcomes. Document work and interviews served to construct a chronology on the

17 In alternating qualitative analysis of case study processes with large-n analysis, the research design

shares aspects of Lieberman's ―nested case-study‖ framework (2005).

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national level, which identified key turning points in the processes of legislation and

implementation in each case. The methodological center lay in in-depth interviews with

relevant experts and political actors across these different fields. The chronologies guided

interviews and provided focus to field work over the months spent living in each country,

including the inductive activities between interviews, such as visiting towns, traveling in

buses, and directly absorbing national debates in daily news media and conversations.

The more elite-focused institutional research of historical process-tracing, elite

interviews and quantitative analysis is matched by an important grass-roots component

pursued in field work. The survey of migrant society explored subnational and

transnational sites to gauge the topic‘s impact beyond the political establishment, with

supporting interviews of diaspora citizens and officials in the U.S. To control for regional

variation in Mexico, research design conducted within-case analysis of state institutions

in Puebla and Zacatecas. Similarly, field work in the Dominican Republic included a

series of interviews with politicians in the city of La Vega, an important commercial

center and source of migration. In both cases, research benefited from immersion and

participation in multiple-day conferences in Los Angeles and Washington involving

home-country politicians and diaspora activists and citizens. The research confirmed that

transnational communities and networks are dense and real. In this manner, field work in

the home-country led to interviews with diaspora leaders in government, party and civic

roles—in Providence, Boston, New York, Washington and Los Angeles.

Along with the question of scale, differences between the two cases in median per

capita income and national history required consideration. Some Dominican interviewees

distinguished a poor Caribbean nation from the world's thirteenth largest economy.

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39

However, per capita GDP is a misleading aggregate that masks comparable levels of

income inequality and poverty in the two countries. Research shows higher GDP to be

positively associated with open rules, which does not fit the two cases. So income

differentials do not explain the divergence.

Differing national histories contain some part of the explanation of divergence,

but the qualitative case study method largely controls for this factor. With regard to the

overseas voting stories, random and omitted aspects of the national histories of Mexico

and the Dominican Republic are diffuse and often contradictory, without any singular

explanatory mechanism. Research took various useful steps to account for the

idiosyncratic factor of history, incorporating historical analysis not only in the qualitative

case studies, but also in the longitudinal perspective applied to the time series analysis

and the extension case studies. It considers how historians would answer the research

question, and it seeks to understand actor strategies as shaped in part by their historical

development. These efforts add important bits of insight, as in, for example, the central

role of Dominican parties to be discussed in chapter four.

Getting research design right reveals a paradoxical aspect of globalization, namely

in the ways that the power of nationality endures as it evolves. The orientation of

emigrants in the present era does not follow a simple logic of assimilation; rather, they

remain connected to home countries even as they pass years abroad. Thus, political

membership and identification remain linked in some part to their countries of origin,

notwithstanding naturalization and resettlement. This study of remittances takes

nationality seriously, along with its links to states. For nationality remains largely the

property of states, although not exclusively—an important tension the case studies

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analyze in terms of specific diaspora efforts to reshape the homeland polity.

V Chapter summaries

Chapter 2 presents an historical review of overseas voting institutions and a

quantitative analysis of the experience of modern states in the last four decades. With a

time-series analysis and a two-stage selection model, it tests remittances and factors

related to the country's political regime, demography, economy, and international

situation. The questions addressed are: what factors are associated with state actions to

adopt open overseas voting institutions? What historical factors and contexts are

associated with overseas voting, and have remittances been significant? Other factors

tested are political openness and regime age, expatriate population, percentage in the

diaspora, national population size, and GDP.

From the review of the recent global history of overseas voting, we learn that

modern nation-states typically fall into five different generalized historical contexts that

have been conducive to overseas voting (war, liberal development, decolonization, labor

export, regime change). In the current era, the predominant type of country context is the

democratizing developer, especially when also an exporter of labor. By contrast, less

numerous but noteworthy are the cases of externally-led overseas voting in countries

recovering from civil war or state collapse, in which international institutions play a more

concerted role, such as in Afghanistan, Iraq and East Timor. The chapter also documents

the administrative study of overseas voting, establishing the two-stage procedural frame

for analyzing the rules that countries adopt.

In the case study chapters (3-5), a four-part format guides both the two in-depth

case studies and the shorter, secondary case reviews extending the analysis to the new

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regions. Starting with the legislative-bureaucratic process, the first part identifies the

institutional outcome and key turning points across the fourteen-year period. The second

part analyzes the key interactions of government, party and migrant actors. The case

studies draw on qualitative data from field research to document the narrative and

illustrate the causal processes at work. Next, the third part evaluates the significance of

the overseas voting outcome in relation to the country‘s broader organization of

extraterritorial politics, analyzing the transnational flows of ideas and power in each case

in terms of their content and direction. Each case study closes with a brief review of a

few theoretical implications and future considerations.

Chapter 3 analyzes the Dominican case. In 2004, the Dominican Republic

celebrated its first Presidential election with full overseas voting rights, with participation

by overseas Dominicans greater than in Mexico's election despite an overseas population

less than one-tenth the size of Mexico's. The Dominican state has extended the entire

electoral process of registration, party organization and fundraising into the abroad,

creating a remarkably open institution for overseas party activities. Party competitiveness

within an historical context catalyzes the push for resources abroad, while domestic

clientelism sustains intense cross-border coordination to form overseas party units.

The story that emerges from the Dominican case reflects not only a greater

permeability of the polity to remittance effects but a different kind of political change.

Political entrepreneurs act as agents of home country political parties to colonize the

diaspora, extend patronage extraterritorially, and corrode the institutions of state. This

project has generated an axis of conflict between homeland party actors eager to access

the diaspora as a political resource, and Dominican-American reform progressives intent

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42

upon organizing in pursuit of representation within U.S. politics. The process of

expansive institution-building has served to diffuse home country ideologies, norms and

modes of organization externally, far more than it has to generate or transmit distinctive

political visions from the diaspora back to the home country.

Chapter 4 presents the Mexico case study, explaining the restrictive reform by

tracing political party responses and state-diaspora relations. In the legislative stage of the

process, a coalition of diaspora activists makes an impact in overcoming elite opposition

to force a recorded vote on implementing legislation, which results in passage of the key

voting law. Party elites had major fears about overseas voting and deliberately crafted a

highly restrictive law, creating a rigid process that effectively disenfranchised the bulk of

the overseas citizenry and largely explains the extremely low turnout of Mexican migrant

voters in the 2006 Presidential election.

The chapter analyzes the politics behind Mexico's restrictive outcome, including

the ways that remittance effects occur in a state-led polity. Faced with a cleavage between

elite structures and diaspora voices, party leaders opposed overseas voting and favored

state-led political remittances. Migrants only achieved a partial change in national

political institutions, yet their political activities have inserted diaspora actors and

concerns into high-level processes going forward. Mexico‘s restrictive rules and the low

turnout of 2006 have sapped much momentum from the overseas voting cause, while its

government outreach programs have redirected transnational participation toward

revitalized consular service provision and elite network-building. The new project

contains tension between traditional co-optation and an unprecedented transnational

pluralism, calling attention to the evolving strategies of entrepreneurs organizing politics

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43

across borders, both inside and outside of the Mexican government.

Chapter 5, which is devoted to a set of brief extension case studies, tests the

institutional argument in important labor export cases outside of Latin America. To

control for region, it conducts three paired extension case studies in each of East Asia

(Philippines and South Korea), South Asia (India and Indonesia) and western Africa

(Senegal and Ghana). The criteria guiding case selection include variance in the OV

outcome and in the theoretically specified variable of overseas state capacities. The scope

restriction requires a positive political openness score and some number of remittance-

sending overseas nationals. Utilizing legal documents, news accounts and secondary

sources, the chapter identifies for each case the overseas voting institution in place and

then applies the state-diaspora framework to the case. By tracing the key actors and

events in terms of the theoretically specified factors, it evaluates the extent to which

remittance effects are occurring across different cultures and geographies.

The cases were selected from the labor-exporting newer democracies,18

which

form one major type investigated in the dissertation among the broader scope of

democracies with significant populations abroad. In Asia, India and South Korea have

restricted or denied OV, while Indonesia and the Philippines have implemented relatively

open OV institutions. India and the Philippines are two major remittance countries that

show divergent overseas state capacities and outcomes on overseas voting. The India case

is analogous to Mexico: a large federal developmental state responds to a mobilized

diaspora with corporatist solutions and advisory councils instead of overseas voting.

18 Appendix 1-C presents an index of 50 leading labor-exporting newer democracies (LEND states) based

on four factors of political openness, regime age, expatriate population, and economic remittances.

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44

Meanwhile, the Philippines case appears analogous to the Dominican case: a weak state

dominated by private interests and civic society groups moves to open voting with the

implementation of relatively expansive rules in the first implementation exercise in 2004.

Senegal also typifies the ―weak state with open voting‖ image. Lastly, in contrast,

Ghana‘s recent rebuff of overseas voting stems from the politicization of earlier

emigration and the state-nationalist impulses of influential opposition leader and ex-

President, Jerry Rawlings.

The concluding chapter reconsiders the case analyses in light of the debates about

transformation and periodization. Specifically, the findings here call into question the link

between expansive extraterritorial politics and more transformative change suggested by

writers such as Sassen and Goldring. The two cases reveal mixed results, including

surprising details that turn the tables on the conventional vision of diaspora-led

extraterritorial voting as a progressive project and state-led extraterritorial institutions as

restrictive and co-optive. As we learn from the Dominican case, thick party-diaspora

bonds permeate the polity and extend party governance into the global space in novel

ways, while expansive electoral politics crowd out the transparency-accountability

agenda hoped for by transnationalists. On the contrary, the Mexico research locates

pressures for progressive transformation not only in the migrant activist network but also

in the heart of the government's professional foreign service. Overall, the effects of

remittances upon overseas voting rules depend upon whether politics are state-led or

party-led, and these institutional outcomes lead to transformation in different and

unexpected ways.

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Chapter 2

Overseas Voting in Global-historical Perspective

45

Between 1991 and 2007, the number of states that had implemented overseas

voting (OV) increased by more than 100%, from 31 to 70, including eight of Latin

America's twenty-one most populous nation-states. In 2006, Mexico and Ecuador joined

a diverse global set including the Philippines, Senegal, Bosnia and Peru. But the

worldwide tendency to institutionalize OV has not been uniform. As of 2004, 29 of the

world‘s 82 most politically open countries had not implemented overseas voting,

including India, South Korea and Ghana profiled in chapter five. Despite evidence of a

new trend with global reach and puzzling variation, there has been little systematic

analysis of the phenomenon across regions. This chapter takes up the dissertation's

research question in global terms: what are the most important factors involved in

determining whether, and how inclusively, states act to implement overseas voting?

Standing explanations point to particular national political processes and events as

the main set of factors; they are ad hoc in manner. As this chapter shows, however,

common domestic and global factors have shaped the overseas voting phenomenon

across cases over time, from pre-modern antecedents to modern era precedents to the

recent global diffusion of the practice since 1991. Internally, sudden regime change and

democratization processes have been important in spurring OV legislation and opening.

Externally, large-scale military campaigns and decolonization have led to long-distance

participation, while emigration and remittances are today the main external factor

favoring OV. Recently, national diasporas have come to play a crucial role in linking the

internal and external efforts in support of democratization.

The historical summary and the large-n quantitative study advance the

dissertation's research in a few valuable ways, as key parts of an integrated multi-

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methods framework. The historical review points out the different political-economic

scenarios that have moved countries to adopt overseas voting and situates the labor

export democratizers in global context. This enables proper specification of the study‘s

scope: while possible for all countries, OV arises as a real possibility mainly in

democratic countries, and especially recent democratizers. The chapter‘s first part

reviews descriptive accounts of overseas voting, based on historical experience and

contemporary analysis by practitioners and theorists. It reviews existing academic studies

and summarizes standing explanations. It then draws on original field data to document

the recent formation of an international policy network as an additional factor.

The chapter‘s second section introduces a concise framework for comparative

analysis of overseas voting as a two-stage process involving legislation and

implementation outcomes. The research design for the quantitative analysis identifies key

explanatory factors, formulates causal hypotheses, and then tests them across each of the

two stages of the process. Two models generate novel statistical findings for factors such

as political openness, remittance volumes, remittance dependency, national population,

diaspora size and foreign intervention—both over the last four decades, and in the present

decade alone. The second selection model has been re-specified to account for the two-

stage process over time and to avoid selection bias; its findings tell us the average effects

for each explanatory factor for all states in the system.

The third section interprets the statistical results and considers their implications

for the case studies. Quantitative analysis enables us to begin to make inferences about

the relative importance and nature of the different explanatory factors for OV outcomes

across cases. Specifically, it points out the statistically significant factors of remittances,

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47

expatriates and population, and it confirms the criteria for extension case selection

(implementation outcome, region, and foreign ministry type). The case study chapters go

on to evaluate closely the ways in which these factors may take effect as causal

mechanisms in the particular national processes that lead to divergent outcomes in

Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

I Existing knowledge: Historical experience, Global perspective

The number of countries practicing overseas voting has risen in recent decades

along with the third wave of democracy. Table 2.0 depicts the OV trend of recent decades

specifically in regard to implementation, showing the total number of countries to have

implemented voting to have risen to 63 by 2005, up from 31 in 1991. Global growth in

the practice has continued in recent years, too, so that by 2007 over 115 countries had

passed OV laws and roughly two thirds of these had implemented overseas elections.19

Table 2.0 Overseas Voting Trend

19 Ellis, Navarro et al, eds., Voting from abroad (Stockholm: IDEA-IFE, 2007), p. 3.

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Until recent years, studies of the subject have been practically non-existent

(Carpizo 1999, 73). Still underdeveloped but growing in volume, existing scholarship on

overseas voting has three main strands in historical, academic, and policy approaches to

the subject.

Historical analysis

The practice of overseas voting has evolved along with modern democracy,

mainly in the twentieth century, however earlier historical antecedents remind us that this

form of political remittances is not new. In classical times, Athenians who peopled the

colonies of Magna Graecia practiced an ancient form of extra-territorial democracy by

directly electing their consul, cementing an orientation to the polis in selecting a

representative leader to stand and speak to Athens and other parties on their behalf.

In early modern Europe, in the case of England and its colonies in America, the

right to vote by mail was ―permitted to respectable men in 1634,‖ according to

Dominican authors.20

Obviously, colonial England was not about to institute any form of

transatlantic democracy, but it presents a historical example of national political

community spanning great distance and points to the contingent political and

technological factors that affect the practice of overseas voting. First, the home country

needs to be democratic (not yet the case here), and secondly, overseas participation is

reliant on direct communication links (also problematic here).

Even as a pre-industrial settler colony facing a months-long lapse in

communications, the colonial England case suggests the linkages between participatory

institutions on the one hand and political identity and loyalty on the other. The king's

20 Guzmán Castillo and Feris (2002, 2), as translated from the author's original text in Spanish.

Presumably, the overseas voting in this case involved Parliamentary suffrage by the crown‘s officers

via transatlantic ship courier from the colonies, and not the broader population of male landholders.

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distant home country rule generated political claims among English-born colonists

expressed in terms of participation in government. The absence of extraterritorial

democracy provided grounds for famous charges of ―taxation without representation‖ a

century and a half later. While transatlantic democracy was out of the question, one can

see that political institutions were clearly linked to the evolving attitudes and identities of

the king's American subjects. In the present era, migrant participation in home country

politics is a much more intense reality due to the speed of communications, the nature of

migration, and the growth of nation-states. Rather than mass migration, however, modern

warfare would provide the first direct precedents for today's overseas voting.

For modern democracies, overseas absentee voting as a national practice

originated in the twentieth century‘s world wars, as the belligerent states that happened to

be democratic sought a means to allow their soldiers to vote. An earlier precedent of

special rules for military voting by long distance occurred in the U.S. for the Presidential

election of 1864 during the Civil War, with the state of Wisconsin arranging for absentee

voting for its soldiers enlisted in the Union army campaign to reunite the national

territory. While in this case the territoriality from which the soldiers voted was in dispute

(and not overseas), the Civil War case is typical of a set of cases in which a distinctive

moment of nation-state formation, a crucial historical moment of regime change related

to internal conflict, created uniquely charged politics that called for special measures to

enable extraterritorial voting. Also, the possibility of long-distance voting in the U.S. in

1864 was enabled by a 19th

century revolution in communications in the telegraph and

railroad. The U.S. Civil War case thus illustrates the complexity of OV, in the unique

national historical circumstances that give rise to it, together with the global forces of

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state formation and communications that have favored its diffusion.

The great wars of the twentieth century gave the first major boost to overseas

voting, beginning in World War I with the United Kingdom, and then in World War II

with Canada and the U.S. The U.S. case included a more full-scale implementation for

the 1944 Presidential election, which saw over 1 million overseas soldiers submit ballots.

Two prior cases driven by maritime commerce were New Zealand and Australia in 1902

and 1907. In all of these cases, OV took place on an ad hoc basis that was not

institutionalized; the countries chose to authorize OV and adapted procedures as a special

measure for each election.

The later Cold War period saw the beginnings of the sustained expansion both in

the number of countries and in the democratic openness to participation by the full range

of overseas citizens. Indonesia and Colombia were among the first developing country

states to legislate OV at the beginning of the 1970s. The U.S. established permanent OV

in Presidential elections in 1968 and then expanded this to the entire overseas citizenry in

a 1975 law that was amended along more expansively participatory lines in 1996 (US

GAO 2001). In Latin America, as elsewhere, the overseas vote trend coincides with the

recent experience of democratization and liberalization, in particular labor export to the

U.S. and dollar remittances. Mirroring and building upon past technological

breakthroughs, late twentieth century developments of jet air travel, satellite links, and

the Internet have driven a further decline in distance and enabled broader participation in

national politics from vast distances.

Overseas voting was originally globalized within areas of Anglo-Saxon

expansion, as the historical analysis shows. Today, however, it has transcended its

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original lineages and stands as a hegemonic institution in the sense of its widespread

acceptance as a legitimate state practice throughout the international system. It flourishes

not as a tool of domination between states but rather in the ways that it reflects a

normative consensus about representative democracy, offers a solution to participation

demands made on behalf of growing transnational diasporas, and sustains the primacy of

nation-state membership and organization. States' hopes of retaining emigrant loyalty

may be most important in explaining the institution's present popularity. However, the

effectiveness of OV as a tool to cement loyalties and direct migrant identification remains

questionable today, especially in the absence of open implementation.

Standing explanations

The understudied puzzle of divergence in the OV rules of Mexico and the

Dominican Republic is mirrored at the global level, where we see significant variation in

OV rules but no systematic hypothesis-testing to date. From the historical review, a

typology emerges involving six main descriptive explanations, as summarized in Table

2.1. First, legislation is varied and responds to the specific internal realities of each

country (Calderón, Navarro). Second, some liberal democracies began to introduce the

vote during the 20th

century's two world wars (Carpizo). Third, other liberal democracies

joined this number, on a case by case basis, often with restrictions (Aquino). Fourth,

decolonization and national independence in the 1960s and 1970s spurred simultaneous

steps by departing European powers and Third World state-builders to formally

incorporate their expatriate citizens suddenly made distant across multiple new states

(Navarro).

In the contemporary period, democratization reforms in developing countries

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enabled the recent boom, augmented by the new visibility of technologically-linked

remittance-sending diasporas (Navarro). In these cases, recent increases in migration and

transnational communities have generated a more politicized demand-driven process of

OV expansion, a process feared by some and welcomed by others. Finally, sixth, sudden

regime change and international occupation have been associated with a number of recent

post-conflict cases that have opened voting to a displaced diaspora, such as Bosnia,

Afghanistan and Iraq (IDEA 2007).

Table 2.1 Six main explanations: overseas voting laws and implementation

Explanation Era Mechanism Exemplars

1 domestic politics 1890 - internal interests, case-by-case all cases

2 democracies at war 1916-19,

1940s

war legitimization compels franchise

for citizen-soldier masses

United Kingdom (WWI)

U.S., Canada (WW II)

3 liberal development over time 1950s - expansive rights politics identify

expat citizens as beneficiary class

Belgium

Sweden

4 decolonization, nation-building 1960s,

1970s

guarantees to ex-colonials,

formalizing state identities

Portugal, Spain

Indonesia

5 democratization & labor export 1990s - remittance effects and party

competitiveness

Mexico, Honduras,

Dominican Republic

6 regime change, post-conflict

international intervention

1990s - reincorporation of exile populations,

externally led nation-building

Cambodia; Bosnia,

Croatia; Afghanistan, Iraq

Global perspective

As part of the post-Cold War democratization boom, the overseas voting trend has

generated an epistemic community21

in the collaboration between international non-

governmental organizations (NGOs), formal inter-governmental organizations, and

leading national electoral authorities, particularly those of Mexico, as well as other states

that are actively building extra-territorial political institutions. Motivating the

21 Peter Haas' conceptualization of epistemic community refers to a network of technical experts who link

international regimes to domestic policy compliance in support of convergence (1989, 377-8).

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collaboration of authorities and experts across different regions was a shared set of

desires to legitimize fledgling democracies, identify best practices based on comparative

learning, and establish enduring electoral institutions for overseas participation. These

actors found a receptive audience and a useful venue in formal global organizations. The

leading international NGOs are the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral

Assistance (IDEA) and the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES), as well

as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the UN

Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Electoral Assistance Division (UNEAD), and

the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The galvanizing forces behind the assembly of international bureaucratic

infrastructure have been strong national efforts to develop OV institutions together with

the global migration and remittance trends, as we see in the following photo. The image,

which shows the director of Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), Dr. José

Woldenberg, accompanied by a phalanx of international technical advisors, speaks to the

domestic political needs of Mexican leaders for credibility. In 1998 the clock was ticking

on the government's earlier promises to institutionalize electoral competition, with

migrant calls for enfranchisement one of several societal demands facing the country's

political elites (see chapter 3). Flanking Woldenberg are representatives of UNDP, IDEA,

IFES and the governments of the U.S., Canada and Spain, who came at Mexico's

invitation to share information and compare experiences with OV.

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Dr. José Woldenberg, President of Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute, convenes the 1998 International

Seminar on Overseas Voting in Mexico City. Photo source: IFE 1998 report.

Mexico's treatment of the issue, while a matter of particular national politics,

would combine with global patterns to support a burgeoning corpus of international

expertise in this niche area. For ten years, Mexico's IFE has been conducting rigorous

analyses of the demographic and operational realities involved in the agenda to

enfranchise overseas Mexicans.22

Its division of international affairs has collaborated

with IDEA and IFES to identify the conceptual bases of comparative analysis of OV in

practice, recently publishing a comprehensive volume and full database of all countries

and their legal-operational steps to implement OV (Ellis, Navarro et al 2007). Beyond

policy studies, the network provides ongoing technical support for national efforts to

introduce OV in cases such as Ghana and the Philippines.

Prior to the formation of the epistemic network, the overseas voting area had been

22 IFE-sponsored studies include IFE 1998, 1999, 2006, IFE-IDEA 2007, Corona and Santibañez 2004.

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an international policy vacuum in the 1990s. Mexican authorities had gone in search of

international expertise, only to learn that none of the major IGO or international policy

organization had developed any such base of knowledge, nor had any of the countries

with experience sought to study the topic more broadly. The expert responsible for

managing the involvement of Mexico's IFE made the following observation during a

2006 interview:

... In 1996 when the reforms were made to the Mexican Constitution, it opened the

possibility of the overseas vote (in Mexico). One of the objectives established by the

international division of the IFE was to develop and to systematize a database that would

permit us to offer to the actors, to the political forces, and to the IFE's own personnel, a

mark of reference about what was the ―state of art‖ at the time: where, under what criteria,

how they were registered, how they voted. And the first thing that was seen was that it

was a theme outside of the academic agenda, outside of the policy exchange between

electoral institutions, outside of the political debate.23

(translation, italics added)

Navarro and his colleagues contacted electoral authorities in countries like Colombia,

which had been offering the vote since the 1960s. They learned that the Colombian

government managed the process in an ad hoc fashion, as an administrative routine

conducted by whoever happened to be running a certain part of the electoral bureaucracy.

OV had not been addressed according to any basic concepts or legal principles, but rather

as a practical matter. Nor were there any systematized databases or specialists to be found

in the international policy sphere.

The formation of a global policy network on overseas voting reflects the

interaction of global nations and epistemic networks at the level of the international

system. Electoral authorities in Mexico and other developing countries were explicitly

aware of diaspora participation as a missing element in national democratization efforts.

23 Author's interview with Carlos Navarro Fierro, Director of International Studies, Division of

International Affairs, IFE, Mexico City, 17 November 2006.

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Responding to similar imperatives amidst distinct political-administrative contexts and

national experiences, they came together in international technical bodies in search of

resources for resolving their own national challenges. Their collaboration has resulted in

a new set of institutional standards for the conduct of extraterritorial politics at the

international system level, which now exist as a meaningful normative reality for other

developing countries. This process reveals how the interaction of diaspora political

entrepreneurs and national electoral authorities has been a driving force in formation of a

global policy network and its conceptual framework for OV.

Informed by democracy-rights norms that pervade elite global institutions, the

global policy network is also steeped in the operational realities of overseas voting.

Grouping together various national experiences, its policy studies have elaborated

administrative guidelines that suggest a framework for the quantitative analysis of OV.

Overseas voting (OV) analysis

The framework identifies five core characteristics of a country's overseas voting

regime: the legal basis of OV; the elections it applies to; the eligibility requirements; its

implementation including forms of registration and voting; and voter participation and

representation. The legal basis for OV in most countries takes its main shape in special

legislative statute, in addition to prior constitutional clauses and subsequent

administrative edicts. Often the electoral law establishing OV refers to a statement in (or

amendment to) the constitution that establishes, implicitly or explicitly, the citizen's right

to vote overseas. The legislation designates the authority to the electoral agency to

conduct OV, which in turns writes operational guidelines. Some laws designate more or

less authority or flexibility to the electoral agency to make decisions about

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implementation. In a smaller number of countries, there is not a specific legislative

statute, but the legal basis of voting resides entirely in constitutional law and/or

administrative procedures.

A basic function of the electoral law is to resolve the inherent tension between the

citizen's right to vote and the authority's obligation to ensure national control of the

election. Similarly, the OV law guides the electoral agency in resolving legal-

administrative complications that arise from organizing elections outside of the national

jurisdiction. There are three main types of elections that OV can apply to: national

elections; sub-national elections; and national referenda. Elections to select the national

government are the standard for whether a country offers OV or not, and they refer to

Presidential, Parliamentary and Semi-Presidential elections. In all three, countries may

also establish positions in the national legislature for diaspora citizens to elect their own

direct representatives, apart from voting for the executive, although only eight countries

do so at present.

Eligibility refers to the requirements and restrictions determining who can legally

vote from abroad. Eligibility guidelines are crucial since they establish the potential

universe of overseas voters, both legally-technically and in a practical, realistic sense.

The primary requirement is national citizenship, followed by registration.24

Additional

factors that can restrict eligibility include the voter's employment classification as well as

various time limits. Many countries limit OV to diplomatic and consular staff, or to state

employees including military forces abroad. The time limits set by states that restrict

eligibility refer to minimum and maximum times abroad. These factors are established in

24 New Zealand is the exceptional case, in which non-citizen residents traveling abroad temporarily may

register to vote in national elections via special external procedure (Navarro and Morales 2006).

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part by the electoral law, but more often by administrative guidelines and procedures that

are not defined until implemented. Most countries require registration that usually

involves special one-time registration from abroad for the election in question. Some

countries establish a more minimal requirement of prior registration in the home country.

In a handful of cases, such as Mexico, countries require both special registration from

abroad as well as prior registration with the home country.

Implementation of overseas voting can be classified by the means of voting, with

four main types: direct voting, postal voting, proxy voting, and, increasingly, mixed

procedures. In rare cases, voting by fax or Internet is possible subject to the approval of a

special request. Direct voting in embassies and consulates has been the traditional

standard, with the act of registration and voting from abroad taking place as an individual

activity. Mass emigration coupled with democratization has re-introduced the possibility

of large-scale collective voting abroad. For logistical and political reasons, electoral

authorities are beginning to organize direct voting abroad at special sites, outside the

diplomatic buildings, in the communities where the citizen diaspora resides. In these

cases, the acts of registration and voting take on a collective character, often involving

campaign events, fundraising and advertising outside of the national territory.

Overseas voting participation has rarely exceeded 1% or 2% of the estimated

overseas citizen population of potential eligible voters. Two of the main reasons for low

participation are changing preferences of the overseas citizen voter and high obstacles to

participation. First, a significant percentage of overseas citizens lose interest due to

distance and time away from the home country. Second, logistical requirements and state

rules impose obstacles that often make it difficult, if not impossible, for interested

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expatriates to vote from abroad. In this way, voting institutions structure participation.

Why study overseas voting if participation is so low? Electorally significant

interventions by overseas voters have generally been the exception rather than the rule

(South Africa 1994, Italy 2006, US 2000 and 2008). However, recent cases of significant

overseas returns together with the global growth of mobilized expatriates point to the

possibility that diaspora voting will exert strategic stakes more frequently in the future.

First, though, the analysis needs to focus upon diaspora citizens, whose interest in

participation will exceed diaspora community defined broadly by ethnic identification.

Diaspora citizens tend to travel home and own property or firms with business in the

home country at a higher level than do diaspora nationals (Marcelli & Cornelius 2005).

Among Mexican diaspora citizens, for example, recent surveys show a large majority

expressing interest in voting in Mexico's presidential elections, confirming providing

evidence of a much greater potential for participation than the 1 to 2%.25

Even when diaspora citizens are interested, restrictive rules and the absence of

political party organization abroad limit overseas turnout. An ―election of state‖ is much

more likely in the overseas realm, due to the institution of territoriality, which requires

the involvement of foreign ministry offices and consulates. In India, for example,

electoral rules formally exclude participation by non-state employees, guaranteeing a

purely consular vote. Even in countries that have begun to implement measures aimed at

enabling overseas citizen participation, voting remains difficult and costly for diaspora

citizens, most of whom lack basic information about deadlines for registration. Electoral

agencies and political parties, whose function it is to inform and register voters, remain

25 87% of Mexican immigrants surveyed in March 2005 indicated an interest in voting in Mexico's

Presidential election of 2006 (Pew Hispanic Center Survey 2005).

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unorganized and inactive outside the national territory.

Overseas turnout is measured in different ways and influenced by a variety of

factors. Historically, it has been quite small—although at the same time, some would

prohibit overseas voting because of the presumed potential for decisiveness.26

However,

looking at turnout levels in isolation obscures the dynamic, multi-faceted character of

cross-border democratic participation. Voting is just one key part, and participation

snapshots belie the context. Overseas participation levels vary not only across democratic

countries, but also within them over time, often changing significantly from one cycle to

the next. The analysis of extraterritorial participation needs to consider the central factors

of democratic norms and institution-building within the polity. As U.S. experience shows,

voting rules and party activity affect participation rates of voters who send absentee

ballots (Oliver 1996). As well, recent research has documented a strong interest among

Mexican diaspora citizens in voting from abroad (McCann et al 2006). Upon fuller

analysis, the puzzling gap between voter interest and actual participation confirms the

importance of electoral institutions.

Furthermore, overseas participation levels need not be ―decisive‖ to have an

impact. Low participation may signal shifts in contestation to other political venues and

issues. As process-tracing will explore, small increases in voting levels may exert

26 The notion of decisiveness is most relevant to situations of deadlocked elections, in which overseas

returns can affect the outcome. In some close elections in recent years, the winner's margin of victory

relied on the net count of overseas votes, such as the 2000 U.S. Presidential election in Florida and

Italy‘s Parliamentary elections of 2006 (won by George W. Bush and L‘Ulivo, respectively). Since

voting in democratic elections is simultaneous and cumulative, every vote is equally important – every

vote is a marginal vote regardless of its origin abroad or at home. While one vote or one set of votes

does not ―decide‖ or ―determine‖ an election outcome, it can greatly affect close races. The cognitive

shorthand for such situations is ―decisive‖ or ―pivotal.‖ For example, returns with an evenly divided

domestic count can reveal distinctive preferences within the diaspora, which can ―tip the balance.‖ The

notion of decisiveness grips people's thinking so much that rational choice theorists of voting behavior

have cited the fear of negatively ―determining‖ the outcome by not voting as a main reason people

undertake costly efforts to vote.

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qualitative effects upon state discourse, agendas and policies -- since votes may be

accompanied with funds, political support, or arguments. Therefore, this analysis of

overseas voting incorporates and builds upon existing comparative studies across

countries (Navarro et al 2007), which take as a starting premise the idea that institutions

structure participation including turnout levels. This study thus compares the politics of

overseas voting institutions, both internally with analyses of key processes as well as

externally in its quantitative comparison of cases in the global universe.

Academic studies

A small but growing body of scholarship on overseas voting has begun to map out

normative and empirical questions raised by the topic, in two disparate tracks of concept-

building theorization and detailed empirical process-tracing based on single case

histories. Normative political issues include ideas of citizenship and national community,

and the associated forms of territorializing national politics. Transnationalist scholars

have linked OV to the ―globalization from below‖ thesis, which hails the agency of labor

migrant communities and their use of informal spaces to undermine state power

(Moctezuma 2004, 108). Election procedures require state sanction, however. Evidence

from case studies suggests that for states sullied and weakened by massive emigration

and ―brain drain,‖ OV may be a tool to re-establish state legitimacy and authority.

Leticia Calderón (2004) makes a broad, ambitious argument that overseas voting

illustrates a fundamental transformation of modern political institutions wrought by

globalization. Her research combines conceptual brush-clearing with carefully

documented individual case studies. Calderón identifies the overseas voting trend as the

outgrowth of two large-scale processes of international migration and democratization.

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Reviewing the reform experiences of 17 countries mainly from Latin America as well as

the U.S., Canada, Spain and Portugal, she discusses the ways in which OV is

transforming a large number of important topics such as territoriality, nationality,

citizenship, identity, sovereignty, human rights, political party competitiveness, and civil

society, among others. Calderón classifies countries on the basis of where they stand in

relation to the two-stage process: i) countries without a law; ii) countries with a law but

without rules implemented; and iii) countries that have implemented OV. Rather than

seeking out a general pattern to explain OV outcomes across cases, her analysis focuses

on distinct national processes and serves to generate this set of broader hypotheses about

normative effects, the testing of which remains somewhat underdeveloped.

The largely descriptive empirical works have analyzed the topic in relation to

complex and varied historical processes of diaspora formation in particular countries.

Research on Mexico's state-diaspora politics points out two alternative views. On the one

hand, rationalist institutionalists such as Parra (2005) focus their analysis of OV

exclusively upon domestic politics, emphasizing low participation levels and

downplaying the topic in general. In an interesting counterpoint, McCann et al (2007)

focus on the Mexican diaspora and conclude on a more positive note about the future

potential for overseas voter participation Their recent survey research on civic

engagement of overseas Mexicans in Dallas, Los Angeles and northern Indiana suggests

that a considerable part of the 11 million overseas Mexicans has a strong interest in long-

distance electoral participation.

The conclusions from the two Mexico analyses remain case-specific but contain

implications for the global analysis. First, the highly contested nature of Mexico's

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legislative process in 2005, along with the strategic behavior of its parties, points out the

importance of domestic political processes and structures to OV rules adopted by states in

general. This point forms the basis of the first hypothesis tested in the quantitative

analysis related to political competitiveness. Secondly, McCann et al's findings support

the dissertation's approach to the study of Mexico's OV rules i) as a process and ii) as a

case relevant to the global level. They conclude that OV may emerge as a genuine

political force in Mexico despite the extremely low participation in 2006, that there is an

ample reservoir of civic potential among Mexican expatriates for participating in future

elections, that voter attitudes and civic engagement levels of expatriate Mexicans tend to

mirror those of Mexicans in the home country, and that therefore all three parties have

potential for developing overseas support despite the lopsided 2006 tally favoring the

PAN government party (2007a). The authors‘ findings will be read closely in Mexico and

its diaspora, where they provide support for those favoring ongoing expansion of the OV

rules.

The Mexico case has been influential beyond its own polity in driving the effort to

identify global standards for national OV reform. Any moves by Mexico beyond its

restrictive reform would affect the global context for other countries' actions on the

question. In any case, the research illustrates how a country's OV rules should not be

understood as a frozen outcome, but rather as part of an institution that evolves over time

according to national experience and learning. The clear research challenge is to extend

analysis beyond the Mexico case to cross-national analyses at regional and global levels.

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II Research design and hypotheses

Quantitative analysis looks at state institutions at legislative and implementation

stages: first, whether a state has passed law(s) to establish the rights and authority to

conduct OV in national elections, removing any legal obstacles to overseas ballots; and

second, whether implementation of OV sets open rules aimed at making electoral

participation accessible for all of the overseas citizens.

The time-series models and selection models both include the two stages of

legislation and implementation, which form linked binary outcomes in respective logit

and probit regression equations. Based upon the historical review, the models test three

main pairs of hypotheses related to political openness, remittances and expatriate

population, in addition to a number of control variables. The first model is a time-series

cross-section analysis of the 130 most populous states across eight five-year intervals

from 1970 to 2004. Due to the sequential relationship of legislation and implementation

in OV institution-building, the second stage model encounters a potential problem of

selection bias, since only those countries that have established the legal right and

authority required for OV can implement open voting. This calls for caution in assigning

causal significance to any findings on the second question.

To avoid selection bias, the analysis runs a second test of the two-stage process

using a Heckman selection model, which is formulated to account for the standard errors

in the first stage, as well as missing cases of countries that did not have a voting law. The

selection model tested here is limited to the 2000 and 2004 cycles. Apart from its

improved model specification, the second test also was run on revised population

estimates based on a newly available global database of expatriate population estimates

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by country, as well as my own complete revision of the coding of the outcome variable

based on sources noted. Neither revised set of values for the two factors saw major

changes. Overall, even with the differences in the two tests -- in the basic formula, in the

time periods tested, and in the use of revised data in two variables -- they result in similar

findings for a number of the main hypotheses and control factors.

Research questions, dependent variables

The two related questions addressed in this chapter each revolve around a

particular binary dependent variable. The questions are:

1. What factors are associated with states' moves to establish the right to vote in

national elections for overseas citizens?

2. What factors are associated with the implementation of overseas voting with

open rules?

Stage Tag Dependent Variable Indicator

1 OV_Law Voting law passage of overseas voting law, constitutional

amendment and/or removal of legal obstacles

2 OV_Open Open implementation open rules for eligibility, registration, voting

1. Legislation: Overseas voting law. The first dependent variable is whether a country

has established adequate legal grounds for OV to take place or not, or in other words

whether a state has established the legal right and authority required for overseas citizen

voting. This outcome is based on both of the following two conditions:

first, there exists explicit the law(s) establishing the right of citizens to vote overseas and

the authority of the electoral agency to conduct such elections; and

second, that there are no legal grounds, i.e. discrepant clauses or missing legislation, to

prohibit or prevent the national electoral agency from organizing overseas voting.

The most common characteristic is the passage of a constitutional clause or amendment,

which explicitly establishes the rights of citizens to vote abroad, followed by a subsequent

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legislative statute designating the electoral agency to carry out the overseas election and

authorizing it to conduct and regulate related activities.

2. Implementation: Openness of voting rules. Once a state passes an OV law, it then

must implement the law and define specific rules governing the vote abroad. The

outcome in the second question is whether a country's voting institution as implemented

is open or restrictive to the full participation of all overseas citizens. As a country moves

to implement its OV law, the state formulates rules that guide diaspora participation in the

election campaign and voting abroad. Depending upon the details, the particular voting

rules selected may allow for a fuller or a lesser participation of the entire citizen diaspora.

The original dataset used in this analysis features coding of the dependent variable

by the author on the basis of four main sources (see Appendix 1).27 As shown in Table 2.2,

the specific criteria for determining the openness of the voting institution as implemented

refer to i) eligibility requirements, ii) registration guidelines, iii) voting means, iv)

campaign regulations, and v) representative institutions for the overseas population.

A positive value for open voting is characterized by a citizen-oriented overseas

election open to the entire range of overseas citizens and accessible through mixed

options of voting means. By contrast, voting rules considered to be restrictive were those

that either limited eligibility to specific occupational classes of overseas citizens (such as

consular officials or military employees), limited eligibility based upon time outside of

the country, targeted government employees exclusively, offered extremely limited

locations and means of voting, required an onerous paperwork and registration process,

or significantly barred migrant candidacies for representative offices altogether.

27 Ellis et al 2007, Navarro and Morales 2006, Navarro 2003, CESOP 2003. Readers interested in

reviewing coding decisions, including first-hand review of the data set, are invited to contact me.

Appendix I details coding rules used, along with a number of cases with uncertain outcomes.

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Most cases featured a combination of open and restricted voting rules. Coding

was conducted according to the basic criterion identified above: the overall extent to

Table 2.2 Characteristics of voting rules

Open Restrictive

eligibility -- open to all overseas citizens

-- no time limits on minimum or

maximum stay

-- restricted to state, military staff

-- specified employment classes only

-- maximum time periods abroad

-- minimum time periods abroad

means of voting -- choice of voting options, sites

-- collective voting possible

-- public voting at third site

-- one option for voting only

-- individualistic voting only

-- direct voting in consulate

registration -- possible from abroad

-- voting credentials issued abroad

-- simple forms at multiple sites

-- extended deadlines

-- free of fees and costs

-- promotion by civic groups

-- requires travel to home country

-- voting credentials NOT issued abroad

-- confusing forms, limited distribution

-- restrictive deadlines

-- fees, costs for documents, postage

-- not promoted in society

campaign

regulations

-- run by citizen electoral agency

-- unrestricted campaigns abroad

-- fundraising activities permitted

-- candidate visits

-- campaign advertising

-- run by government (consulates)

-- bans on overseas campaigning

-- fundraising prohibited

-- candidate visits prohibited

-- advertising banned or restricted

representation -- electoral districts for diaspora

-- representatives for diaspora

-- explicit limits on extraterritorial

participation; residence requirements; no

representatives for diaspora

which the different rules in the country's OV institution favor a fuller participation by the

citizen diaspora. Guiding the coding was the proximity of a country's overall institution

to one of two types: on the one hand, a closed overseas vote that is not advertised or

accessible to the overall citizen body abroad, entirely limited to government officers or to

a narrow elite segment including a small number of upper-middle-class individuals; or,

alternatively, an open overseas election that is accessible to the full range of the citizen

diaspora, enabling the possibility of large-scale participation and other campaign

activities abroad.

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Explanatory Factors

As listed in Table 2.3, the independent variables tested in the quantitative analysis

are political openness (competitiveness and rights), the age of the regime, the estimated

size of the overseas population absolutely and as a percentage of the national population,

remittances in absolute value and in relation to the national economy, along with a

dummy variable for whether a country is undergoing a post-conflict regime change under

the occupation of an international coalition. Control variables included population and

national income.

Table 2.3 Independent Variables

Explanatory Factor Indicator and Source

1. Political openness Polity2 score for competition and rights

(Polity IV dataset)

2. Regime age Years since last regime transition

(―Durable‖ figure in Polity IV dataset)

3. Expatriate citizens, estimated Author's estimates based on UN Population data

(see Appendix II)

4. National population Population data (UN and World Bank)

5. % of population abroad Estimated citizen diaspora / national population

6. Remittances Remittances (World Bank WDI, central banks)

7. GDP GDP (World Bank WDI)

8. Remittance dependency Remittances as a percentage of GDP

9. Post-conflict intervention U.N. post-conflict occupation

(known cases, review of Polity IV coding)

Hypotheses

The explanatory factors involved in the hypotheses presented are openness,

expatriate population size, and remittances. The additional factors listed in Table 2.1 are

also discussed below. In some cases, the hypothesized effect of the variable is the same

upon the voting law outcome as it is upon implementation, in terms of the direction of the

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69

effect anticipated. In others, a given factor may have divergent effects—that is, it may be

expected to push in one direction regarding a voting law, but in the other regarding

implementation.

Hypothesis 1: political openness (competition and rights) in the country's

domestic political system will be positively associated with both OV law and open

implementation. This hypothesis is based on the idea that political competition between

parties will spur parties to offer a voting law as a means of gaining political and financial

support of overseas citizens. Competition between parties will spur them to support open

voting rules so that they can seek votes abroad. As well, political rights generally favor

the capacities of migrant actors to access home country political arenas and to pressure

governments on voting reform.

The model also tests regime age, a factor related to political openness and likely

to be associated with both outcomes in a similarly direct and positive manner, although

less powerfully. Without labor export, for most countries, expanding the franchise abroad

has been a secondary task within the political reform agenda, addressed through

incremental legislative advances over the course of decades in liberal democracies.

Industrialized democracies, which tend to develop longer-term regimes than poorer

countries, have pioneered OV institutions, suggesting a direct and positive relationship,

along with certain instances of developing countries that do consolidate democratic rule

over time. However, many long-lasting regimes have also been authoritarian and little

disposed to OV institutions, a fact likely to muddy results for this factor. As well, in the

other direction, growing ranks of recent democratizers have implemented OV in a

relatively rapid fashion, another fact likely to constrain the potential impact of regime age

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70

as a causal factor.

Hypothesis 2: the greater the number of the estimated overseas citizen population,

the more likely a positive value on the voting law outcome. A voting law offers politicians

a cheap way of appealing to a large body of overseas voters. Passage of a law followed

by failure to implement may be the best solution for certain incumbent interests, as in

Mexico from 1998 through 2004. It is unclear how greater numbers of estimated overseas

citizens should be expected to affect open implementation. On the one hand, having more

citizens abroad means logistical obstacles and political concerns about extending the

franchise, with the potential voting clout of large overseas populations threatening

incumbent political leaders who face opposition in the diaspora. Thus, a greater diaspora

population may work against open implementation. On the other hand, greater masses

abroad may lend weight to migrant leader claims' for open voting rules, and in certain

circumstances, they may be seen as an object of political gain by politicians. Regarding

open implementation, more overseas citizens may generate: i) a greater fear of open

rules; and/or ii) a greater and more forceful demand for open rules.

Two related factors that I also test are overall national population size and

percentage of the national population composed by diaspora citizens. It is not

automatically apparent how we should expect either of these factors to affect OV

institutions. On the one hand, more populous countries may be less preoccupied and

influenced by their overseas communities -- and therefore less likely to institute OV.

Similarly, greater economies of scale may make states with large populations more likely

to have developed hierarchical state structures, which in turn become oriented to

controlling and blocking diaspora participation, as in the case of Mexico, rather than

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71

inviting its democratic participation. But large populations do not necessarily indicate

strongly institutionalized states and exclusive politics, nor vice versa.

One region-level analysis suggests that population is indeterminate as a causal

factor. Table 2.4 shows how the twenty-one most populous Latin American countries fall

into four categories of OV. The range of national population in 2005 runs along the x-

axis; the openness of OV is captured by a four point scale along the y-axis.

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72

Table 2.4 Country size and OV in Latin America28

Key to Y-axis, Voting Reform scoring for Table 5.0 (0-3)

3: countries offering full extraterritorial voting rights and somewhat accessible processes. (Arg, Br, Col,

DR, Ec, H, Pe, V)

2: intermediate cases: countries w/right to vote law but not implementing a fully accessible legislation. (Ch,

M, N, Pan)

1: counties without right to vote overseas legally established (Bo, CR, ES, G, Ha, J, Par, U)

0: countries not allowing elections domestically (Cu).

The experience in Latin America shows little evidence of any clear link between

population size and either of the two outcomes. While states with larger population sizes

may be more likely to have passed a voting law, as the table above suggests, the mixed

record of small countries on legislation confounds any findings of correlation. As well,

population size also appears to be indeterminate in relation to the implementation of open

28 Sources of the voting reform data used to create Table 5.0 are Calderón 2005, Navarro 2002, and

government sites (Ecuador). Country population data comes from the World Bank World Development

Indicators database.

0 50,000,000 100,000,000 150,000,000 200,000,000

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

Country Size (Population) and Overseas Voting

Column D

Population, 2005

Votin

g R

efo

rm

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OV in Latin America, with a range of small and large countries occupying the third

position.

Hypothesis 3: Remittances are likely to be positively associated with both an OV

law and with open institutions, since they will spur home country leaders to support

migrant-friendly positions in pursuit of support, and since they signal diaspora

capacities. While remittances' cash content flows directly to family members at the

household level, they affect the home country polity in several ways, as discussed in

chapter 1. First, remittances enter the public arena as a political fact through the balance

of payment statistics monitored by the country's central bank and the IMF, making policy

elites aware of the diaspora's economic importance to the country. Second, when senders'

communicate new political information to their family members at home, politicians soon

perceive the importance of remittances not just to social stability inside the country but

also to the welfare, livelihoods and political persuasions of voters. Recognizing potential

political gains and seeking the approval of those who depend upon remittance-sending

nationals, politicians are likely to adopt a migrant-friendly discourse and an openness to

OV. Through these political effects, I expect that more remittances will spur major

discursive shifts leading to OV legislation.

The hypothesis about remittances' importance to open implementation stems from

their political relevance as material resource base and as an indicator of the diaspora's

growing human and organizational capacities. Independent of political agendas within

diaspora and home country, the increasing economic productivity of migrant labor

communities is politically important, since it indicates a growing base of potential

support for effective political organization. First, growing remittance flows signal to

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transnational political entrepreneurs untapped grounds for new claims-making

opportunities, as well as politically valuable resource havens abroad. The greater a

country's volume of remittances, then the greater the human and organizational resources

associated with its diaspora individuals and groups. Thus, emigrant diasporas with more

remittances will be more effective in advocating for OV.

Higher levels of gross domestic product (GDP) are included as a control factor,

since they are also somewhat ambiguous. Richer states are more likely to participate in

the international institutions that favor OV standards and measure their implementation.

Industrialized democracies have upheld legal commitments to implement OV over time.

However, many of them also limit participation through various restrictive rules. In any

case, political openness not national income is the factor at work here.

Remittance dependency, defined as the percentage of the national economy taken

up by economic remittances sent from abroad, is a compound variable and thus may be

problematic in registering significance. On the one hand, it is expected that more

remittances will favor both outcomes, as reasoned above in hypothesis #3, namely the

potential for greater appeal and capacities within the home country political arena for

remittance diasporas; on the other hand, higher GDP would reduce the amount of a

country's score for remittance dependency and the likelihood of significant impact, as

long as GDP is not negatively associated with the outcome.

The final factor tested is post-conflict humanitarian intervention, since that has

been a major initiative coloring national politics in one type of OV case. The quantity of

cases makes it unlikely that this factor will have any statistical impact, however in a

number of cases, humanitarian intervention has been associated with OV laws and

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elections. Cases such as Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan and East Timor, among others, are all

instances of recent international intervention in which OV became an important part of

the occupying regime's post-conflict reconstruction agenda. The epistemic community on

OV now emerging represents an increasingly influential authority for late adopters.

Indicators and data sources

The empirical work in this chapter analyzes the quantitative importance of

estimated diaspora scale, since the reliability and completeness of UN data on migrant

stocks are problematic. Acknowledging this limitation, this chapter draft includes revised

estimates of overseas populations based in part on a Sussex University migration figures

for 2000 that represent the state of the art in international migration policy analysis.29

Appendices II and III detail the particular indicators, data sources and coding

criteria referenced in Table 2.1 and used below. The object was to include all countries

with populations over 1 million in 2004 for each of the two time ranges; 150 nation-states

met the population threshold. In total, the research was able to obtain data and/or

construct well-founded estimates for 130 of the 150 most populous countries. Since the

migration data that was available by country comes at five-year intervals, the time-series

panels were based on cumulative flows for country-years at 5-year intervals for the

period from 1970 through 2004.30

III Quantitative analysis and findings

Table 2.5 presents descriptive data for all of the variables for both models, with

the larger population of time-series data on the left, alongside data for the two-stage

29 According to the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), the Sussex dataset contains the most complete and

reliable emigration estimates, though its accuracy is limited as with any state-generated migration

counts (MPI, telephone interview, 17 August 2008). Appendix II discusses the estimates used here.

30 Appendix II lists the dropped countries and explains why their absence does not bias the analysis.

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selection model for the 2000 and 2004 periods on the right. Both sides include the same

two binary dependent variables of voting law and open implementation, along with the

nine explanatory factors tested. For both models, the universe refers to the recent and

contemporary experience of modern states for the time periods indicated. The country-

years under investigation are not a representative sample of a larger population; they are

the population. This means that the logit and probit regression coefficients of the

population is an estimate of itself (Podestá 2002).

Time-series data: For the eight panels from 1970 through 2004, the mean value

of the voting law dependent variable is just 0.34. This indicates that across the 671

country-year units fewer than half had seen the passage an OV law, while 34% of the

years did register a positive value reflecting the prior passage of a law. Even lower values

were reported for open implementation, with a mean value of 0.133. This indicates that

only about one seventh of country-years observed in the historical period had open

implementation in place.

For the independent variables in the 1970-2004 time-series, political openness

shows a large standard deviation of 7.94 from the mean of 2.05, reflecting the variance in

regime types present in the population studied, all of the world's states. The mean regime

age was 23.7 years with a larger standard deviation of nearly 30 years.

The mean value of the historic expatriate population estimates for all country-

years was just over 1 million persons, with a large standard deviation of approximately 2

million. The largest estimate for citizen diaspora was 18.2 million, and the minimum

estimate was 0. National population data showed a mean value of 45 million with a

standard deviation of 143 million. The low of 500,000 refers to Kuwait and United Arab

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Emirates in 1970 (countries that had grown to populations of 2.2 million and 4.3 million

in 2004). The maximum value in the population size of 1.3 billion refers to China in

2004.

Historically, the percentage of national population abroad showed a mean value

of 6.5% across the 671 country-years, with a standard deviation of 9.0%. Reviewing the

global total, double-digit values were not infrequent, with traumatic events such as war or

state failure generating massive flight reflected in numbers above 20%. The maximum

value of 77% refers to Cyprus in 1995, when UN data indicated an estimated 537,000

Cypriots abroad, compared to 700,000 national population reported by the World Bank.

Historical remittance data showed a mean value of $908 million US dollars per

country year, with a larger standard deviation of $1.92 billion. The minimum value of $1

million was registered for multiple country-years, and the maximum remittance value per

country year of $19.8 billion referred to India in 2004. Remittance dependency data

showed a mean percentage of remittances to gross domestic product of 3.36, with a

standard deviation of 7.74%. The minimum value of 0.002% referred to Venezuela in

1985, while the maximum value of 81.6% referred to Lesotho in 1975. The GDP data

across all country-years showed a mean value of $200 billion, with a standard deviation

of $830 billion. The minimum value of 11.5 million refers to the GDP of the Gambia in

1975, while the maximum value of $11.7 trillion refers to U.S. GDP in the year 2004. The

data for Post-conflict intervention show a mean value of only 0.015. This value indicates

that the condition of being occupied by an international coalition following a conflict

situation characterized a mere 1.5% of the historical country-year cases observed.

Selection model data: The two-stage model began with 255 country-year

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observations from the two time periods of 2000 and 2004. Of these, 145 adopted an OV

law, and 109 did not. Collinearity tests of the independent variables against one another

were mainly negative and confirmatory of the model. The highest overlap occurred from

regressing national population on remittances, which resulted in an R-squared value of

0.43, as well as expatriates on remittances, resulting in 0.42; values for all other

combinations were below 0.20.

The mean political openness had increased to a Polity score of 4.24, with a

standard deviation of 6.22, and the regime age was up to 26.0 with a standard deviation

of 31.9 years. The mean value of expatriate citizens was 1.3 million with a standard

deviation of 2.0 million, while the mean national population was 46.2 million, with a

standard deviation of 149 million, resulting in a mean percentage of population abroad of

6.7% and a standard deviation of 8.6%. For the selection model periods from 2000 and

2004, the mean remittance value by country-year was $1.39 billion, with a standard

deviation of $2.74 billion, while the mean GDP was $278 billion, with a standard

deviation of $1.08 trillion. This resulted in a mean national remittance dependency ratio

of 3.2%, with a standard deviation of 5.0%. The mean value of 0.02 referred to the post-

conflict intervention data for the two periods, which characterized a mere 2% of all

country-years in the two periods analyzed.

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Table 2.5 Descriptive data

Time-series analysis, 1970 - 2004 Heckman selection model, 2000 & 2004

Variable # Obs Mean Std. Dev. Min Max # Obs Mean Std.

Dev. Min Max

Outcome

Variables

Voting Law 671 0.34 0.47 0 1 255 0.55 0.50 0 1

Open implementation 671 0.13 0.34 0 1 145 0.49 0.50 0 1

Independent

Variables

Political openness 663 2.94 7.05 -10 10 2.54 4.24 6.22 -9 10

Regime age 668 23.7 29.8 0 195 254 26.0 31.9 0 195

Expatriate citizen

population, est.

671 1.03

million

2.02

million 0

18.2

mill. 255

1.31

million

2.0

million 0

12.1

million

Population, total 671 44.9

million

143

million

0.50

mill.

1,300

million 255

46.2

million

14.9

million

1

million

1,300

million

% of population

abroad, est. 671 6.5 9.9 0 76.7 255 6.7 8.6 0 40.0

Remittances, US$ 671 0.91

billion

1.92

billion 0

19.8

bill. 255

1.39

billion

2.74

billion 0

19.8

billion

GDP, US$ 665 200

billion

830

billion

0.01

bill.

11,700

bill. 255

278

billion

1,080

billion

0.22

billion

11,700

billion

Remittance

dependency (% gdp) 659 3.4 7.7 0 81.6 255 3.2 5.0 0 29.3

Post-conflict

intervention 671 0.02 0.12 0 1 255 0.02 0.14 0 1

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Results

Table 2.6 summarizes output for the different models.31

It is appropriate to review

each column separately prior to reviewing each of the explanatory factors in light of the

hypotheses.

Voting Law, time-series: The value for Rho indicates that the factors tested are

correlated with 0.69 of the total variance in the dependent variable. Results of the time-

series logistical analysis for 653 country-years across the 130 panels found that: i)

political competition in the home country was positively correlated with having an OV

law and statistically significant below the 0.01 level; ii) the estimated amount of

expatriates was not correlated with having a voting law; iii) remittance volumes were

positively correlated with having a voting law at the 0.01 level; iv) national population

was negatively correlated with the voting law below the 0.01 level; and v) regime age,

percent of population abroad, and GDP were all positively correlated with the voting law

outcome and statistically significant below the 0.05 level, while remittance dependency

or post-conflict intervention were not significant

Open Implementation, time-series: The Rho value of 0.63 indicates the factors tested

are associated with that much of the total variance in implementation. Time-series

logistical analysis for all 653 country-years across the 130 panels found that: i) political

competition in the home country was positively correlated with open implementation and

statistically significant below the 0.01 level; ii) the estimated amount of expatriates was

negatively associated with open implementation below 0.05; iii) remittance volumes were

positively correlated with open implementation below 0.01; iv) national population was

31 See Appendix I for details of each model including regression coefficients.

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negatively correlated with open implementation below 0.01; and v) the correlation

between regime age and open implementation was weaker below the 0.10 level, while

percentage of population abroad, remittance dependency, and post-conflict intervention

were all not correlated with open implementation.

Selection model

The second test for the country-years 2000 and 2004 confirms and addresses the

issue of selection bias. Conventional probit analysis is likely to mis-estimate the effects

of the theoretically specified variables, since it forces one to either truncate the selection

and omit the cases without a voting law or to lump them into the analysis even though

they did not have an implementation stage.32

The Heckman selection model is set up to

account for the standard errors in the first stage and thereby provide more accurate

estimates in the outcome equation on open institutions.33

For the 255 country-years in the

analysis, 109 did not pass a voting law and did not enter the implementation stage. For

the 145 country-years with a voting law analyzed in stage two, 65 had open

implementation and 80 did not.

To identify factors involved in the voting law outcome, the simple probit model

labeled ―OV_Law‖ in the third column on Table 2.6 confirmed four factors to be

statistically significant for the 255 country-year units analyzed. As a whole, the model

correctly classified 72% of the 255 voting law outcomes according to a test of predicted

probabilities, generating a similar 60.5% score on a second marginal effects test. First,

political openness is positively correlated with an OV law and highly statistically

32 The model presented in column 2 skirts this shortcoming by defining its question as whether or not a

country implements open voting without regard to passing an overseas voting law -- and so is less

precisely targeted.

33 Plümper et al (2006) apply a Heckman probit model in similar fashion in their recent cross-national

analysis of European Union enlargement as a two-stage process involving application and accession.

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significant. In addition, the estimated amount of expatriates and the national domestic

population were both correlated with the voting law outcome below the 0.05 level,

although in different directions. The other variables tested were not significantly

correlated with the voting law outcome: remittance volumes; percentage of the

population abroad; GDP; and post-conflict intervention.

Summarized in column four ―OV_Open‖ of Table 2.6, the Heckman probit

selection model regresses the all of the independent variables on the probability of open

implementation, and as well it includes the selection equation and its dependent variable

of voting law. The Rho score of -1.0 indicates a perfect correlation between having a

voting law and being chosen into the second step. A Wald test shows the whole selection

model to be highly significant, indicating that the null hypothesis that all coefficients

jointly equal zero can be rejected.

Reviewing the explanatory variables associated with open implementation in 2000

and 2004: political openness is positive and highly statistically significant; remittances

are positively correlated below the 0.05 level; national population is negatively correlated

below the 0.01 level; and estimated amount of expatriates is also found to be negatively

associated at the 0.10 level of statistical significance. Also, regime age, national

population, percentage abroad, as well as GDP, remittance dependency and post-conflict

intervention all proved not to be correlated with open implementation in any statistically

significant way in the latest test.

This model is more accurately specified, and it was run on revised figures based

on more accurate underlying data and revised coding of the dependent variable.

Interestingly, while statistically significant, the model's equation captures less of the

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variance in the implementation values than it does on the voting law stage. Whereas the

first model had a 60.5% score on the marginal effects test, the outcome equation had a

27.4%. This points to a good deal of unexplained variance on open implementation. It

will also be useful to look further at these post-estimation techniques to measure its

overall goodness of fit and adjust the model accordingly. Further refinement including

rescaling of values will also allow for more precise statements about predicted

probabilities involving individual explanatory factors.

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Table 2.6 Summary Results

Independent

Variable

Time-Series Probit Tests,

1970 - 2004 Selection model, 2000 & 2004

OV_Law OV_Open OV_Law OV_Open

(Heckman probit)

Political openness + *** + *** + *** + ***

Regime age + ** + * nss nss

Expatriates, est. nss - ** + ** - *

Population - *** - *** - ** -***

% Expatriates, est. + ** nss nss nss

Remittances + *** + *** nss + **

GDP + ** + *** nss nss

Remittance

dependency nss nss - * nss

Post-conflict

intervention nss nss nss nss

OVLaw na na na + ***

Constant - *** - *** - *** - ***

# groups 130 130 na na

# of observations 653 653 254 109 censored

145 uncensored

Obs. per group avg

(min, max) 5.8 (1, 8) 5.0 (1, 8) na na

Rho 0.685 (0.038) 0.634 (0.050) na -1.00 (0.000)

Log likelihood -263.31 -149.48 -137.61 -102.51

nss: not statistically significant na: not applicable

* p < 0.1; ** p < 0.05; *** p < 0.01

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Main findings and interpretation

In reading the results and evaluating earlier hypotheses, statistical significance

levels as well as the sign of coefficients tell us about each factor in relation to the two

linked outcomes across the two tests and their respective time periods. The main findings

were:

1) First, evidence from all tests confirmed hypothesis #1 that political competition is

positively associated with both OV law and open rules, both in the time-series

analysis across thirty-five years as well as the selection model in the two recent

periods. Regime age is positively associated with both OV law and open rules in

the historical time-series since 1970, but not in the 2000 and 2004 periods.

2) Results from both tests confirmed hypothesis #2 regarding expatriate population

estimates, which tend to be positively associated with voting laws but negatively

associated with open implementation. Findings from the selection model indicated

that countries with larger expatriate populations were more likely to have OV

laws than not for the 2000 and 2004 periods, with statistical significance at the

level of 0.05. In both tests, the estimated amount of expatriate citizen is negatively

correlated and statistically significant with open implementation.

3) As hypothesized, remittance volumes are significantly and positively correlated

with open implementation across both time periods. Also, remittances have been

significantly correlated with a voting law in recent history, but not in the present

decade.

4) National population is highly negatively correlated with both outcomes.

Additionally, the results indicate that: regime age and GDP were significant and

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positively correlated with both outcomes in the time series, but not in the present decade;

expatriates as a percentage of the population was significant only in relation to voting law

in the time series; remittance dependency was significant in relation to voting law in the

present decade but not in the other tests; and post-conflict intervention was not significant

in any of the tests.

These findings confirm the dissertation's basic design while they also point out

interesting contrasts in OV patterns between the two time periods. Robust positive

correlations for political openness across all tests likely stem from multiple causal

dynamics. As hypothesized, more electoral competitiveness is likely to create stronger

incentives for politicians to pursue untapped resources as well as greater opportunities for

migrant activists. The importance of political openness across all tests indicates the

enduring power of these mechanisms across different decades. It stands in contrasts with

regime age, which shows significance in the historical time series but not in the present

decade. The insignificance of regime age in the present decade likely stems from the

participation of many new democracies in the recent OV trend.

The estimated amount of a country's expatriate citizens shows an interesting sign

change in the present decade. Greater amounts of expatriates are associated with a higher

probability of having a voting law, but they make open implementation less likely. The

data suggest that as the overseas voting process moves forward beyond the first stage, a

domestic fear factor may arise in countries with larger diasporas, outweighing

opportunistic attitudes within the home country political actors. In other words, in

countries with many million nationals abroad, politicians may authorize OV in principle,

but when it comes to implementation, more massive diasporas create political

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uncertainties and logistical challenges leading them to risk aversion.34

National population stands out for its consistently negative correlations with both

outcomes, as well as the greater levels of significance than expatriate citizens. The larger

the home country population, the less likely it is to pass a voting law and implement open

rules. The negative relationship presents a puzzle that calls for further attention to the

data. While some of the ten largest national populations are non-democracies, across the

entire dataset population had almost zero correlation with political openness in the

country-years tested in the selection equation models. Rather than an absence of political

openness in large countries, population stands for something else that appears to be at

work; likely factors include domestic political agendas as well as strong state hierarchies.

Diaspora actors may find it more difficult to gain political traction in larger countries,

while at the same time larger populations tend to support more institutionalized state

structures that feature well developed professional diplomatic services prone to

monopolizing political spaces in the abroad.

Global analysis indicates a complex relationship between expatriate population

and national population with regard to OV as a two-stage process. Generally, the two

factors work in different directions in affecting legislation, while they both work against

open implementation. The extent of variance in each factor in addition to the change of

direction in the expatriate citizens factor meant that the composite variable of percent of

population abroad was not statistically significant in three of the four models. Therefore,

it is best to analyze each factor in relation to the outcome separately, and not to combine

them in a composite variable.

34 See Table entitled ―Top 50 countries by expatriate populations‖ in Appendix II.

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Remittance volumes show more generalized positive significance across the

country-years in the four-decade time series, in which they are correlated positively with

both legislation and implementation, than in the present decade. For 2000 and 2004, the

selection models show that remittances favor open implementation, while remaining

insignificant to a voting law. The original hypothesis pointed out four indirect

mechanisms as potential causal processes linking remittances to OV laws and open

implementation: first, the national accounts effect of remittances on political elites'

awareness of financial dependency upon the diaspora; second, discursive effects of

remittance-sending migrants upon politicians' awareness leading to symbolic change and

OV legislation; third, remittance incentives for transnational political entrepreneurs to

advance claims and pursue untapped resource streams associated with the diaspora; and

remittances as indicator of diaspora's increasing human and organizational capacities. The

first two mechanisms likely drive the first stage outcome of legislation.

The continuing significance of remittance volumes upon implementation in both

the historic test and the more accurately specified selection model suggests that the third

and fourth effects of remittances as incentive and indicator of diaspora organizational

capacity are taking place. The statistically significant results in relation to both outcomes

in the time-series tests confirm the viability of the hypothesis, suggesting that any and all

of these effects have been taking place in relation to legislation and implementation in the

historic test. The absence of correlation between remittance volumes and OV legislation

in the present decade is somewhat puzzling. The greater global diffusion of OV

legislation to over 70 countries by 2000 and to over 100 today may have sapped the

remittance effects of statistical significance upon OV laws; the model perhaps should add

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a dummy variable for non-democracy.

While significantly correlated with outcomes in the time series tests, GDP was not

correlated with either stage of reform in the recent decade selection model, indicating that

in the present decade, higher national income has not mattered to overseas voting

reforms. Nor was the post-conflict intervention variable significant for any of the findings

in either test.

Conclusion

The modern history of overseas voting has been marked by five main types of

national contexts: first; belligerent democracies acting to enfranchise masses of citizen

soldiers abroad; second, stable, liberal democracies that have gradually deepened their

institutions to broaden and ensure voting rights for all classes of citizens including those

abroad; third, post-colonial European nations and decolonized states of the third world;

fourth, recent democratizers and labor exporters with emerging labor and commercial

diasporas; fifth, countries experiencing major historic regime change that act to

enfranchise a large population of exiles or emigrants, especially including those pursuing

post-conflict reconciliation under the aegis of multilateral organizations. Three out of the

five historic types—gradual liberalizers, recent democratizers, labor exporters—are

reflected in the generalized experience of recent decades, whereas belligerent

democracies and post-conflict regime change cases have been exceptional.

Driven by individual nation-state projects, the collaboration of leading electoral

authorities links national cases to the normative and institutional structures of the

international system. The global policy network has shaped the international arena and

facilitated the global trend of countries to OV laws and implementation, guiding the

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analysis of OV as a two-stage process. Amidst the backdrop of global policy

coordination, the OV trend nevertheless moves forward as a set of national processes.

Accordingly, the cross-national analysis in this chapter has identified explanatory factors

from the historical review, testing three hypotheses that result in new findings about the

recent experience of states.

What general statements can be made for the recent period based on these

findings? First, the two factors correlated most closely with both legislation and

implementation have been political openness, positively, and national population,

negatively. Otherwise, the two stages of overseas voting institution-building proceed

according to different political dynamics. In general, in the first stage, smaller, more open

polities with more expatriate citizens have been more probable to pass an OV law, with

remittances an additional positive factor across the recent historical period. Generally, in

the second stage, smaller, more democratically open polities with fewer expatriate

citizens and more remittances have been more likely to realize open implementation. The

recent decade has seen a shift in the arrival of recent democratizers and middle and lower

income nations to the overseas institution-building trend. Higher GDP and greater regime

ages are no longer correlated with voting laws and open implementation, as they have

been in the historical period since 1970. As well, remittance dependency and post-conflict

intervention were not significant as generalized explanatory factors.

The positive finding about remittances is interesting, particularly as the focus

shifts to the qualitative analysis of Mexico and Dominican Republic outcomes. In these

two countries, remittances do not easily translate into political power for migrant actors at

the national level. But as the following chapters will elaborate, remittance flows do exert

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important push and pull effects in the home country polity. As a matter of material power,

it appears that remittances ―pull‖ politicians to court the diaspora-- rhetorically,

financially, and (less frequently) programmatically through policy change. And as an

indicator of emerging human and organizational capacities in the overseas communities,

massive remittance flows point out the active, capable transnational entrepreneurs

capable of pushing government leaders to open space in the polity to the diaspora,

beginning with double citizenship laws and OV rights. The translation of economic

remittances into political power leads to different outcomes in Mexico and the Dominican

Republic; the findings here focus the case study analysis on particular institutional

characteristics of the domestic polity and the diaspora's collective organization.

There is a puzzling gap in the explanatory leverage of the two models specified,

which appear to capture a much larger extent of variation in overseas voting law

outcomes than in open implementation outcomes. It is consistent with the argument made

initially that open OV will not just be a function of internal politics plus transnational

flows, but rather the result of the interaction between home country politics and

autonomous diaspora organizations and networks that are capable of aggregating

transnational flows. Agent and organizational characteristics omitted from the statistical

analysis were those relating to institutional structure as well as the autonomy of diaspora

citizen groups.

The existence of a professionalized foreign service is the main variable to look at

here, likely to be more important than other additional factors such as education

characteristics, legal (immigration) status, strength of overseas civil society organization

and overseas political parties. Remittances stand as an adequate proxy for all of these.

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Interesting as the various diaspora characteristics may be, it is uncertain that they are of

fundamental importance. Rather, the findings in this study bolster the argument that the

study of political transnationalism needs to begin with domestic institutions and

investigate the dynamics by which they mediate important diaspora forces into the

national political arena.

As immigrant earnings and organization continue to grow, migrant activism

confronts major challenges in the powerful home country structures in place. Not only do

migrants face persistent restrictions against their political participation, but there is also a

large gap between their limited capacities and the organizational requirements for

transnational effectiveness. The larger the diaspora population, and the larger the home

country population, the more difficult the political challenge of realizing open

implementation. Remittances appear to be a necessary prerequisite for overseas citizens

seeking to gain entry into polity from abroad, fetching greater political returns in richer

countries with longer traditions of political competition.

The factors behind the global trend to overseas voting laws, like the global

process of democratization, confront different historical experiences in particular regions

and countries, as existing case study research shows. As the global cross-national analysis

indicates, the factors of political openness, expatriate population size, remittances,

national population and region are all important to OV outcomes in general. It points out

theoretically interesting extension case studies, both among labor export developing

democratizers (India, Philippines, Morocco, Turkey, Ukraine, Indonesia, Algeria, South

Korea, Portugal) as well as stable liberal democracies (U.S., U.K., Italy, France, Spain).

Finally, the chapter points to the mechanisms of the overseas state that the

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qualitative case studies will focus upon, including the processes of institutional mediation

and the variable of a professional foreign ministry. Ideally, the chapter would have

included an overseas state capacities variable in the quantitative analysis, however, no

scholar or group has yet assembled a quantitative dataset that measures overseas state

capacities in a manner consistent with the dissertation‘s overseas voting theory. The

extension case studies move a step in that direction, compiling a set of data on six

additional cases and identifying standard types of sources and formats for a large-n

collection. The details in the following chapters will give a sense of the merits of

constructing such an overseas state dataset as a priority for future transnational politics

research.

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Chapter 3

The Dominican Republic: Exporting the polity

94

In the summer of 2007 in Santo Domingo, deteriorating state performance reared

its ugly head in ways trivial and profound. President Leonel Fernandez' promise to make

the Dominican capital into a Caribbean version of New York confronted the inevitable

contradictions of such a bold visionary program. Local pundits feasted on evidence of

mismanagement in the photos of underground metro columns lacking structural supports

and perilously close to the streets overhead. The critics liked subways and understood the

political function of public works well enough to laugh. But they saw that New York's

massive gleaming modernity was too demanding for this badly overstressed capital city,

an expensive and dangerous distraction from more basic needs. The commentary grew

more serious, the outrage more convincing, when they contrasted the metro's largesse

with news of a major water crisis and woeful school performance. When the failure of

public water delivery sparked the organization of issue-based protest marches,

commentators identified a major peril for the President's re-election hopes. Would voters

reject the ―President of the diaspora‖35

and his fancy foreign plans in the upcoming 2008

election? Despite the warning signs, no such turn came. Seasonal patterns marked a

resumption of political normalcy: another school year began, the country's creaky,

distorted economy stumbled onward, and the President traveled to New York to don

pinstripes and throw out the first pitch in Yankee Stadium. Unleashing potent streams of

old-fashioned patronage along with his forward-looking ideology, Fernandez went on to

easily win re-election in the first round of the spring elections.

Recent decades' experience of democratization, neoliberalism and opening to the

35 Espinal, Rosario. Presidente de la diáspora? Clave Digital, Santo Domingo, 2 October 2006. Available

online at: http://www.pld.org.do/2006/10/02/b10.htm (20 February 2010).

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U.S. have created many parallels between political life in the Dominican Republic and

Mexico. However, while Mexico's politics have retained a strong national casing,

Dominican politics have been more permeable to external influences. The

transnationalization of Dominican politics has taken root to a far greater extent, as actors

at all levels embrace the diaspora. An active two-way engagement speeds importation of

U.S. and European models occurs alongside an export of Dominican political processes,

practices and mores. No area provides a better example than party politics and elections.

This chapter explains the development of an expansive institution for overseas

voting (OV) in the Dominican Republic. What led to the decisions to adopt and build a

system that not only permits OV, but structures full-scale elections abroad including

campaigning, fundraising and public voting? In contrast to Mexico, the Dominican

Republic is a much smaller nation with a more open economy. But other small-medium

recent democratizers with large diasporas have not adopted OV, as we see in the most

comparable cases in Central America and Southeastern Europe. The macro-factors

obscure specific causal processes at work. Rather than country size, it is the structure of

the Dominican state, with its weak foreign ministry and client-led electoral agency, which

has provided the opening for party entrepreneurs to engage the diaspora in electoral

politics. It has unveiled a new lucrative field for political competition.

My basic argument is that a weakly institutionalized foreign ministry has enabled

strong parties to extend competition and organize elections abroad via the consulates. The

central protagonists have been the politicized consuls, principally in New York but

increasingly dispersed in diaspora cities, whose patronage activities have generated the

interest, legislation and organizational resources necessary for overseas voting. In

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contrast to Mexico, the absence of hierarchical power structures legitimized upon anti-

U.S. nationalism removes a crucial obstacle to expansive overseas voting in the

Dominican Republic. The spread of patronage politics abroad has created its own

problems, including the undermining of state policies and a rift between Dominicans who

favor incorporation politics in the U.S. as opposed to overseas elections. However, it also

embeds the political class in the diaspora and distributes material benefits to those

entrepreneurs and allies who are able to deliver long-distance votes.

This chapter is organized in four parts: first, it summarizes the core institutional

outcome and then introduces the reader to the historical context of democratization in the

Dominican Republic; second, it reviews standing explanations for the remarkably vibrant

(and problematic) state of Dominican diaspora politics; third, it analyzes the key

interactions between Dominican political insiders and diaspora actors that led to the

outcome; and fourth, it describes how transnational politics exports the Dominican polity.

I Democratization and Overseas Politics in the Dominican Republic

In the Dominican Republic, the permissive conjuncture of institutional reform and

revitalized diaspora politics took hold in the 1990s. Specifically, the 1994 Pact for

Democracy established the right to double nationality as one item among a multi-part

political reform that resolved a major electoral crisis (Hartlyn 1998).36

The two steps

required for OV occurred with voting legislation in 1997 and the first implementation in

2004. Promoted by President Fernández, the 1997 overseas voting law passed amongst a

36 Additional features of the 1994 Pact were: two years' Presidential rule by Balaguer with a multi-party

political reform; no Presidential re-election; run-off election rounds in case of less than 50% plurality

for any candidate; separate elections for President and for Congressional and municipal posts, which

would take place every four years at the interim point of the Presidential election; a secret ballot and

voting in closed facilities.

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broader second wave of electoral reforms.37

Table 3.0 shows the Dominican Republic's

experience along the two-step process for instituting OV in comparison to Mexico.

Following legislation, a series of logistical and political factors forced years of

delay before the upward trajectory of expansive voting took hold. With implementation in

2004, 55,000 overseas Dominicans registered to vote in the Presidential election,

representing 1.6% of the full electorate and resulting in 35,000 votes. 2008 showed the

continuing growth of overseas participation, with 155,000 Dominican expatriate civilians

registering, an amount equal to 2.7% of the electorate (JCE, 2008b), and 77,000 votes

cast. The 195% increase in registrations in one electoral cycle confirms the expansive

nature of the country's formula for instituting overseas voting. Dominican politicians will

likely continue to pay special attention to the diaspora, not only in campaigning but also

in their personnel and policy decisions.

Table 3.0

37 Duarte 2003, 5-6. Passed on December 21st, 1997, law 295-97 reformed the Constitution with four

new articles authorizing the right and authority for overseas voting along expansive lines and

designating the Junta Central Electoral (JCE) to determine the means necessary to implement the vote.

Constitutional reforms

OV law

No OV law

Open overseas voting

Restrictive overseas voting

No overseas voting

Conjuncture

Instituting Overseas Voting (OV): A Two-step Process

Legislation Implementation

DR 1994

M 1996

DR 1997

M 2005, 2006 ---->

DR 2004 ---->

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The emergence of overseas voting has been integrally linked to the broader

processes and historic events of Dominican democratization. The transition from

authoritarianism to democracy in the Dominican Republic occurred gradually over three

decades. In the pivotal decade of the 1960s, a series of defining events marked the

country's emergence from three decades of ruthless dictatorship: the assassination of

Rafael Trujillo in 1961; the popular election of left-wing reform President Juan Bosch in

1962 and his removal by a military coup a year later; the 1965 U.S. invasion intended to

guarantee a friendly government; and the fraudulent election of Joaquin Balaguer in

1966, which set off the first of several waves of U.S.-bound emigration. For the next

three decades, Balaguer was at the center of national politics, ruling as President for 22 of

thirty years. From 1966 to 1978, Balaguer engineered a hybrid regime of authoritarian

polyarchy with neopatrimonial features, in which elections were characterized by uneven

party competition, divided opposition and persistent fraud.38

In 1978, a historic victory by

the main opposition party ushered in more open electoral competition, but once in power,

the left governed ineffectively for two terms before succumbing to economic crisis.

Balaguer returned to win election twice more, occupying the Presidency until 1996,

bequeathing a vast but mixed legacy including patronage politics, paternalism and

Presidential initiative, as well as weak schools, admirable national parks and a three-party

system. Meanwhile, distorted economic development and recurring crises fueled steady

human outflows that would form into a massive emigrant population.39

Table 3.1 below

presents the chronology of overseas voting in relation to this history.

38 Hartlyn 1998. See also Bolívar Díaz, 1996, Trauma Electoral, 2da edición.

39 Itzigsohn (2000, 35) provides an overview of a predatory labor regime, crisis, and restructuring via

labor export.

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The country's three main political parties are linked to dominant personalities,

while the use of clientelism internally and external outreach have figured prominently in

their strategies. In 1939, Juan Bosch founded the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD)

while in exile in Havana, Cuba. Balaguer built his base off of Trujillo's political

organization to form the conservative Reform Party (PR), which evolved over the ensuing

decades with bases in the Catholic church, the business sector and rural poor. The PRD

was the main opposition party throughout the 1960's, developing a progressive

internationalist doctrine of social democracy and mass organization. But it struggled

under Balaguer's rule, and an internal leadership conflict over opposition strategy led to a

split between Bosch and José Francisco Peña Gómez, who matched mass organization

abilities with ambitious international outreach efforts, to the diaspora but also to foreign

leaders of the mainstream left such as Edward Kennedy and François Mitterand.

Meanwhile, Bosch, who had always frowned upon retail politics and whose radicalism

had been accentuated by the experience of the coup and U.S. intervention, sought a

harder line.

In 1973, Bosch left the PRD to form the Party of the Democratic Liberation

(PLD), which was distinguished by its rigorous attention to doctrine and tutelage of

political leaders. The PLD's scholasticism attracted Leonel Fernández Reyna, an eloquent

young lawyer who had grown up in New York. Fernández would fuse his mentor's

intellectual worldliness with a more optimistic form of liberalism, in which the

possibilities of diaspora were meted out in the material bounty and social progress

attained in the USA. As Bosch's protégé, Fernández would lead the PLD to electoral

victory in 1996 and again in 2004 and 2008, re-founding it as a mass party with a base of

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support among urban middle-class Dominicans and a doctrine emphasizing liberalization,

education, and engagement with the diaspora.

State-diaspora relations during the Balaguer era were marked by distance and an

almost complete lack of contact on both sides, including hostile police treatment of

migrants and a predatory bureaucracy.40

In the midst of economic crisis and burgeoning

emigration, broad domestic opposition to Balaguer's latest electoral manipulations in

1994 led first to crisis and then to a major political agreement that paved the way for a

new national direction. With Peña Gómez leading the PRD and Fernández leading the

PLD, the country's new leadership advanced a slate of constitutional reforms including

double nationality and overseas voting rights.

40 Reformist party sources offered a more benign view of state neglect, contrasting today's consular levies

on diaspora with the more modest, prudent approach to governance in the consulates in the 1970s and

1980s. Balaguer eschewed air travel and international debt, and his clientelism respected territorial

limits. Ironically, Balaguer's contempt for dependency on foreign lenders would give rise to the

country's remittance dependency by the mid-1990s, and the conditions under which transnational

patronage would become a problem.

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Table 3.1 Overseas Voting in Dominican Historical Context

1916 - 1924 U.S. occupation of Dominican Republic

1923 Electoral law establishing Junta Central Electoral

1924 - 1930 Horacio Vasquez elected President in 1924 and 1928

1930 - 1961 Trujillo dictatorship

1939 PRD Dominican Revolutionary Party founded in Cuba by Bosch and other exiles

1961 - 1966 Constitutionalist interregnum & U.S. invasion

1962 - 1963 Juan Bosch elected President and rule until military-led coup forces him into

exile

1963 Joaquin Balaguer assumes Presidency and founds the PR Partido Reformísta

1965 U.S. invades after civil conflict between "constitutionalist" and conservatives

1965-70 Emigration broadens as middle-class professionals leave Santo Domingo

1966 - 1978 Balaguer's hybrid regime of authoritarian polyarchy (Hartlyn)

1966, '70, '74 Balaguer wins Presidential elections over divided PRD

1973 PLD Dominican Liberation Party founded by Bosch who defects from PRD

1978 - present Open electoral competition and alternation

1978 - 1986 PRD rule for two Presidential terms

1984 Economic crisis

1986 - 1996 PR rule under Balaguer for two and a half terms

1994 Disputed election results in national crisis leading to Pact for Democracy

1994 Pact for Democracy‘s Constitutional reforms establish dual nationality and overseas voting rights

1996 - 2000 PLD rule for one term (Leonel Fernández)

1997 Dominican Congress passes law 295-97 guaranteeing overseas citizens right to vote for Pres., VP

2000 election requires overseas Dominicans to return to national territory to vote

2000 - 2004 PRD rule for one term (Hipolyte Mejia)

2001-04 Junta Central sets procedures, establishes Office for the External Vote

2004 55,000 overseas Dominicans register to vote, emitting 35,000 votes in the Presidential election

2004 - 2008 PLD rule (Fernández)

2006 Fernandez founds Presidential Consultative Councils of Dominicans Abroad

2007 JCE approves overseas issuance of electoral IDs, Office for Electoral Registry Abroad (OPREE)

2008 155,000 overseas Dominicans register, emitting 75,000 votes in the Presidential elections

2008 President Fernández (PLD) wins re-election for third term

2009 Constitutional reforms to establish overseas legislative seats supported by President, opposition

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II Alternative explanations

What feature of the Dominican Republic or its diaspora has led the country to

adopt such an expansive institution for overseas elections? Existing literature on overseas

voting in the Dominican Republic has been descriptive and country-specific;41

the

slightly broader research on Dominican political transnationalism addresses the question

by implication. Research by Levitt and Doré Cabral, Guarnizo, and Itzigsohn show three

distinct analytical perspectives, respectively suggesting explanations based on external

normative influences, historical-structural factors, and domestic incentive structures.

Each sheds light on certain dynamics of the institution-building process, however none

captures the outcomes in the two cases satisfactorily.

The challenge for each view is to show why party leaders across all parties decide

to vote for the chosen institution and to abide by it. In the Dominican Republic, as in

Mexico, a consensus emerges that finds support of elites independent of party affiliations.

In this regard, norms-based explanations need to show clear evidence that cultural factors

shape actor interests or define the agenda on overseas voting. Furthermore, analytically,

the standard of causal argumentation requires showing that cultural element is prior to

clear material interests of political actors, exerting direct independent effects on the

outcome.

In the Dominican Republic, democracy-rights norms associated with globalization

are present, but it is not clear that they directly affect the treatment of overseas voting.

Existing scholarship has focused upon diaspora agency in directly transmitting new ideas,

practices and behaviors to their kin and community members in their home village.

41 Key early works on the case are Aquino 2000, Duarte 2003, Itzigsohn 2003 and Arias Nuñez 2007.

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Anticipating political effects, Levitt introduced social remittances as ―the ideas,

behaviors, and social capital that flow from receiving to sending communities,‖

identifying an emerging Dominican diaspora (2001, 14). But Levitt finds little evidence

of political norm change even at a municipal level in her research on political

organization. Similarly, in terms of national institutional outcomes, evidence of direct

diaspora impact upon home country political norms proved to be exceptional, and very

often negative. As the next section shows, my research found that norms flowed in the

opposite direction, namely in the export of domestic political understandings and

practices.

At the national level, norms-based accounts that emphasize the Dominican

diaspora fall short of documenting external impact upon institutional change. For

example, Doré Cabral's explanation for the turn in Dominican state-diaspora relations

leads to a one-sided view of overseas voting (2006). In this strong transnationalist

perspective, the main factors responsible for the changing treatment of the diaspora are

the formation of a transnational social space, social differentiation within the diaspora,

and the vanguard intellectuals who develop an autonomous voice that sharply challenges

the constructs of an exclusive status quo. This is all important. Yet while the analysis

identifies trends and capacities associated with a new diaspora voice, it does not locate

mechanisms linking overseas debates to national politics involving vested domestic

actors who sign off on rulemaking decisions. More basically, this view points to

misleading conclusions about who is steering and defining the outcome in question.

A structural perspective addresses the question in relation to large-scale factors

such as the nation's position in the world political economy, the historical legacies of state

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institutions, and the geopolitics of U.S. hegemony. Comparing the different historical

characteristics of U.S. diplomacy and migratory patterns across the two cases, Guarnizo

concludes that Dominican political transnationalism is bottom-up as a result of the

historical tradition of overseas political opposition (1998, 66). But the distinction

between bottom-up and top-down is misleading, and the historical tradition of overseas

activism is important but not binding. The path-dependence of overseas voting

institutions is limited by the multiple options available for legislators to change the rules

in one direction or another throughout time, and secondly by the dynamic nature of

diaspora society and the ways in which its leaders interact with political elites.

In a more measured application of the structural perspective, Juan José Martínez

of the Dominican Foreign Service outlined the key concerns of state in his contribution to

an early study commissioned by the electoral authority (2000). Grounding the analysis in

the Dominican experience of democratization, he explained the overseas voting item as a

result of historical moment, and he differed with those emphasizing diaspora participation

rights as a leading factor. Martínez predicted a low level of participation due to the

absence of a representative post established for the diaspora. And he highlighted state

concerns in the need for a census of Dominicans abroad, an updated matricula consular,

and an awareness of the prison populations in New York and New Jersey of 7,300

Dominican citizens.

In the most complete account of Dominican overseas citizenship to date, Itzigsohn

utilizes Hartlyn's framework to develop a three-part argument to explain the expansive

implementation of overseas voting (2004a). He cites three processes of democratic

consolidation, remittance dependency and diaspora organization as the most important

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factors for the extension of political citizenship to migrants. Noting the vicissitudes of

Dominican political history (repression and political emigration, clientelism and fraud),

along with the international economic forces shaping state-diaspora politics (remittance

dependency and transnational social networks), Itzigsohn reviews state-diaspora relations

over different historical periods, describing Trujillo's garrison state (1931-1961),

Balaguer's hegemony (1966-1994), and the role of political emigration in stabilizing the

latter. The analysis then turns to the key action on the ground, documenting Leonel

Fernández' exchange with a Providence Dominican about delays in implementation (270-

271). Here we see the efflorescence of Dominican diaspora politics.

Appropriately wary of overestimating the extent of diaspora electoral participation

by extrapolation, Itzigsohn points to the important steps in the continuing political

process of diaspora institution-building, and he notes that its continuing expansion will

depend upon upward growth of migration and remittances. Indeed, subsequent events

have confirmed the upward trend-line in electoral institution-building for diaspora

politics, even as remittance growth has dropped sharply and nearly become negative, a

subtle but important fact that points to the autonomy of political processes from social

forces.

My argument builds off of the multi-level framework established in the literature

on the Dominican Republic and deepens the political analysis of state-diaspora relations.

As comparative analysis in chapters two and five establishes, the two contextual factors

of democratic consolidation and economic globalization are respectively necessary and

favorable for open overseas voting. However, in themselves or together, they do not

determine the OV outcome. Indeed, by 1995, a permissive setting for robust transnational

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politics had developed, but other institutional outcomes were possible. What specifically

led the Dominican case to go in the direction of expansive overseas elections? Here,

causal analysis directs our attention to the interactions of political actors who push for

open implementation and the insider politicians who consistently support them, as

opposed to diaspora organizations or Santo Domingo ruling insiders per se. As I argue, a

specific set of evolving institutional structures and incentives is guiding this transnational

political entrepreneurship. In particular, risk-free opportunities for overseas fundraising

and other clientelistic benefits available in the absence of national controls have spurred

the continuing expansiveness of OV in the Dominican case. Party leaders and migrant

political entrepreneurs embedded in dense cross-border networks have been more

important to the outcome than diaspora group leaders.

III State-diaspora relations in the Dominican Republic

A diaspora politics framework focuses upon the interactions between state, party

and migrant actors in terms of overseas voting institutional outcomes. In the Dominican

Republic, the politics of OV and the expansive result have been driven less by diaspora

demand than by supply factors in the domestic polity. The following analysis highlights a

divided and poorly organized diaspora, assertive party entrepreneurs, and the permeable,

spineless character of the electoral authority and the foreign ministry's consulates.

Dominican diaspora actors: Overseas Dominicans have played a limited role in

shaping the overseas voting institution due to the diaspora‘s internal contradictions. To

date, overseas residents have developed little in the way of institutionalized capacities

specifically geared to lobby the homeland on concrete political objectives such as

overseas voting rights – for three main reasons. Limited institutional development, the

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particular manner in which Dominican political parties have organized their transnational

structures, and conflict between home-country and resident-country activism have

together undermined the formation of any broadly organized diaspora coalition. The

absence of such a diaspora political voice and arm is somewhat counterintuitive in the

face of the Dominican diaspora‘s uniquely dynamic demographics and political culture.

Estimates of the Dominican overseas citizen population range from 1 to 1.6

million, roughly 10 to 16% of the total national population of 9.9 million in 2005.42

Overseas Dominicans are at once concentrated in the eastern U.S. while also classically

diasporic in their dispersion throughout the Caribbean and Europe. Approximately sixty-

five percent of U.S.-based Dominicans are concentrated in New York City, which is like

Los Angeles for Mexico, as the nation's second largest urban population after the national

capital though declining in relative importance. Between 1997 and 2002, two Dominican

newspapers published in New York covered the OV issue practically on a weekly basis,

but now they no longer circulate, replaced by an online press. Recent demographic

dispersion has created major growth destinations in New England, Miami and Spain, as

Internet technology has enabled Dominican migrants to maintain strong social networks

in the face of diminishing concentrations. The scale of the Dominican diaspora is large

for a country of its small-medium size. Among the consequences of this scale, the

diaspora reflects to a large degree the country's internal diversity, combining major

human talents, marketing opportunities, significant elite and upwardly mobile elements,

and a majority characterized by economically depressed conditions.

42 At the low end, UN data for 2004 point to an estimated global population of expatriate Dominicans of

1.03 million. Hernández and Rivera-Batíz (2003) estimated the total Dominican population in the U.S.

alone to be 1.04 million in 2000, which has been updated to 1.6 million for 2006; Valenzuela and Frias‘

Quisqueya Foundation reports estimated that total Dominican expatriates grew 17% from 2000 to 2005

to reach 1.6 million.

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Analyzed historically, Dominican migration has mainly been more recent than

Mexico's, originating in the 1960s and evolving in waves through the ensuing decades.

Due to Cold War history, the establishment of the first Balaguer government in 1966 and

the withdrawal of U.S. forces involved a migration arrangement that functioned as a

political escape hatch-cum-safety valve (Itzigsohn 2004a, 275). Designed to take pressure

off of the new regime, this arrangement ironically led to a concentration of politically

active regime opponents in New York, residing in the proverbial heart of the imperial

beast (Howard 2003, 58-60). In the 1970s, the tradition of opposition to Balaguer

persisted and reflected the split within the opposition left, as the New York PRD group

saw a subset of its ranks defect and establish the overseas arm of Bosch's PLD.

In the first of three internal contradictions, the institutional development of

Dominican diaspora society is mixed; despite an active and highly dynamic space in the

realm of culture, the limited civil society capacities that do exist have had little if any

impact in reforming the country's national institutions. Dominican diaspora organizations

mainly pursue campaigns and services that focus on Dominicans in the countries of

residence, namely the U.S. and Spain.43

According to one transnational expert, not a

single Dominican diaspora organization has played a significant role in institutional

reform processes associated with democratization beginning in the 1990s and

subsequently.44

The only non-partisan organization that exerted a consistent presence

within Dominican politics as an advocate for democratic reforms is the Santo Domingo-

43 These include the Dominican Studies Institute at City College, Alianza Dominicana in Paterson, NJ,

the Dominican-American National Roundtable (DANR), Grupo de Profesionales Dominicanos de

Washington, DC, in Madrid the VOMADE (Voluntariados de Madres Dominicanas). Business interests

that actively lobby include the National Grocery Market Association, New York taxi businesses, etc.,

as well as home country exporters.

44 Author's interview, Temple University political scientist, expert in Dominican politics, and columnist

for the daily Dominican newspaper Hoy, in Santo Domingo, 13 July 2007.

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based Participación Ciudadana (PC). While sympathetic to the overseas voting institution

and a source of expertise on the subject, PC has had surprisingly little substantive

collaboration with Dominican diaspora groups. Its director confirmed that the diaspora

civic groups had been a non-factor in the main institutional reform struggles of recent

decades including the overseas vote initiative.45

―The Dominicans have been good at

running, but not building,‖ according to a veteran Dominican lobbyist involved in U.S.

incorporation efforts.46

Two other polarities further sap the diaspora community of political force with

regard to home country change. The first polarity occurs within Dominican political

parties and refers to the relationship between home country insiders and diaspora

militants. Specifically, the national parties in Santo Domingo have structured and directed

the overseas cells. While these overseas party cells have formed from direct roots in the

local U.S.-based community, their growth has followed and depended upon the direction

of party leaders in Santo Domingo.

The second polarity refers to a broader split within Dominican diaspora society

between advocates of U.S.-oriented incorporation politics and proponents of home

country politics. Regarding home country politics, organization outside of the political

parties remains stunted. Dominican advocates of overseas voting have not established a

shared focal point for collective political action from the diaspora, let alone the capacities

to formulate and strategically deploy a binational lobbying campaign. Rather, the main

parties have provided the key rhetorical and organizational cues for the diaspora voting

agenda, with the state electoral board following in suit. More marginal have been a

45 Author's interview, Executive Director, Participación Ciudadana, Santo Domingo, 6 June 2007.

46 Author's interview, Former Vice President and Executive Director, Dominican American National

Roundtable, by telephone, New York, 21 September 2007.

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number of single-issue advocates of overseas voting, which are dominated by individual

personalities, lacking in programmatic depth and prone to polemical bids for publicity.47

In sum, the combination of weakly mobilized civil society focused to some extent on

U.S. incorporation efforts together with strong home country political parties has resulted

in the absence of a non-partisan political organization in the diaspora.

Political parties: Strong home country political parties have provided a ready-

made institutional site for Dominican diaspora activism. From grass-roots to leadership

levels, all three Dominican parties have devised and implemented outreach campaigns to

mobilize overseas Dominican communities and tap them for political resources, though

the Reformist party does not have the same historical base abroad enjoyed by the PRD

and PLD. All of the parties engage in fundraising abroad, centered in New York. This

activity boomed in the 1980s and 1990s in concert with the growing incomes of diaspora

Dominicans.

The diaspora has strong connections with the country, family connections, real estate . . .

but the most fluid contact is with the politics, above all when there are campaigns. For

the candidates remittances represent an important base of resources. They do fundraising.

The parties have comités de base structured as part of their overseas affiliates, each one,

especially the PLD, also the PRD, that they activate abroad also for internal [primary]

elections as well.48

The widespread move by Dominican politicians to conduct fundraising trips abroad has

been the greatest effect of economic remittances. The size of the flows functions as a

signal to politicians, who seek to raise funds across socioeconomic levels of society. The

awareness of the diaspora's economic importance to the country is nowhere better

47 The Comité de los Dominicanos en el Exterior (CODEX) has taken combative stances; another self-

appointed unit is the Foundation for the Defense of the Dominican in the Exterior (Rossi 2001,

Dominguez 2001). Home country interviewees made no mention of these groups or their heads, in

contrast to Mexico‘s insiders who grudgingly conceded some influence to the diaspora Coalición.

48 Author's interview (translation), Research Director and Professor of Education and Public Policy,

INTEC, Santo Domingo, 23 May 2007.

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reflected than in the thinking of President Fernández and his political advisors, one of

whom explained it as follows:

Think of it this way: they are only sending 8% of their checks in remittances . . . Now

what does this say about their total income? Dominicans abroad are sending $3 billion in

remittances, this means that their total income is greater than the national GDP of the

entire country here. President Fernandez is someone who is thinking about that fact.49

Analyzed from this view, the total income of Dominicans in the U.S. is about $30 billion,

an amount greater than the national GDP of $28 billion.

Campaign finance in the Dominican Republic is a massive but loosely regulated

affair. A 1997 law has led to a bloated campaign finance system, adding large-scale

public funding to uncontrolled private fundraising and rampant use of official resources.

Lack of transparency makes it difficult to evaluate estimates of the scale of overseas

fundraising.50

More importantly, the absence of state control opens the window to the

diaspora resource, and political competition plus clientelism disposes politicians to

pursue the abundant dollar streams.

Independent of its economic magnitude, political fundraising targeting diaspora

donors has had two key non-economic effects: first, it spurred politicians to propose

expansive overseas voting; and secondly, it prompted party leaders to commit to the full-

scale organization of overseas party affiliates. Years of overseas fundraising and promises

undelivered had disappointed diaspora Dominicans; they were ―giving but not receiving.‖

The disenchantment spurred the PRD under Peña Gómez to present a double nationality

49 Author's interview (translation), Research Director and Advisor to the President's Consultative

Councils for the Dominican Diapora, Fundacion Global, Santo Domingo, 25 May 2007.

50 Confirming the levels of budgetary funding and government spending is also very difficult. One news

report in Hoy (1/22/08 online) reported that government spending on campaign finance was set in the

2008 national budget at $RD 1 billion ($31 million US) to be distributed by the Junta Central to all of

the parties; the report also estimated that all of the parties together would privately raise and spend an

additional $RD 2 billion ($67 million US). However, as a total estimate for all spending in an election

year, the combined amount of $100 million US seems low, at less than a quarter of one percent of the

estimated Dominican GDP in 2007.

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amendment as part of a project to include the diaspora in the country's decision-making.51

Double nationality soon led to discussion of double citizenship, and the PLD's Leonel

Fernández delivered on his 1996 campaign promise when he signed an OV bill into law

in the first year of his first Presidential term.

Dominican parties approved the overseas voting law without objection in 1997,

―since all of the parties were already conducting overseas campaigns in the first place,‖ in

the words of one municipal party chairman who happened to be particularly perceptive

and informed about diaspora militancy.52

The law was not controversial since it ratified

existing practices, and it enjoyed broad support among Dominican elites because it

identified the desirable population of overseas Dominicans as a legitimate field for

growth. The law's passage has further tightened two overlapping sets of links: the broad

links that embed political parties within diaspora society, along with more specific links

within parties between home country and overseas actors.

Dominican parties are distinctive for the way that transnational entrepreneurship

is fueled by clientelism and occurs at all levels of the hierarchy. At lower levels, partisan

activities involve working class emigrants before and after they emigrate. In the medium-

sized central city of La Vega, such emigrants are more likely to be from parties outside of

the local government:

Of those who migrate from La Vega for destinations abroad . . . the large part are those

motivated by economic need, by the lack of opportunities here -- the middle class and

below, not licenciados. In terms of their party preference, these individuals tend to be

from parties of the opposition, since those who are with the governing party have a

chance to get a job with the government.53

Thus, a working class profile characterized the background and migration

51 Author's interview, General Secretary, Dominican Revolutionary Party, Santo Domingo, 24 July 2007.

52 Author's interview (translation), Secretary General & Campaign Director, La Vega PRD Municipal

Committee, 30 July 2007.

53 Author's interview, Local political director, La Vega, PRD, La Vega, 30 July 2007.

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experience of the Auxiliary Consul of Boston, who explained how his turn to diaspora

politics followed as a result of his attending the University of Massachusetts. One of

thirteen children, he emigrated to Boston seeking better opportunities in the early 1980s

(when the country's first PRD government grappled ineffectively with economic crisis),

and he worked in light manufacturing before rededicating himself to his education in his

late twenties. He was not especially politically active at the time of emigration, nor for

the first decade of life in the U.S. Rather, as he explained, it was through partisan

networks in the diaspora that he became activated.

I had a sympathy for the PLD at that time as the party of order. But I was not a militant.

When I entered University of Massachusetts, I found there were already three strong

organizations on campus of each of the main parties, and the PLD was the strongest. In

2002, I entered the PLD as a full-time member at UMass. We were very active, with

debates, building links to New York City . . . In 2004, I graduated, and since then, I have

stayed active in the New England division of the party. (translation)54

And in 2006, his exemplary discipline to self-improvement and to the service to the party

was rewarded with a patronage position in the Boston consulate. This individual's story

reflects a broader trend in which economic migration leads to overseas political activities

for many working and middle class Dominican emigrants.

Top party insiders in the Dominican Republic spurred overseas party growth in

the 1990s by designating the structure and participating themselves in the diaspora

organization. With younger entrepreneurs in the diaspora available to provide muscle and

local knowledge, elites and middle managers in the home country have kept abreast of

demographic dispersion and upwardly mobile segments of the diaspora to create new

cells. Close transnational networks and dense two-way exchange enable the sending

home of individual profits, whether to the accounts of one's party or family sponsor.

54 Author's interview, Auxiliary Consul and PLD activist in the New England affiliate of the party,

Consulate of the Dominican Republic, Boston, 17 May 2007.

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Overseas Dominicans stay informed about home country politics using the Internet and

frequent two-way travel, and they are very price-conscious, for example, shifting their

remittance payments home from dollars to goods in kind when the Dominican peso

recently strengthened against the U.S. currency.55

Motivating actors across levels is the

prospect of a lucrative slot in the consulate: for the party boss, a position as Consul in a

secondary city, perhaps; for the younger hand, a deputy or auxiliary consul position in

which the salary is twice the amount offered in the private sector with half the work. The

growth of the PLD and the PRD in the eastern U.S. is an example of this dynamism, with

each expanding out from New York to create new organizations in New England, New

Jersey and Florida.

With the goal of overseas elections set, party organization exported Dominican

politics to the diaspora, providing financial incentives to diaspora political entrepreneurs

to stir up participation. One example of the inventive clientelistic practices that this has

generated is transatlantic vote-buying. Vote-buying, a common practice in Dominican

politics, refers to the handing out to voters of cash or minor material goods by political

parties in exchange for the recipient's vote (Gonzalez-Acosta 2008). In 2000, with

Dominican parties organized abroad and overseas elections anticipated but not yet

authorized, and a close Presidential race, the price of a transatlantic vote was inflated to a

flight reservation and discounted fare. PLD and PRD entrepreneurs raised funds abroad

to cover travel costs and arranged special charter flights to transport overseas Dominicans

home to vote in the election; tens of thousands of voters arrived from New York and other

diaspora cities to Santo Domingo's Aeropuerto de las Americas, making a vivid splash for

55 Author's interview, Secretary General & Campaign Director, La Vega PRD Municipal Committee, 30

July 2007.

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campaign organizers and journalists.56

Again in 2002, in a national election without

overseas voting, party entrepreneurs organized mass airline travel to Santo Domingo for

the election.57

Since the OV law's first implementation in 2004, inter-party strife over voting

rules has not slowed the steady expansion of overseas party activity. Dominican parties

have continued to take their campaigns to the voters abroad. Table 3.2 shows a pair of

vivid images from the most recent Presidential campaign. Electoral participation in the

diaspora has clearly resulted in colorful politics, but it has also resulted in the problematic

expansion of overseas patronage and corruption. As we will see, clientelistic practices

have continued unabated in the governments of Mejía (2000-2004) and Fernández II

(2004-2008).

56 Tejada, Diógenes. 2000. Miles de 'ausentes' llegan para votar el 16. Hoy, Santo Domingo, 9 May, p. 9.

57 Sierra, Alduey. 2002. Miles viajan a votar a RD. Ultima Hora, New York, 14 May.

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Table 3.2 Pitching for Diaspora Support

State actors: The third and last set of relevant actors for investigation in the OV

institution building process is that of key government units, namely the Dominican

electoral authority and foreign ministry. The absence of an institutionalized foreign

ministry and a fully autonomous electoral agency permits Dominican party actors to

engage in unfettered overseas politicking. Recent efforts to strengthen the institutional

bases of these two units have resulted in little change. Instead, evidence of transnational

patronage centered at the consulates abounds, even as it serves the latter object of

LEFT: Flanked by diaspora PR organizers of Dominican Night in Miami, opposition candidate Miguel Vargas Maldonado (PRD) throws out the ceremonial first pitch of the New York Mets-Florida Marlins baseball game, Sep. 21, 2007. © DiarioDigital RD, Multimedia.

RIGHT: Showing who's the boss in the diaspora, the pinstripe-clad President Fernández performs similar honors before receiving an ovation from a roaring crowd of 40,000 at New York's Yankee Stadium, Sep. 23, 2007. © Hoy Digital, Santo Domingo.

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supporting overseas participation.

Central Electoral Board (JCE): Originally formed under U.S. occupation in

1923, the Junta Central Electoral reflects the national evolution from dictatorship to

pluralistic authoritarianism to competitive clientelism.58

The Junta has served less as

leading institution than as an arena for conflict between political forces, weakening its

effectiveness as a result. Its internal divisions are evident in recurring budget disputes, in

its mixed record at implementing electoral law, and in its own organizational structure,

which pits one chamber of appointed judges responsible for administration alongside a

second chamber tasked with legal review and dispute resolution roles. The recent

introduction of new technologies has nevertheless made voting more accessible and

secure for the public in the territory and externally, including revamped high-security

IDs, digital scanner machines, and extensive training.

In 1998, the Junta appointed Dr. Luis Arias, a respected international lawyer, to

oversee a study and planning along with five other experts. The commission was charged

with conducting a detailed analysis of overseas voting in all aspects and creating a census

of Dominican expatriates (López 1998). A year later, Arias announced to New York

Dominicans that OV would not be ready for the 2000 election, but he indicated the JCE's

intention to set up a full-scale system for registration and issuance of credentials directly

to Dominicans abroad.59

For the 2004 implementation of overseas voting, divisions between the PRD

58 Recent internal audits of the JCE database have found that records from the Balaguer era remain

incomplete while the quality of its data since 1994 is much improved. Author's interview, Political

scientist and investigator, Directorate of Investigation and Analysis, Executive Office of the

Presidency, Santo Domingo, 10 July 2007.

59 Vinuales, David. 1999. Las elecciones del 2002, la nueva meta del voto en el exterior. Listín Diario, 11

June.

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government and its opponents played out within the Junta, leading to a weak

implementation of the electoral law. During this period, the PRD enjoyed an

overwhelming control of the Congress in addition to the Presidency, leading it to appoint

a PRD-leaning slate of trustees for the board. The profile of the PRD appointees together

with their close collaboration with Junta personnel in the consulates discredited the JCE

leadership, setting up ongoing rounds of confusion as the months passed leading up to the

2004 elections (Duarte 2003, 16). The JCE established offices in the different cities but

was unable to issue credentials abroad. Forced to extend the enrollment deadline for

overseas voters, it reported 55,000 inscriptions among overseas Dominicans, a total equal

to 1.6% of the overall national registry and a number that disappointed Dominican

observers.

Even amidst the political stalemate of the first period of implementation, the

expansive format of the JCE's implementation was evident in the continuity of the

registry: when a voter registers abroad, not only does the JCE drop her name from the

domestic padrón, but her name remains on the overseas registry permanently unless she

informs the JCE that it should be dropped or moved back to national territory. The

permanent character of the Dominican OV institution, along with its relative accessibility,

makes it distinct from that of most other nations, which require voters to re-inscribe on a

regular basis generally. Also in 2002, Arias was promoted to President of the JCE, a

selection showing the importance of OV in the Dominican Republic: that it would be not

only a good career spot, but that the Dominican leadership would task its design and

rollout to their strongest leader and future board chairman Arias.

Within an institutional context that is highly politicized and nontransparent, the

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JCE has nevertheless managed to take a concerted set of steps to implement overseas

voting on a fuller scale for the 2008 election. In 2007, the JCE posted civilian personnel

to main diaspora cities to conduct registration and issuance of electoral identification,

with one staff person per city and often using satellite offices and mobile operations -

including Boston, New York, Paterson (NJ), Miami, San Juan, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome

and Paris among 21 cities in all.60

For the Junta and its job of administering the overseas voting, the cost difficulties

and diaspora demands of early years have given way to expensive activities in recent

years. Estimates of total annual spending on OV have ranged from $10 million US to $40

million. Clearly, overseas elections enable a bureaucratic form of clientelism,

empowering the JCE President to appoint personnel and dispense resources for the many

overseas offices. Voices claiming that expensive foreign postings and junkets come at the

expense of citizen needs at home have been few to date, though they are increasing

(Espinal 2006b, Alfonseca 2008). More basically, all of the parties support this activity.

For the 2008 election, more sustained promotion efforts resulted in the registration

of 155,000 overseas voters, an amount equal to 2.7% of total registered voters. The JCE

even cried victory at the registration target reached in a statement that invites scrutiny:

The number of overseas Dominicans who registered in the electoral padrón, rising to

153,584 voters, will oblige the candidates of the parties to direct their campaign toward

this population, particularly since the majority of presidential elections held in the

country have been decided by a difference of less than 100,000 votes.61

It is possible that the registration figures announced have been distorted upward, since the

60 Additional offices included Saint Martin, Philadelphia, Panamá, Zurich, Curacao, Washington,

Amsterdam, Aruba, Caracas, Tampa, Orlando and Virginia. The Boston unit of the JCE ran a field

operation that conducted outreach regularly on weekend days throughout summer and fall 2007 in

Providence, Central Falls, Hartford, Worcester, Lawrence, Lynn, and Revere, among other towns with

Dominican communities in New England.

61 Author's translation of notice obtained from official government website, JCE Voto Dominicano en el

Exterior, 26 February 2008.

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Junta has an incentive to post a high number. No one has said so, but the mechanisms for

independent observations of overseas voting are limited. As well, JCE professionalism is

improving but still spotty, and the organization's leadership remains weak.62

On election day 2008, the JCE counted 76,000 overseas votes for a participation

rate of 49% of those registered. Various factors that may have been involved in the

considerable drop in participation rate include the solid lead of the incumbent Fernández

in pre-election polls, the timing of the election on a Friday, and perhaps even the rainy

weather in New York City. Nevertheless, the lower than expected participation does not

allay suspicions that the JCE may have inflated its count of registered voters or utilized

generous standards in hopes of hitting a predetermined registration target.

Foreign Ministry: The absence of an institutionalized foreign service in the

Dominican Republic means that the Foreign Ministry is weak in relation to political

parties, which undermines long-term policy formulation and enables the politicization of

consular appointments. The Cold War's end has reduced the Dominican Republic's power

in relation to the U.S. and removed much of the diplomatic leverage of the Dominican

President and his Ambassador in Washington. The recent shift has exposed a divide

between a policy-minded embassy, itself undermanned and scrambling to adapt to a new

diplomatic environment, and a fluid, growing set of independent consulates oriented to

diaspora politics and local communities. This results in the absence of a coordinated

policy of state, a poor quality of consular services, and low-grade corruption. As the PRD

62 As one country expert observed, ―the institutional culture in the Dominican Republic is to be very

good with the normativity, but when it comes to the implementation, the execution often comes up

short of the mark.‖ Author's telephone interview, Former World Bank Senior Country Officer for the

Dominican Republic (2000-2005), present World Bank Director, DR and Haiti unit, by telephone

(Providence-Washington, DC), 8 May 2007.

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party chief explained, ―a policy of state to include the diaspora is missing.‖63

Both parties

advocate legislation to professionalize the foreign service, and the Fernández

administration has plans for a diplomatic academy. But the condition stands.

One PLD Deputy on the Committee for Overseas Dominicans cited numerous

complaints about inadequate, expensive consular services made to her by overseas

Dominicans during her recent trip to Barcelona and Madrid. She identified the need for

legislative reform:

The consulates are very politicized, they are not working for the community or for the

Dominican foreign representation. The reform that is needed ... it cannot be discretionary,

on the part of the Presidency and the Foreign Ministry, which devolves the question

always to the Consulates. Rather we have to make a reform by Congressional law, with

our action in the Congress. (translation)64

However, continuing clientelistic practices make reform initiatives dubious. One

disappointment is the stalled effort of President Fernández to form consultative

committees in the diaspora cities. The aim was to create an enduring government policy

by instituting Presidential councils that would enable diaspora participation through

investment, teaching, and collective organization. The intention was good, according to

one analyst, but its implementation required consular capacities that do not exist:

The idea of creating a policy of state required a serious study of the overseas Dominican

population. To realize this idea, it was agreed that the consulates would be those to put it

in motion . . . which led to problems, because it required a more systematic coordination

than the individual consulates were able to realize.65

A major part of the politicization of the consulates is the effective independence

of consular chiefs in diaspora cities from the Minister of Foreign Relations and the

Ambassador, particularly in matters of budget. The traditional hierarchy in which orders

come to the consul from the national capital via the embassy does not hold. In addition to

63 Author's interview, General Secretary, Dominican Revolutionary Party, Santo Domingo, 24 July 2007.

64 Author's interview, Congresswoman (Deputy), PLD-Santo Domingo, Chamber of Deputies, National

Congress, Santo Domingo, 2 August 2007.

65 Author's interview, Research Director, Professor of Education, INTEC, Santo Domingo, 23 May 2007.

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the diminished geopolitical leverage of the top Dominican diplomat, a second major post-

Cold War fact sustaining the rise of the consulates is the material shift generated by labor

export and the consequent importance of the diaspora community to domestic politics.

Dominican Consuls serve at the pleasure of the President and his party leadership, and

their importance stems from their ability to harness a dynamic local economic and social

base. Once installed, they control their budget entirely; they are not part of the national

budget. Thus, it is said that the New York consulate generates monthly revenues from

$300,000 to $600,000 on fees for documents and other charges for transporting items

such as autos, children or cadavers, not to mention revenues from commercial patrons. A

large portion of the consulate's net earnings after expenses go not to Dominican

government, but rather to the Consul for distribution to his political sponsors—some for

his President, some for his party, and some for himself (Vega 2002, 324).

A key rule is that one's service to the local party determines one's rank in the

government. The last three governments have appointed the head of the New York branch

of their respective party to be the Consul. One's rank in the local party determines one's

chances of obtaining a consular post, making electoral performance in party primaries

significant. In 2007, the PLD held its first national primary with full-scale participation

in the overseas territory, with 90 voting centers (4% of 2300), with approximately 45,000

overseas party members registered to vote with observation by the federal electoral

authority.66

The consular patronage system generates aspirations among the diaspora for

inclusion in the division of spoils, which spurs participation and also leads to a

generalized push to establish new consulates. A problem is that many of the Dominican

66 Clave Digital. 2007. Primer boletín será a las 10 PM. Santo Domingo, 5 May.

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consulates are not officially recognized by the U.S., which limits official access and

privileges such as diplomatic immunity.67

The consequences of the politicization of the consulates have included breaches

of international law, fraudulent electoral implementation, and onerous charges and fees—

from one government to the next. Recurring scandals under the governments of

Fernández I (1996-2000), Mejia (2000 - 2004), and Fernández II (2004 - 2008) illustrate

the cycle of exposé followed by continuity in clientelistic practices.68

Under Mejia, the

JCE had to close the newly opened Philadelphia consulate after improper meddling in the

electoral registration process was detected.69

In recent years, appointing consuls with

U.S. nationality or residency has become a common practice, due to the strong interest in

votes and other support from the diaspora. Early in 2007, the Dominican Foreign

Minister announced its plans to recall three Consuls in New York, Miami and Puerto Rico

following U.S. petitions citing the Vienna Convention prohibitions on the confirmation of

diplomats who are residents or citizens.70

The Dominican delegation at the U.N. is famed

for its ―no-show jobs,‖ known locally as botellas,71

while the Dominican delegation at the

Vatican has more appointees than any country but Germany.

Another important element in Dominican consular patronage, along with political

parties, is private commerce. Clientelistic politics allows business actors an effective

67 Ibid, 326.

68 Forero, Juan. 2000. Inquiry on Moneymaking at Dominican Consulate. New York Times. 17 October.

69 Moreno, Pilar, 2002. JCE suspende registro de votantes en EEUU. Listín Diario, 20 December. In

2002, JCE head Rafael Morel Cerda announced the suspension of the JCE's recently opened

Philadelphia office and its director. The suspension came in response to allegations by the PRSC that

the Philadelphia consulate had illegally taken over the registration process. Morel Cerda assured the

media that the JCE had caught and corrected 95% of the documents submitted with irregularities

including registrations and birth certificates.

70 Dominican Today. 2007. Dominican Republic to replace U.S. consuls. Santo Domingo, 22 January.

Available online at: http://www.dominicantoday.com/app/article.aspx?id=21707 (20 Feb. 2010).

71 Dominican slang mocks empty state offices and ghost workers that resemble crates of used bottles.

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means to access transnational markets as well as government favors. It provides mutually

profitable opportunities for party actors and national business leaders. Export promotion

is a function of consulates not only in the diaspora cities but also in capitals of large

market countries, such as Tokyo and Brasilia; in the diaspora cities, the traditional export

promotion opportunities are matched by the ―nostalgia trade‖72

for exporters of national

brand consumer products along with distribution of exclusive licenses on import trades.

As a result, foreign commercial patronage within the context of a weak foreign ministry

can mean additional revenues for consular officials and their party agendas.

International trade thus generates material resources for overseas party-building as

well as the political support of national business leaders and middlemen for diaspora

electoral participation. One face of commercial patronage is export promotion on behalf

of the traditional national champions-- the large-scale private corporations with lucrative

businesses producing Dominican brands of beer and rum for the domestic market that

then grow through export to the overseas population. A second face of the same is the

boost that consular machine-building brings to mid-size transnational business activities

of diaspora entrepreneurs. Typically, these import autos, transmit remittances, develop

real estate and hotels, etc. In particular, automobile imports have offered an especially

profitable area for patronage dealings, generating large rents shared between government,

political appointees and importers.73

In this manner, politically connected merchants pay

for exclusive licenses that allow them to bring cars to the island and charge home-country

residents a heavy premium. Seeking to break down such patronage deals, diaspora

72 The ―nostalgia trade‖ of is part of an industrial complex that Orozco identifies with labor export

economies, including as well remittance transfers, tourism, transport, telecommunications (2005, 330).

73 dr1.com. 2008. Cars are a goldmine (27 February), Santo Domingo, from a report in Hoy. In 2007 the

Tax Department reported collections of RD$1.62 billion (US $50 million) in registration taxes on sales

of 17,882 imported autos. On each vehicle sold, the government collects 17% in registration fees.

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citizens have lobbied Dominican legislators directly to support a bill that would exempt

one-time personal imports of 4-cylinder vehicles from taxes and fees.74

The phenomenon of consular patronage has not characterized the embassy in

Washington, which follows a diplomatic view in understanding its role as handling the

national interest on the part of the state. Moreover, the divergence reveals a split between

working class Dominicans in diaspora cities and elite Dominicans and professional

Dominican-Americans focusing on reform. The Dominican Ambassador to the U.S.

offered his perspective on the split and his impression of the surprisingly strong staying

power of home country clientelism:

As Dominicans became established here (in the U.S.) and in Europe, Spain, as they get

into good jobs and set up firms, I had the idea that they would become less dependent

upon national politics. I thought there was going to be a change in attitudes. But this

experience has not made a considerable impact of how people see Dominican politics. At

the level of the elite, they are very critical of clientelism, of the culture and degree of

politicization, at the (Dominican-American) Round Table, at the academic level, but the

people at the community . . . when they engage in politics, their expectations continue to

be similar to those associated with the predominant outlook about political participation

in the home country. 75

This contradicts the version of political remittances in which diaspora spurs home

country change; rather, home country culture appears to be colonizing the political arenas

and behavior of diaspora communities. In addition to a silent majority of Dominican

migrants who have tuned out of politics altogether, he identified two active groups, one at

the elite level and the other oriented to home country politics, and then offered an honest

description of the latter:

Of the people who are active in politics .. there is one group of those who live here but

replicate what they are doing back there, party events etc., those militants who actually

control the process. These people are still trapped within that framework of clientelistic

politics. I have devoted a great deal of time to the Dominican community, to New York,

74 Meeting of the Commission on Dominicans in the Exterior, Cámara de Diputados 29 July 2007,

Chairman, Dip. Rafael Francisco Vasquez, Santo Domingo, National Congress. From author‘s record.

75 Author's interview, by telephone, Ambassador of the Dominican Republic to the United States, Santo

Domingo-Washington, 26 July 2007.

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to Boston, to Lawrence, to Miami. I found nice people doing wonderful things but in

general I see .. the same thing .. I was hoping that there would be a change ... beyond the

―Grandma, vote for Hipolyte‖ pattern.76

IV Instituting diaspora voting: Exporting the Dominican polity

For labor export nations confronting the issue of diaspora enfranchisement, the

type of overseas state structures is a crucial factor in the particular institutional outcome.

Economic remittances and political competitiveness are necessary but not sufficient for

open voting institutions, which depend upon how they are mediated by a structural

characteristic of the national regime, namely the bureaucratic strength and ideology of the

foreign ministry and the electoral commission. How does this work out? Concretely, the

consulates are vital centers of overseas politics in the diaspora cities, and the preferences,

institutional incentives and power relations of those who staff them affect the formation

of political institutions, both locally and in the home arena. In order to hold overseas

elections, the foreign ministry and the electoral commission coordinate a policy to

designate an area and/or locate staff in the consulates. In Mexico, with its professional

foreign service made up of government-appointed career officers and assistants, the

consular staff was neither professionally equipped nor interested in registering Mexican

emigrants to vote. Together with a risk-averse electoral body, this restricted the election.

In the Dominican Republic, in contrast to Mexico, the absence of a professional

foreign ministry opens the organs of state to prevailing non-state actors, enabling parties

and their emigrant agents to develop clientelistic relationships with leading segments of

diaspora society. A clientelistic relationship is based on fees for service. The parties and

the President appoint the consuls based on political service. The consulship is lucrative

due to the guaranteed revenues from fees charged to the local community and the

76 Ibid.

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prospect of additional earnings from entrepreneurship as the central figure of a vibrant

hub. The consul sets the level of the fees and the budget for each consulate, not the

Foreign Ministry in Santo Domingo.77

Political service rendered includes past and future

political support of the President and his party, through campaign activities, local party-

building, and monitoring of election administration.

For overseas voting, the result of transnational clientelism is that Dominican

consuls thus face multiple incentives to support expansive voting rules. Overseas

elections allow them to actively tap into remittance-sending communities in diaspora

society and integrate the consulates into cross-border patronage networks.

The growth of transnational patronage machines can be seen in the frequent

opening and closing of offices in secondary cities as a function of the electoral calendar.

When the JCE dispatches an electoral commission staff to a non-core city for a one-year

appointment, an honorary consul is appointed or an entire new consular office is opened

to coordinate and support. Openings and closings in cities such as Philadelphia, Montreal,

Miami, Caracas, and Milan are related to allegations of petty electoral fraud.

Recent steps to establish diaspora representation in the Congress confirm the

persistence of transnational patronage networks in Dominican politics. In 2008, following

the Presidential election, the electoral commission forwarded recommendations to the

Congress to set aside two Senate seats out of 34 and seven seats in the Chamber of

Deputies out of 200.78

In May of 2009, President Fernández and opposition leader Vargás

agreed to a framework for Constitutional reforms including the JCE plank related to

77 Author‘s interview, former Dominican Ambassador to the U.S., Santo Domingo, 27 July 2007.

78 Letter from JCE President Roberto Rosario to Senate leaders, ―Comisión Especial Bicameral

encargada del estudio del Proyecto de Ley de Reforma Constitucional‖ 16 October 2008, Junta Central

Electoral.

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overseas deputies, which analysts expect to pass based on national consensus.79

Table 3.3 summarizes the key differences between two different types of state

structure and the ways that they impact overseas voting institutions. Appendix III

presents a graphic sketch of the consular patronage network, identifying a number of the

sorts of cross-border clientelistic relationships that Dominicans from all segments and

persuasions described as routine in interviews.

Table 3.3 State structure beyond the territory

Strong foreign ministry

(Mexico)

Consular patronage

(Dominican Republic)

Main actors Institutionalized state Political parties, private interests

Consular personnel Foreign policy elite

Career diplomatic officers

State bureaucratic liaisons

Political appointees

Transnational party entrepreneurs

Local party leaders

Formal objective Represent state and serve overseas nationals

Informal

responsibilities

Avoid negative publicity

Promote state programs

Support state foreign policy

Political reporting for ministry

Raise revenues from services

Monitor electoral organization

Grow local party, raise funds

Aid party's re-election at home

Accountability Foreign Ministry

Executive, legislative leaders

President (head of party)

National parties and local cells

Local diaspora elite

Budget flows Consular budget and fees for

services set in national capital

Consular revenues outside of state

budget control; Consuls set fees.

Overseas voting

response

Oppose diaspora voting, highlight

its risks, and

obstruct voter outreach.

Encourage open voting,

pursue patronage opportunities,

organize overseas party building.

OV rules outcome Prohibitive or restrictive Expansive

79 Clave Digital. 2009. Pacto retoma prohibición de reelección de 1994. 14 May. Available online at:

http://www.clavedigital.com/App_Pages/Portada/Titulares.aspx?id_Articulo=18176 (20 Feb. 2010).

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The concept of the consular patronage network identifies material and social bases

that help explain the special vibrancy and persistence of Dominican transnational politics.

The phenomenon is not without controversy within the broader Dominican and

Dominican-American societies. Issues and fault lines have emerged related to foreign

policy and immigration incorporation politics. One divergence has emerged between

immigrant groups focused on immigration law in the U.S. and emigrants focused upon

home country politics. Two brands of reform-oriented politics run against long-distance

participation in home country politics, First, from a foreign policy perspective, the

Dominican Ambassador to the U.S. pointed to the concerns of state that would benefit the

diaspora communities, including more attention to health problems, crime, and the need

for ongoing organization.80

Secondly, within the diaspora society, a forceful political

center is emerging around the efforts of Dominican-Americans to pursue incorporation

within the U.S. polity. Incorporation efforts have required a hard-edged focus to separate

organization-building from home-country politics, according to one founding activist:

If you put together five Dominicans, they start talking about the DR, not talking about

the US . . . We are not talking with Dominican organizations, we are talking about

empowerment of the Dominicans in the U.S . . . Yeah, we were fundamentalists about

that. If you start talking about ―Reformísta, PRD,‖ we are not interested in that. If you

have ties to PRD, we don't want that person on the board.81

This perspective reflects the struggles of a successful movement to build up Dominican-

American political organization for representation within the U.S. system, from local to

national levels. Centered in the Dominican-American National Roundtable (DANR) and

in state and local power bases of Dominican-American legislators in New York, New

Jersey, Providence and Miami, this movement has had success in recent years in raising

80 Author's interview, former Dominican Ambassador to the U.S, Santo Domingo, 27 July 2007.

81 Author's interview, former Vice President and Executive Director, Dominican American National

Roundtable, 21 September 2007, via telephone, New York city.

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the profile of the Dominican community within Latino politics. Interestingly, it has had to

run against the current of Dominican overseas politics and the consular patronage

activities tied to Santo Domingo's electoral cycle. With the exception of isolated and

intermittent support in the Dominican embassy in Washington DC, rights-based

incorporation politics for Dominicans within the U.S. has had to tack away from and

actively disparage engagement in Dominican national politics.

Liberal transnationalism assumes a heightened version of civic liberalism, leaving

out the politics by which national structures and identities direct participation. In fact,

there are zero-sum dynamics at work in overseas voting, as in the opposition to Mexican

overseas voting by the U.S.-based Hispanic organizations. Dual political citizenship

(voting) has been practiced by very few of the general electorate of diaspora citizens in

Mexico and the Dominican Republic. One Mexican Deputy with a close understanding of

emigrant politics in fact lamented the failure of open OV because he believed that the

future citizenship of overseas emigrants would depend upon which state first recognized

their rights—if not Mexico, then it would be the U.S. While liberal transnationalists have

identified a relationship between the struggles for rights in resident country and home

country, analysts should not expect that the two processes support or reinforce one

another automatically or in equal proportion. Rather, it is an area requiring more research,

with a number of two-way linkages that may be complementary, neutral and zero-sum.

The undefined middle space between embeddedness and exclusion presents a core

policy dilemma of state-diaspora relations; there is not yet a clear pathway for states and

overseas citizens to proceed along in reconciling the twin poles. What would the

characteristics of embedded autonomy look like in state-diaspora relations? If

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extraterritorial polities are to become viable beyond a generation, they are likely to

feature accessible avenues for emigrant participation as well as long-term

institutionalized policies of state. With participation rights and an institutionalized state

commitment, a two-way flow of remittances between diaspora citizens and the home

country will make for a deeper extraterritorial polity. In this regard, a crucially important

area for future practice and institution-building is the twin agenda of migrant rights in

home and residence countries. An important puzzle for state-diaspora policy

entrepreneurs to resolve is the divergence between home and resident country

incorporation struggles. While the foregoing analysis has pointed out the zero-sum

dynamics, there are also potential complementarities and precedents for cooperation in

both cases.

In a small step away from exploitation of diaspora donors, the Dominican PRD

leadership recently announced changes in practice so that fundraising stays in the local

area in which it is raised.82

The availability of public financing and the PRD's continuing

position in the opposition aside, the arrival of a new younger generation of leadership

gives the party's new line some credibility as a genuine step toward a more principled

politics. The change in policy is a small step away from the grip of clientelistic ties,

which continue to hold sway over much of the party,83

but the leadership's intentions run

parallel with the reform-oriented DANR group focused on gaining office in the U.S. The

two sets, consistent in principle, have been separated from one another, yet they both

82 Author's interview, Secretary General & Campaign Director, La Vega PRD Municipal Committee, 30

July 2007.

83 For example, the PRD candidate's pitch in Dolphins Stadium allegedly involved a kickback, with

murky financial dealings related to expensive public relations fees for the event. Adames, Tony. 2007.

Miguel Vargas Maldonado lanzará la pelota más cara del mundo. Tony con el Pueblo. Santo Domingo,

21 September. Available online at: http://www.tonyconelpueblo.net.

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trace roots to the earlier broad vision of Peña Gómez. Addressing New York Dominicans,

Peña Gómez stated clearly that Dominican diaspora politics ought to support activism in

the resident country, and he encouraged a vigorous engagement in U.S. incorporation

politics.84

But his vision of a liberal transnational politics far exceeded the capacities of

his immediate successors in the PRD and their PLD rivals, who would open up a rupture

between the two directions of U.S. incorporation and Dominican clientelism that divides

their leaders today.

An important issue exemplifying the division between diaspora and home country

mentalities is the treatment of Haitians in the Dominican Republic, which illustrates both

the challenge and the potential benefits of transnational liberalism based on civic

participation. The question of Haitian workers' rights in the Dominican Republic has

created a polemical divide between Dominican diaspora critics and its home country

establishment. Having experienced racism in the U.S. and more closely attuned to

international human rights norms, Dominican diaspora citizens have begun to articulate

strong criticism of home country human rights violations against Haitian workers and

their Dominican-born offspring. Diaspora voices emanate not only from the intelligentsia

segment but also from working class emigrants participating in blogs and other public

discussion.85

On the other hand, establishment leaders in the home country defend a

nationalistic doctrine of ius sanguinis on Haitian nationals (Lozano 2007).

The significant divide between diaspora and home country elites on Haitian

nationals was evident in a sharp exchange at a recent gathering of affluent diaspora

84 Peña Gómez, José Francisco. 1992. Dominicanos en NY. July 8

th speech on the disturbances in

Manhattan between NY Police Department and Dominican residents. In Peña Gómez 2001, 343-348.

85 Dominican Today. 2007. Dominicans demonstrate against president Fernandez in NYC. 23 September.

Available online at: http://www.dominicantoday.com/app/article.aspx?id=25528 (20 February 2010).

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members and President Fernández in Washington, DC. First, a prominent diaspora

academic on the panel offered a strong, direct criticism of Dominican policies, pointing

out the absence of consistency on the question of nationality, lamenting the country's

reversion to the international legal convention of ius sanguinis as a strongly nationalistic

argument, and contrasting it with its own expansive double nationality provisions for

Dominicans in the U.S.:

It is a good gesture to provide nationality for those in the diaspora, who fill the national

coffers with hard currency, but it is wrong for those in the Dominican Republic to

maintain the illegality of the Dominican-born sons of Haitian workers.86

Her comment, which also touched on the sense of exploitation by opportunistic

politicians, generated applause among the audience of diaspora Dominicans. The

response of President Fernández, a progressive liberal, showed the extent to which a

nationalistic doctrine pervades Dominican politics on the question. He disregarded the

international legal convention cited and identified nationality as an issue that is treated

differently according to history and national situations,87

then directed his analysis of the

question in terms of the Haitian state, not the individuals whose nationality was in

question:

Nationality is a key theme . . . Now how do we situate this for a small country, in a small

territory, with distinct levels of socioeconomic development from its neighbors that has

been gaining presence and that could reclaim land in the future? (italics added)

Next he immediately proceeded to identify a case of ethnic nationalism renowned for

hatred, conflict and state violence to create a negative analogy:

Obviously this issue remains important, above all when there are historical differences

86 Comments of Rosario Espinal, Panel on Constitutional Reform in the Dominican Republic, Dominican

Week, Center for Strategic & International Studies, Washington, DC, 18 September 2007.

87 President's remarks (author‘s translation from audio transcript), 18 September 2007, Washington, DC:

―Maybe here in the U.S. they cannot always understand the motivation in the Dominican Republic . . .

the US succeeded in developing itself on the basis of promoting immigration. But other countries adopt

a distinct attitude. Germany has never been so generous, Japan is a very closed country . . . so there

exist multiple models and multiple manners to deal with the migration issue.‖

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present. The case of the Balkans, the Albanians and the Kosovars: the Albanians

established themselves there, reproduced, acquired the nationality and over time

demanded the territory for their own.

The Dominican President clarified that the issue was not about those who had been born

in the Dominican territory and had lived many years, rather, it was about the children of

the millions of undocumented Haitian workers:

But looking to the future, everyone who finds himself illegally in the Dominican territory

and, this, it is a being that is born in Dominican territory of parents who are there

illegally, I think that the Dominican state has the sovereign and legitimate right to

establish who are its nationals. And this cannot be overwritten by worker contracting or

by any challenge from anyone in the world, because the determination of nationality is a

sovereign act of each state, and that determines it. (italics added to indicate speaker's

emphasis)

Remarkable about the response was the extent to which the liberal diaspora-minded

President grounded his position on conventional state nationalism. As if to heighten the

contradiction, the eloquent and lucid legal scholar-President immediately turned to the

issue of transnacionalidad in his next point. He cited the need to pursue legal efforts to

ensure U.S. recognition of dual nationality for U.S.-born children of Dominican

emigrants, in order to avoid the loss of resident country nationality in opting for

continuing links with Dominican territory. The President's selective use of principle was

remarkable, and it demonstrated the absence of any broad, principled vision behind

Dominican diaspora policies very clearly.

Reconciling the tension between Dominican diaspora politics and Dominican-

American incorporation politics will require more than broad vision alone, however. For

the moment, the consular patronage system has taken root in the center of the diaspora

realm, presenting a major obstacle to reconciliation that may endure for a number of

electoral cycles in the absence of major national crisis. In the present system, the electoral

and clientelistic opportunities provide Dominican party actors with strong instrumental

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reasons to continue overseas activism. Electorally, the growth rate of overseas

registration suggests the potential for continuing expansion of consular patronage

politics, although the low turnout suggests an absence of broad support as well.

Conclusion

Emphasizing domestic politics and the agency of political actors beyond the

national territory, this chapter has documented the formation of an expansive overseas

voting institution in the Dominican Republic, including the underlying consensus among

the political class rooted in transnational incentive structures as well as continuing

objections to expansive OV on the part of two contrarian segments. From the point of

view of both ordinary overseas citizens and policy-minded elites, consular patronage has

benefited a few at the expense of the broader community while undermining the

development of state capacities for effective diaspora governance over the long term.

What propelled the expansive outcome? In the Dominican case, amidst dense

transnational exchanges and a party-dominated homeland polity, weak capacities in the

overseas state result in the export of clientelism to the diaspora cities and the patronage

hubs that grow up out of the consulates. Dominican political parties contain the key

actors, but overseas state structures critically guide their entrepreneurship. In the absence

of a professional foreign service and given the regulatory weakness of the national

electoral authority, homeland politicians flock fearlessly to the diaspora to raise funds,

and their subsequent party-building efforts encounter very little resistance from state

actors. Moreover, they inhabit the consulates and harness the state offices to expand the

overseas electoral machinery. From economic migrants to rising middle managers to top

party leadership, Dominican transnational political entrepreneurs have tapped into social

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networks, obtained clientelistic benefits abroad, and used the consular infrastructure in

support of overseas party organization. The pattern has persisted for two decades; its

impact was evident in the 2009 passage of a constitutional reform to establish legislative

seats representing overseas Dominicans in the national Senate and Chamber of Deputies.

Together, the weak state structures and strong political parties have been more

important than diaspora actors in shaping key institutional outcomes, pointing to a major

contrast between the two cases. In Mexico, as the next chapter details, strong diaspora

demand encountered insider elites disinterested in overseas voting, who acted to contain

diaspora political remittances by steering participation away from the electoral channel.

By contrast, Dominican insiders have coveted the diaspora resource, and their proactive

strategies in pursuit of diaspora support have shaped the OV outcome far more than any

activism on the part of overseas Dominicans.

The foregoing analysis not only contributes a more complete account of overseas

voting than existing studies, it also develops a more integral analysis of the diaspora as

change agent thesis. Transnationalist studies lead to one-sided accounts that can too

easily imply a simplistic image of a virtuous progressive vanguard, and they invite the

strong corrections that diaspora means very little. By studying the interaction of overseas

actors, home country insiders and transnational entrepreneurs, we discover the extent of

export of Dominican political ideology into the diaspora, including the wholesale

recreation of clientelistic politics among an active segment of the community, from

institutionalized electoral structures and party organizations to a clientelist mindset and

particular tactics of vote-buying. But this one-way export of norms is not compelling

across the broad population of overseas citizens and nationals. A second forceful demand

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for incorporation in the resident country has generated a rift in strategic direction and

political mentalities. The conflict between two distinct organizational logics of U.S.

mobilization and long-distance electoral mobilization has cast doubt upon liberal

transnationalist notions of dual citizenship and multiple membership. But the reform

orientation shared by the U.S. incorporation activists and the diaspora critics stands out as

a noteworthy potential base, offering an alternative current to support reform-oriented

critiques of the home country status quo. As the thinking of Peña Gómez suggests, the

challenge for reconciling these two sets of activities is to think about a principled

transnational politics that can also solve problems and deliver the goods.

For the moment, consular patronage including expansive overseas voting holds

steady as the main public institution governing Dominican diaspora politics. It delivers

political goods better than any other, though its range of distribution is limited. However,

both of the two brands of politics at work in the diaspora-- consular patronage and U.S.

incorporation -- are young and dynamic, a product of no more than two decades each.

Meanwhile, the fragile nature of the Dominican state involves many different

vulnerabilities that raise the chances of massive failure or national emergency. Together,

the still formative state of these two emerging brands of politics in the diaspora and the

potential for national crisis at home point to multiple possibilities that could overwhelm

the present balance. With or without a critical juncture, however, the coveting of political

remittances is a distinctive Dominican response likely to continue.

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Chapter 4

Mexico: Demobilizing the diaspora vote

138

On election day, July 2nd

, 2006, Mexico conducted its historic first exercise of

long-anticipated overseas voting, in what was a potential opportunity for the diaspora to

tip an evenly matched internal balance. The Presidential election concluded a highly

competitive and polarized campaign between dueling candidates of the conservative, pro-

business National Action Party (PAN) and the populist, left-wing Party of the Democratic

Revolution (PRD). That evening, initial counts showed the PAN's Felipe Calderón

leading the PRD's Andres Manuel López Obrador by less than 1 percent of the 42 million

votes cast. Disputes led to partial recounts that further narrowed the margin and set off

two months of post-electoral controversy. In September, the state electoral court ruled to

certify the results in favor of the PAN's Calderón. As Mexico's electoral struggle between

left and right played out, analysts looked with interest to see what role the nation's

diaspora and its millions of recently enfranchised citizens might have played.

In total, only 32,651 out of 11.6 million overseas Mexicans managed to vote in the

Presidential election. At the country's pivotal hour, the diaspora had not registered even a

blip on the electoral radar. The soundless thud of such extremely low participation, equal

to fewer than half of one percent of the country's emigrant population, was echoed a year

later in a desultory replay at the state level, when a mere 349 emigrants from Michoacán

voted in that state's first overseas election out of an estimated diaspora of 2.5 million.88

After decades of debate, mobilization and vast spending on research and design, either

the overseas voting movement had been a farce, or insiders had perfectly engineered

system to guarantee low turnout.

In the election's aftermath, with the national capital in the grip of protests,

88 Avila, Oscar. 2007. Mexico weighs fix after poor turnout. Chicago Tribune. 16 November.

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political attention in Mexico was focused upon the internal dispute, not the diaspora. Yet

two interpretations of the overseas voting outcome emerged, one pointing to disinterest

and one to inaccessibility. First, among Mexico City's political elites, low turnout was

read as confirmation that the diaspora population had little interest in voting from abroad.

Insider eyebrows were raised about the credibility of diaspora activists who had claimed

to speak for millions, and OV expansion and migrant concerns were dropped from the

legislative agenda. On the other hand, critics blamed the low turnout on the

inaccessibility of voting guaranteed by the restrictive format for overseas voting. The

strict guidelines of the 2005 overseas voting law prohibited party organization abroad and

required voters to comply with extremely onerous and costly registration procedures on

an individual basis. In the previous 1994 and 2000 cycles, candidate trips to California

and Chicago had spurred diaspora campaigns. But in 2006, as a result of the encumbering

electoral rules, sterile ―elections without campaigns‖ had replaced the heated ―campaigns

without elections‖ of earlier cycles.89

Thus emigrant activists lamented what they called

―elections of state,‖ namely the formal procedures for confirming elite rule on the basis

of a token ―upper-middle-class vote‖ in the diaspora.90

As with the internal allegations over electoral fraud, there was ample evidence

available to support either of these two conflicting views of elite insiders and government

critics on the subject of Mexico's low overseas voting turnout. Diaspora boasts had been

overstated, just as onerous procedures had legalized overseas voting while at the same

time stamping the life out of it. Whatever one‘s vantage point, indifference and

89 Robert C. Smith, 2007, comments as panel discussant. Latin American Studies Association conference,

7 September, Montreal.

90 U.S.-based Mexican migrant leaders criticized the overseas voting implementation along these lines

while participating in the IME Focus Groups, Foreign Relations Ministry, Mexico City, 4 October

2006.

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inaccessibility were both clearly at work. Nevertheless, the focus of this chapter is on the

non-participatory format that significantly reduced overseas participation.

The restrictive format that reduced overseas participation in Mexico presents a

major puzzle, since important political and economic factors pointed toward a more

vibrant form of overseas voting. Between 1985 and 2000, the institutionalization of

political competition between three strong parties culminated in transition from one-party

rule to political competition, putting Mexico near the top of the indices for political

openness. Massive emigration flows surged to make Mexico one of two top remittance

receiving countries, sustaining increasingly organized transnational federations and NGO

actors at all levels of domestic politics. Moreover, nearly two decades had passed since

President Salinas de Gortari launched the acercamiento policy in 1990 to institutionalize

diaspora outreach efforts; this policy had resulted in innovative programs and earned

Mexico an international reputation as an innovator in state-diaspora relations including

overseas voting from Santo Domingo to Stockholm. For these reasons, and with its

national income among the world's fifteen most productive industrialized economies,

Mexico appears to have had ample resources to generate both a strong political supply

and demand for overseas voting institutions.

Why did this exemplar of labor export democracy -- the second leading remittance

state in the world, with competitive elections and the largest binational diaspora -- deliver

a closed reform in spite of its rhetorical and policy direction, given the increasing

visibility of its migrant leaders and groups? As my research confirmed, this outcome was

rooted in a consensus among Mexico's elite political actors' in favor of restrictive reform

in Mexico. The larger puzzle is about what led Mexico's leaders across the spectrum to

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this particular consensus.

The chapter first summarizes the institutional outcome and provides a chronology

of Mexico's overseas voting history; second, it reviews existing explanations; third, it

analyzes state-diaspora relations in the roles of Mexico's migrant actors, party leaders,

state bureaucrats, considering subnational activities; and fourth, it evaluates the

implications of the analysis for the ongoing practice of Mexican transnational politics.

I Global Nation, Territorial Voting

This chapter focuses on the political contest and the interactions of state, party and

migrant actors that led to an intermediate outcome, neither prohibition nor expansion of

diaspora voting. Existing theories and arguments offer incomplete answers at best,

overlooking the connections between elite domestic politics and migrant activist

networks. The formation of the restrictive consensus sheds new light on the effects of

political openness, remittances and state structure. In the following analysis, gradual but

restrictive reform emerges from an alliance of elite actors across key agencies and all

three parties. With adoption and implementation, I argue, Mexico's capable foreign

ministry provides a second-best substitute for passive political parties, and its strong

controlling electoral bureaucracy diverts diaspora politics from electoral activities into a

set of state-led initiatives, while migrant actors in turn channel political activities through

civic organizations of federations and NGO groups. Conspicuously absent from

transnational scene are the big three political parties.

The key outcomes and turning points of Mexico's overseas voting design fall into

three periods over two decades. The demise of PRI hegemony prompted constitutional

reforms in 1990 and 1994 to accommodate and regulate increasing political pluralism.

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After a 1994 election crisis, PRI leaders acted deliberately to stem migrant opposition

with a half-step toward legislation. Congress passed a dual nationality amendment; a

constitutional amendment enshrining the right to overseas voting; expansion of the

Program for Communities in the Exterior; and a rhetorical shift to recognize Mexico's

―global nation‖ in the 1995 national plan:

The Mexican nation goes beyond the territory that its borders contain. An essential

element of the Mexican Nation will be to promote constitutional and legal reforms so that

Mexicans preserve their nationality independent of the citizenship or residence that they

have adopted.91

Overseas voting rights emerged on the national agenda in Mexico after the 1994 passage

of double citizenship rights raised the question of long-distance political participation.92

In 1996, constitutional reforms included a clause guaranteeing the right to vote to all

Mexican citizens regardless of location. In 1998, the IFE recognized its technical viability

for Mexico and outlined options and considerations for implementation. But the question

stagnated in the absence of a voting law, with continuing debates about feasibility and

political concerns. Even with the election of Vicente Fox in 2000, the new government

upheld much of the traditional politics of migrant exclusion. Embellished rhetoric did not

match the failure to pass overseas voting legislation in 1999 and again in 2002.

Not until 2005 did Mexico's Congress act to enable voting in Presidential

elections for expatriate citizens, and then in a deliberately restrictive manner. Passed on

the session's last day, the overseas voting law specified a postal ballot, prohibited partisan

activities abroad, and limited eligibility to Mexican voters abroad in possession of IFE

electoral credentials previously obtained within Mexican territory. Also limiting

91 National Development Plan, 1995-2000, translated from original Spanish in Alarcon 2006, 165-6.

92 The citizenship law, formulated in response to California's proposition 187, allowed overseas Mexicans

to apply for a foreign citizenship without giving up their original Mexican citizenship.

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participation were extensive registration procedures, a costly certified mail requirement

for requesting a ballot ($9), a confusing ballot request form, and a calendar that required

overseas citizens to request the ballot at least six months before the election. Table 4.0

provides a chronological overview.

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Table 4.0 Chronology of Overseas Voting in relation to major political events in Mexico

1928-´29 Movimiento Vasconcelista challenges conservative nationalist regime from Los Angeles

National Anti-reelection party congress presents ―14 Points‖ platform in Mexico City

1970-1976 Initial Mexican state-diaspora efforts under Echevarria

1988 Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas campaign in California, Chicago

1988-1994 Salinas administration creates Program for Mexican Communities Abroad (PCME)

1990 Democratic transition accord: creation of IFE, passage of electoral laws

1991-2005 19 bills introduced to Congress for extension of vote to Mexicans abroad

1994 Mexican Congress passes dual citizenship reform to Mexican constitution

Mexican migrants in U.S. hold mock elections

1994 Zedillo outlines ―Global nation‖ doctrine for 1995-2001 National Development Plan

1996 Constitutional reform eliminating specification of location in citizen´s right to vote

1998 IFE Commission concludes from review that overseas voting is technically feasible

1999-2000 Migrant activists in U.S. organize Vote Mexico 2000 coalition to promote VoE for 2000

2000 Election of Vicente Fox (PAN) alternáncia and acknowledgment of migrants

Migrants hold mock elections in Chicago, Southern California

2002 Institute for Overseas Mexicans (IME) established in Foreign Ministry

2003 PRI gains plurality of Congress, threatening hopes for vote reform

2004-05 Coalición para los Derechos Políticos de los Mexicanos en el Extranjero forms, lobbies

Sep. 2004 OV bill introduced in Congress by Laura Maria Elena Rivera of the PRI

March 2005 Senate testimony of IFE, SRE chiefs raises feasibility doubts among lawmakers

28 June 2005 Passage by full House of overseas voting law, Sixth Book to Mexican electoral law

2005-06 First OV organization: IFE-COVE unit implements elaborate 12-month plan

2006 6 July Presidential election: IFE counts 32,510 expatriate votes among 41,197,322 total

Court confirms Calderón (PAN) victory by 244,000 votes as PRD alleges fraud

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II Three views of transnational politics

Studies of overseas voting in Mexico differ in their emphasis upon external

normative influences, historical-structural factors, or domestic incentives. Each view

sheds light on certain dynamics of the process, however, none explains the outcome well:

either it fails to do so on a systematic theoretical basis, or it overlooks one of two

opposing forces at work in Mexico‘s restrictive outcome.

First, norms-based perspectives predict a more open overseas voting institution

than in fact occurred in Mexico. For example, sociological theories of globalization

clearly suggest that Mexican emigrants in the U.S. would adopt dual citizenship marked

by a global logic and simultaneous practice in both countries (Sassen 2006, 295-6; 319-

321). But instead, double exclusion blocks Mexico‘s migrants from entry in both polities.

Extraterritorial rules form as minor adaptations to national institutions, at a crawling

pace, with major obstacles to dual participation. The zeitgeist of denationalization hailed

by Sassen is not evident in the political realities that shape OV rules.

Similarly, transnationalist theories that highlight ideational contributions made by

remittance-sending emigrants to the home-country polity (Goldring 2002) also suggested

diaspora-led political change. In this view, institutional change would follow from

political consciousness and collective organization formed among diaspora actors as a

result of the experience of migration, both among typical workers and more educated

activists. Indeed, migrant learning is not inconsequential, as one former IFE director

made clear:

How much of what they learn there -- ideas -- has an impact here? Well, it's enough to

look at the most superficial things, if you look at many of the migrants of indigenous

origin, already in the clothing, you notice the change. If you look in the airplanes, there

they are with tenis (sneakers), with jackets, with caps . . it's a change in their clothing, a

result of the fact that they are migrants, that they look at the world and see that their

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community is not the world and that this world affects their community. Now if this is

happening with clothes, it's also happening with ideas. (translation)93

Goldring's theory took note of powerful material and political forces that had been

brewing in the decades since 1968, when economic growth began to decelerate and

unregulated emigration began to spiral upward. As Mexico's emigrant population

multiplied in size and flourished in its earnings and human talents, burgeoning

transnational communities supported a proliferation of migrant organizations and

federations (Moctezuma 2005). This provided a base for civic and political activism

including a movement for overseas voting access, along with full-time migrant activists

actively pushing the formation of diaspora political consciousness.94

However, the argument for political remittances from the diaspora to Mexico

remains quite difficult to make, for empirical and analytical reasons. Empirically, as

discussed below, research on overseas voting confirmed a large gap between the

mentalities of overseas migrant activists and home country political elites. Analytically,

when evidence includes changes in elite behavior and institutional outcomes, it is difficult

to trace such changes at the national level to political activities of migrant transnational

communities. As a result, migrant influence is usually suggested but not confirmed and

easily exaggerated (Cortina 2006). In fact, the migrant organization framework overlooks

basic institutional weaknesses of the federations and clubs, which not only lack material

basics such as full-time staff, offices and binational presence but also suffer from deeper

governance shortcomings in the absence of rules, transparent procedures, and a stable

sense of comity among the leadership segment.

93 Author's interview, former IFE director. Mexico City. 16 November 2006.

94 Author's interview, Chicago Director, Coalition for Political Rights of Mexicans Abroad, by telephone,

28 September 2006.

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More broadly, the norms-based perspective offers limited explanatory power by

overestimating the weight of migrant actors at the expense of situated domestic structures

and elites. Ideas do flow across borders more easily than ever, and new actors have

emerged, but to be influential, they need to locate institutional hooks to catch onto,

otherwise actors drop them. For example, migrants easily set aside foreign learning when

it runs against local ways. As one mayor‘s aide explained about the ―broader way of

thinking‖ he had become adapted to while working in New York, ―A lot of times, it

doesn‘t fit, you can‘t use it here‖ (translation).95 One other weakness of the norms-based

perspective as applied in the Mexico diaspora politics has been its overwhelming

attention to transnational migrant communities at the expense of the investigation into the

uses and effects of norms within elite political settings, in particular national level

political leaders.96

Undertheorized is the role of the PRI's territorial nation-state doctrine

upon Mexican political elites and their grudging reluctance to recognize migrant actors.

In contrast, a statist perspective on emigrant politics emphasizes territorial

organization, sovereignty norms, historical precedent, and steep asymmetries of power as

factors that limit diaspora incursions, however this view lacks causal leverage and misses

crucial parts of the outcome. In Mexico, statists describe the structures of political

exclusion, but refrain from analyzing either diaspora actors (Carpizo and Valades 1999)

or causal processes (Calderon and Martinez 2004). A statist analysis recognizes keenly

the ―safety-valve politics‖ of labor export, in which emigration has conveniently served

95 Author's interview with General Secretary for Administration, Mayor's Office, Huaquechula, Puebla.

24 July 2006. A PAN member, he spoke openly about corruption in the Puebla's politics and indicated

that the state's emigrants were not organized politically and that its youth lacked consciousness and

models of responsibility.

96 Thus, recent contributions shed further light on subnational politics and resident country incorporation

struggles. See Smith and Bakker 2007, Bada 2004.

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local and national leaders by removing sources of opposition and pressure for change.97

This view is most useful as a corrective to overstated claims of migrant agency.98

The state-centric view falls short, however, in explaining variance; more official

ideology than explanatory theory, lacking a causal argument, it takes labor export and

perpetual migrant exclusion as the norm. It neither interrogates the structures and policies

that have brought them about and makes them stay nor considers the conditions under

which they might crumble or change. It ignores the migrant lobby's role in marshaling a

compromise voting law against the entrenched opposition of powerful legislators to a

unanimous vote of approval in the National Congress in 2005. On overseas voting, it also

conflates empirical analysis with an a priori normative objection to the practice that

betrays a state-nationalist ideology, favoring a status quo defined by a hierarchical state

required by threats to sovereignty. The proponents of the state-centric view know much

about Mexico‘s politics, but their view allows little room for institutional change, let

alone the actors and causal mechanisms crucial to affecting whether this happens or not.

State-nationalism is influential in shaping the minds of Mexican political insiders,

who subscribe to a Huntingtonian view of nationalism (2004). Within Mexico, the

perspective pervades the Law School of the National University, which diffuses it across

generations as a coherent perspective on internal as well as external politics. It is

prevalent in the informal discussion of overseas voting by Mexican elites and citizens,

while less frequently explicated in written analyses. Carpizo identifies overseas voting as

at once unfeasible due to logistical requirements as well as dangerous to national security

(1999). As former Secretary of Governance in the 1970s among other major public

97 ―La política de la valvula d‘escape,‖ as described originally by the former Director of Mexico's Federal

Electoral Insitute. Author‘s interview (translation), Mexico City, 16 November 2006.

98 For example, Cortina et al 2005 accurately show the limited extent of collective remittances.

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executive positions, Carpizo moved to become director of the UNAM Law School's

Center for Juridical Studies, where he and his associates have played an active role in

enunciating the traditional doctrine of territorial organization as a normative construct

and a political ideology. The central principles of state sovereignty, territorial control and

independence from the more powerful U.S. feed into the view that mass overseas voting

is and should be out of the question. The presumption is that emigrants are passive,

soured on politics, lacking capacities to organize and therefore wards of the state. It is

skeptical about any significant political returns from the human talent, political interest

and passion for the home country that exists in the diaspora.

Interest-based accounts of Mexico's transnational politics do a stronger job of

connecting migrant activism to political outcomes. Analysts of Mexico's domestic politics

explain legislative outcomes as a concise function of incentive structures and veto points.

Thus Parra analyzes party interactions related to overseas voting legislation between

1994 and 2003 to show that the absence of a voting law depended upon the political-

electoral preferences of party elites. A virtue of this approach is that it cuts through

rhetoric and focuses upon the actions of legislators and policymakers on migrant issues

defined in terms of concrete political interests:

The voto en el extranjero system worked because not that many voted. This satisfied the

parties, the system worked as designed.99

But the same rationalist point of view also tends toward an a priori rejection of

extraterritorial institutions and unfounded assertions on the question of potential migrant

influence.

Mexico will never permit campaigning abroad, they'll will never permit spending money

abroad, and we will never see a high voter turnout . . . I actually never thought there

99 Author's interview, Political science department chair, ITAM, Mexico City, 9 October 2006.

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would be even a partial reform. I had a debate with Wayne Cornelius. He thought there

would be, he was right, it turned out. But the vote was minor and it's very unlikely to be

broadened.

As the interviewee admits, the interest-based view in fact failed to predict the

intermediate outcome in 2006. According to it, there should have been no law in 2005

and no vote in 2006.

One weakness in the rationalist analysis is that its proponents posit elite actor

preferences on overseas voting laws retrospectively, without examining the origin or

potential malleability of these preferences. Furthermore, it concentrates exclusively on

interactions of insiders within the political class, omitting the political dialogue and

contestation in the relationship between political class and diaspora activists, who in fact

played a crucial role in the process. Thus, while it provides a more focused account of

legislator behavior, it does not interrogate the formation of party preferences. Left aside is

the major question of what led the party leaders to change their preferences in 2005, and

where these preferences came from in the first place. The chronological review confirms

that party competition for diaspora favor and resources is minimized for most of the

period, but then competition is activated in 2005 when legislators fear the electoral

consequences of a public vote against overseas voting. What is at work blocking party

competition effects and then activating them in 2005? The domestic politics view leaves

this question unanswered. The analysis needs to take into account the dynamic factor of

Mexico's diaspora activists and the way that they learned to lobby. A more complete

account of elite preferences including their origins occurs when we analyze legislator

actions on overseas voting not as an isolated result of a static, closed system, but as a

result of party leaders' interactions with migrant and state actors.

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III State-diaspora relations in Mexico

A diaspora politics framework focuses upon the interactions between state, party

and migrant actors in terms of overseas voting institutional outcomes. Mexico's recent

treatment of overseas voting has occurred amidst increasing political pluralization and

migrant activism in recent decades. By contrast, state and party elites have shown little

inclination to steer diaspora organization in the direction of electoral participation, not

only historically but also in recent decades.

Historically, Mexico‘s laissez-faire approach to emigration fit into a foreign policy

dedicated to non-intervention and a neat internal division of labor. At the heart of the

corporatist bargain was the understanding that the PRI would take care of workers and

their voting inside the territory, while the Ministry of Foreign Relations would manage

the workers abroad. The overseas job excluded voting – the SRE did not have to do that.

Instead, it was committed and organized to defend the rights of Mexican overseas

workers, with a large set of consulates and a body of lawyers trained in international legal

redress. Not unenlightened per se, this paternalistic approach of the SRE fit into a foreign

policy mission aimed at the protection of national sovereignty from the U.S., at the

service of a strong Presidency with a foreign service schooled in western diplomacy.

Since 1990, the acercamiento doctrine has developed a broad range of active

linkages between Mexico's polity and diaspora, with specific policies other than voting.

In 1990 under President Salinas, the SRE launched the PCME program for Mexican

communities abroad creation to open up the gulf between the Mexican government and

the diaspora. Salinas had been shocked by the hostile reception he received from Mexican

workers in a meeting at Stanford University (Calderón and Martínez Saldaña 2002).

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Over the two decades since 1990, however, The SRE‘s policy initiative has

become a serious force of consequence to overseas voting. The program began with

outreach activities that generated further criticism from the diaspora for being insincere.

It fostered the creation of state-level agencies and coordinate their policy efforts. The

main policy result of the PCME has been the 3-for-1 program to establish matching funds

from national and state governments in support of migrant collective remittance projects

(Goldring 2004). The much-touted 3-for-1 program has not been directly significant for

overseas voting. What is most important is the successor entity of the Institute for

Mexicans in the Exterior (IME), which has organized a national council of overseas

Mexican leaders. The council serves as the only central national grouping of overseas

Mexicans, and as a means of political participation and organization it presents a

substitute for overseas elections.

Mexico's diaspora actors: Mexican diaspora advocates plays a minor but mixed

role in national politics. Mexicans abroad have been able to identify themselves as a

community and to promote their own development, according to Candido Morales.100

However, for Mexico's overseas activists who seek to advocate on behalf of this

community, an inherent problem of diaspora politics emerges in the question of political

legitimacy, since their leadership lacks democratic representativeness or state-endowed

authority, at least as it is conventionally certified in domestic politics and international

relations. Political effectiveness in this condition calls for especially resourceful

strategies.

The Mexican diaspora signifies political potential, however to date a leading

100 Morales is a former labor activist in the western U.S. and present Director of the Institute for Mexicans

in the Exterior. See Morales, p. 9 in González Gutiérrez 2006a.

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diaspora actor or institution has not congealed into any sort of permanent national force.

The diaspora population doubled to nearly 12 million between 1996 and 2006, even as

the domestic population continued to grow at a steady rate to exceed 100 million. But

organizationally, the hometown groups associated with migrant politics have been a

minor factor in the overseas voting movement, for a number of reasons: the clubs and

federations focus on local and state matters; many are weakly institutionalized and lack

binational presence; an absence of formal or informal rules complicates civic group

involvement in lobbying, elections and party politics; weak leadership perpetuate

personal polemics, etc. As a population of overseas citizens as well as a distinct site for

political remittances,101

the Mexican diaspora possesses raw political capacities in its

individuals, networks, organizations and demographic scale.

In the absence of strong Mexican diaspora organizations (whether state, party or

civic in nature), individual group leaders and networks have provided the thrust behind

the overseas voting movement. As this chapter documents, the transnational lobbying of

the binational activist network exerted a consequential impact on the 2005 voting law.

The movement for migrant political rights began in the late 1980s and reached its greatest

influence in the binational activist network named La Coalición para los Derechos

Políticos de los Mexicanos en el Extranjero. The fraudulent 1988 election and the visits

of opposition candidate Cuauhtémoc Cardenas to Mexican communities in Chicago and

California sparked a resurgence in Mexican expatriate partisan activism; diaspora

opposition was closely linked to the left-wing PRD and also to the conservative

opposition of the PAN that was based in Mexico's northwestern emigration states. But

101 Brubaker argues that diaspora should refer to a stance not a group (2005, 10-13); Ragazzi 2010 updates

and further discusses the conceptual analysis. My view here is agnostic, aware that multiple meanings

and political uses of diaspora are applied in overseas voting politics.

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initial successes in raising the migrant agenda in the 1990s led to repeated failure to pass

overseas voting legislation in 1999 and 2002. This led activists to revise their political

strategy, shifting from a focus on public demonstrations including mock elections to a

lobbying campaign more carefully targeted at elites involving coordination by Internet

and leverage by media pressure. The network formed across parties in 2003 as a

transnational lobbying campaign of overseas activists, civic leaders, and domestically

based academics and government insiders. Its exclusive focus on overseas voting

legislation differentiated it from apolitical migrant associations and Washington-based

Mexican-American groups hostile to the project.

The binational activist network played a pivotal role in exerting political leverage

to force Congressional passage of the 2005 overseas voting law. Utilizing the Internet

along with direct lobbying, La Coalición mounted an agile and relatively effective

lobbying intervention in 2004-05, which Ayón has called ―the most important, sustained

and successful lobbying effort of the Mexican network to date‖ (2007, 159).The final law,

which was introduced in November 2004 in an expansive format, resulted from delicate

political maneuvering by each of the parties, and it barely survived hostile interventions

by the heads of the electoral commission, the foreign ministry and the PRI's legislative

leadership. With its passage, the voting advocates were able to outflank the PRI bloc in

the House, which sought to put off an open vote, and to hold its members to their public

positions on a matter that they had secretly just wanted to kill.102

La Coalición has been a critical exception to the pattern of diaspora fragmentation

in its ability to break open the autonomy of a national polity thus far closed to migrant

102 Author's interview, Mexico City coordinator, La Coalición para los Derechos Políticos de los

Mexicanos en el Extranjero, Mexico City, 16 October 2006.

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groups. The 2005 law, restrictive as it was, nevertheless represented a partial success that

put Mexico in the intermediate category of states that have implemented overseas voting

but not done so on a fully open basis. Local and subnational level actors have played a

well-documented role in Mexico's diaspora affairs (Burgess 2005, Bada 2004), though

mainly in the social and economic realms, and they have had little presence or influence

at the national level politics. Distinguishing the activities of the binational network were

three factors: a high degree of consensus on the overseas voting cause among otherwise

divided migrant leaders; organizational independence and a non-partisan profile with a

handful of core activists hailing from all parties and NGOs; and an effective combination

of political tactics and organizational features developed by the network's core

activists.103

The transnational lobbying campaign combined symbolic politics, moral leverage

and accountability politics104

as effective means of pressing their agenda to a vote against

the best efforts of national legislators. Its use of media spanned cyberspace, traditional

print media from La Jornada and regional newspapers in Mexico to the New York Times

and the Los Angeles Times as well as Mexican periodicals in the U.S. like La Opinión in

Los Angeles and MX Fronteras and Nuevo Siglo in Chicago, and also Hispanic television

with regular exposure through Univisión. While Internet and satellite links have been

necessary enablers for long-distance lobbying, the technologies hardly guarantee

effectiveness. La Coalición deployed these capacities more actively and effectively than

other Mexican diaspora actors (see Exhibit, p. 157).

Importantly, the 2005 legislative compromise of restrictive reform showed the

103 Author's interview with Mexico City lobbyist, La Coalición, 16 November 2006. See also Laborde

Carranco 2007.

104 Keck and Sikkink define information, leverage, symbolic and accountability politics (1998, 21-25).

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limits of the coalition's moral leverage, since remittances cannot be conditioned or

intermediated. Lacking a true political organization at the national level, Mexico's

migrant diaspora actors remain marginal, but not insignificant as rationalists assume.

Despite criticism of the lobby's limited influence and the compromise nature of the law,

there would have been no legislation without the efforts La Coalición. The network

represents the only instance of concerted political lobbying based on a united front of all

Mexican groups abroad. Since 2005, it has disbanded due to resumption of various

divisions -- regional, partisan, personal-- within the migrant community. The diversity of

the Mexican diaspora has favored migrant efforts at local and state-level organization;

together with the country's own deep divisions and distrust, this diversity and scale of

migrant society has yet to produce an overarching civic organization of Mexicans abroad.

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Exhibit: Mexican diaspora propaganda

© MX Sin Fronteras, Chicago, IL

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Political parties: What perceptions, strategies and goals did the movement for

overseas voting rights provoke on the part of elite actors in the main parties and national

legislature? Why did they prolong exclusion for a decade and then opt for restrictive

reform in 2005? In short, political leaders across the three parties agreed to permit a

restrictive regime for overseas voting only when pushed to abandon total exclusion, since

each saw greater risks than opportunity in an open reform. The possibility that the

diaspora could determine the outcome of a close election was an anathema among

insiders, who exaggerated it and reacted with fear; likely scenarios were not scrutinized

publicly, nor did the likelihood of gains for two of the three parties weigh on insider

responses. Instead, all three parties showed splits between rank and file migrant partisans

and party elites over the extent and pace of reform. Party elites did not want to give up

seats and resources to migrant masses and their representatives. The depth of the inter-

party consensus is evident in the fact that two of three of the parties has yet to invest

material resources to organize its overseas voters,105

despite the massive size of this bloc

of potential voters and the clear electoral incentives to tap into such potential new sources

of support.

Party elites' uncertainty about voter attitudes and electoral controls had led them

to develop a double-game, advocating reform and disguising inaction with procedural

obfuscation. For eleven years between 1994 and 2005, legislators from PRI, PAN and

PRD introduced a total of 19 bills allowing overseas voting before they themselves would

cast a binding vote on one of them. Across parties, leaders were uncertain about the

amount of turnout to expect and about the party preferences of expected voters. Concerns

105 Author's interview with Coordinator for Overseas Mexicans, PAN Executive National Council, Mexico

City, 14 August 2006. Author's interview with Vice President, PRI State Committee, Zacatecas, 26

September 2006.

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about financial control and dispute resolution raised doubts in their minds; probably,

these party elites feared that the other parties would be able to cheat better than they

would.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI): The PRI reflects the unvarnished

essence behind the elite consensus on overseas voting across the political class that

governs Mexico. After blocking the question while it controlled the majority, the PRI

joined overseas voting bandwagon in 2005, introducing an expansive version of

legislation in the lower house of the Congress. The PRI nevertheless had a well

established doctrine justifying restrictions on overseas political activities according to the

principles of territoriality and control.

PRI doctrine on overseas voting was consistently evident across the sub-national,

national and diaspora realms. The party's state chairman in Puebla cited territory as the

key limit :

Our laws are not extraterritorial, so the US does not have to reach agreement with our

IFE, with our government, and so they did not give these accords to allow them to

campaign there ... it should not be permitted for candidates to go there to campaign

because it would distort the process . . . because if they would even just go there to

campaign, you would see resources from who knows were coming in from abroad.

(translation)106

The PRI argument emphasized the problem of how to control foreign fundraising and

spoke to concerns raised by a recent scandal involving foreign campaign funds in

2000:107

This was a problem (in 2000), that they say they came with money from abroad

without accounting for how much. So imagine that a candidate comes along -- and

this is for all, for PAN, for PRI, for PRD-- who suddenly says, ―Hey I've got money

from abroad.‖ --- ―But you don't even know how much you brought.‖ So I think they

should promote (Presidential voting abroad), but not with candidates going abroad.

106 Author's interview, Secretary General, PRI Committee for the State of Puebla, 18 July 2006, Puebla.

107 In recent years, the IFE had prosecuted the PAN-linked organization Amigos de Fox, which had

imported an unknown amount of funds from Belgium with links to Texas.

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(translation)108

Hence, in the PRI view, electoral security concerns required overseas elections to be

campaign-free. The chairmen also indicated that the PRI was clear opposed to migrant

representation in Congress, which it sees as a presumable next step on the migrant

agenda.

They also want to participate and have Deputies, no? Representatives. I also do not see

this well, since, well ... a man when he comes to you from there, who are you going to

represent? Whose interests do you represent?

Interviewer: Of the migrants, they say?

Of the migrants, well . . . He does not have representativeness. He would just come to

Congress and take . . . That's what the President of the Republic is for, to defend the

interests of Mexicans abroad. That's why the Congress is here -- for those who stay

here.109

These responses of an overburdened Puebla PRI boss, while blunt, were based on a

detailed briefing and reflected the national party's policy to the letter. A year earlier, PRI

veteran Manuel Bartlett Díaz110

had outlined his party's objections to overseas voting in a

set of questions on the Senate floor:

Is it possible to guarantee what has cost us years of effort, the free, secret vote, without

influences or pressures in the United States? Is it possible to guarantee, for example, the

financing of campaigns? Is it possible to have a limit in relation to the Mexican rules

with CNN, NBC, with U.S. radio stations? Is it possible that the IFE will act there with

firmness to guarantee the constitutional principles on electoral matters, like legality,

impartiality, certainty, objectivity? Does there exist any agreement with the United States

of America so that we can first conduct a census - are there three million, five million,

eight million? How many are there? All this obliges us to be very cautious. 111

Bartlett grounds the argument for caution on the need for electoral security and control,

citing specific U.S. networks to suggest foreign hostility and rekindling doubts about the

108 Author's interview, Secretary General, PRI Committee for the State of Puebla, 18 July 2006, Puebla.

109 Ibid.

110 Bartlett Díaz is an adroit politician accomplished in co-opting agendas that challenge PRI hegemony.

See Snyder for an analysis of oligarchic strategies to reregulate Puebla's coffee industry in an

exclusionary fashion fashioned as Governor in the face of decentralization policies of Salinas de

Gortari (2001, 164, 167-8, 175-92).

111 Senate testimony, Senator Manuel Bartlett Díaz (PRI, Puebla), 24 February 2005, Legislatura: LIX

Año II, Segundo Periodo Ordinario, Diario 9.

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diaspora.

Can we guarantee impartiality there?, if we are fighting with the media of national

corporations, which are already threatening us? Caution in dealing with money and

television. Now we are establishing a commission that is going to argue with CNN. Thus,

my Senator colleagues, our responsibility goes beyond the immediate political costs,

beyond what sounds good; our responsibility is with this nation, with national

Sovereignty, with non-intervention of any type, with the protection of our territory.

(italics added)

By concluding with references to national sovereignty and non-intervention, Bartlett uses

the core terms of PRI ideology to define overseas voting as an item that requires a state-

led response.

These PRI ―dinosaurs‖ and their arguments clearly remain influential.112

The

party's criticism of migrant aspirations for representation in the Congress finds agreement

among Mexican political insiders across parties. These elites differentiate migrant

advocates from the overseas masses, whom they consider to be either apathetic or

oriented to participation in the U.S and not in Mexico. According to a former Foreign

Minister, the overseas voting movement is better understood as a function of the interests

of migrant advocates than the preferences of migrant masses:

I think that, and this is not politically correct at all, that the migrants don't give a

damn about the vote . . . It is their leaders who want to use it as a lever to get elected

to Congress, that is what is driving this, to get to be representatives, which is one

thing . . . not the desires of the migrants, who frankly I don't think at least care a

whole lot.113

While migrant advocates likely do harbor political aspirations, the influence of this view

is noteworthy because it overlooks evidence of serious, sustained interest among broad

segments of Mexico's overseas population in participating in Mexico's national

112 As Lorenzo Meyer stated, ―it's as if the dinosaurs went off into the woods and found a magic plant.

Now they seem to think they can go on forever.‖ Quoted in Jo Tuckman, Return of the dinosaurs -

Mexico's old guard go back to their one-party ways, Manchester Guardian, 20 December 2007.

113 Author's interview by telephone, former Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations, 13 November 2006.

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politics.114

In 2009, the PRI regained control of the national legislature and boosted its

chances for the 2012 Presidential election. In light of the party‘s electoral rebound, its

state-nationalist line of opposition to OV expansion is likely to endure.

Interestingly, and somewhat oddly, a hidden anti-migrant bias not only

characterized the PRI, but also the leadership of parties with more widespread ties to

overseas Mexicans and much greater prospects of migrant support. The consensus for

restrictive reform, which emerged only after the migrant lobby forced the question,

emerged from a split between party leadership and base that was replicated across all

three of the parties. As field research discovered, Mexico's elite leadership favored

gradual or no reform, accepting the arguments about territoriality and control, while

opposition party actors at lower levels including especially migrant segments preferred

more expansive versions of reform including credentialization. The evidence that the

leadership of traditional opposition parties also took a similar conservative stance is at

first surprising, especially in the case of the PRD, whose overseas militants had figured

prominently in the binational campaign and sought to claim the mantle of true migrant

party.

National Action (PAN): Strong bonds between the National Action Party (PAN)

and the Mexican diaspora have been strained by the former's governing position since

2001. Overseas voting embodies a continuing contradiction between the bonds of affect

and support among Mexican migrants and a PAN leadership composed of ideological

conservatives and governing elites inclined to adopt PRI arguments on the topic. In 2000,

114 McCann et al (2006) document definite interest in continuing political participation among a

substantial minority of Mexicans abroad, with between 25% and 40% responding favorably to

questions about holding monthly discussions of Mexican politics and hoping to vote in future

elections. Their detailed analysis confirms the conclusion more certainly than similar earlier evidence

located in the Pew Hispanic Survey of November, 2005.

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Vicente Fox had spurred migrant leaders to engage in a large postcard writing campaign,

and his administration had introduced and sought to advance overseas voting legislation

to the Congress. The PAN had also included two migrant candidates among its field of

candidates who were elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 2006. Dolores Sánchez and

Andres Bermúdez represented a considerable base of pro-PAN sentiment among migrant

communities. Moreover, the PAN had dominated the 2006 vote and had broad support

abroad. Among a number of factors attracting migrant adherents were the party's

historical opposition to the PRI, its anti-government ideology and economic doctrine of

mobility and entrepreneurship, regional ties with northwestern emigration states that were

PAN strongholds, as well as the charisma of candidate Vicente Fox.

Nevertheless, the PAN supported restrictive reform in 2005 and refrained from

overseas activities in 2006. And even after the election, the party remained opposed to

credentialization. As PAN Senator close to the leadership made clear, the party line on

overseas voting is gradualism, and nothing more:

No, we are not in favor of emitting credentials abroad, because our principle has

always been the principle of gradualism, to shape the electoral system. With

effectiveness and to rule out the possibility of an intervention by a foreign power

through the overseas vote. Any further reform that is going to come will have the

form of a modest reform.115

The Senator's invocation of foreign powers showed the growing resemblance of PAN

doctrine to the longstanding PRI argument against overseas participation. Migrant

panistas were angered that the party's conservatism extended to overseas voting rules,

and one migrant deputy argued that the arrogance of power had led it astray:

Of course (the PAN) is against it! When you're on top, you think that you don't need

anyone . . . that's exactly what the PAN has got right now . . . they fear that the

migrant may grasp too much power, that he may bring his own candidates, make his

115 Author's interview, Senator (PAN, Mexico state) & Sub-coordinator Foreign Policy, PAN legislative

group, México DF, 6 November 2006.

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own party. These things frighten the politicians and the parties. (translation)116

But the party's internal consensus, defined by its conservative leadership, makes it

reluctant to commit resources to overseas party organization, as the Senator explained.

Within the National Committee of the PAN, there is some division or lack of

coordination plaguing the effort to seek outreach to migrants. So we see the

competent hands of one isolated individual, the Overseas Voting Coordinator,

working alone in a ―unipersonal‖ office setting. One person alone, and with no

resources. This sort of project requires greater resources.117

The top leadership remains reluctant to pursue migrants as a constituency, as the Senator

said:

I think this is because of the perspective in the leadership. What you need is leadership

with a personal vision of including the migrants in the party, and that is not completely

there. Another reform the party ought to adhere to better (since it has promised it once

already) is that all communities should have designated local outreach officers to the

overseas Mexican community.118

The cool attitude in turn causes grumbling in the ranks.

The parties are all the same. The migrants, we are waking up and we are going to

keep advancing politically here and on the other side because we envision a

humanitarian politics. Even though the Panistas approved it, the PRI approved it,

they are have fear.

The tension is remarkable given the extent of grassroots potential for the PAN among

diaspora voters. Furthermore, the party's media-oriented politics aimed and its appeal to

upwardly mobile voters add to its unrealized potential among the Mexican diaspora.

Nevertheless, its conservative base and proximity to the government indicates an

enduring tension with migrant aspirations. Any efforts to expand PAN outreach will be a

delicate task, and probably quite limited.

Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD): Of the three parties, the left-wing

populist PRD had developed the most progressive doctrine of migrant political

participation. Ever since Cárdenas' campaign visits to California in 1988, it has had a pro-

116 Author's interview, Deputy (PAN, Zacatecas), Chamber of Deputies, 9 November 2006, Mexico City.

117 Author's interview, Senator (Mexico state), PAN legislative group Sub-coordinator Foreign Policy.

118 Ibid.

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migrant doctrine inspired by an authentic transnational vision, and it favored expansive

overseas voting reform within a new sixth circumscription reform for migrant

representation in the national legislature. The PRD also has governed in two leading

migration states, Michoacán and Zacatecas, and since 2002, it has structured its internal

elections to include emigrant members, reaching a participation of 3,000 overseas PRD

militants. From grassroots migrant activists to the Senate, the PRD included among its

ranks a broad base committed to expansive overseas voting.

At the center of the PRD line on migrant voting are the party's focus on

organizing overseas Mexicans and its efforts to develop a viable transnational politics for

overseas Mexicans facing double exclusion. A leading PRD Senator from Zacatecas

explained the basic principle guiding PRD doctrine:

First, I think that Mexicans who live in the U.S. are part of the people of Mexico

who do not have their rights recognized. Their political rights in Mexico and

those acquired in the U.S. by their work. So we believe that their participation

and their political influence is very small in both countries. (translation)119

The Senator linked objections to overseas voting to the government's historical fear of

mobilizing the migrant segment:

These (objections) are curtains of smoke, fundamentally what you have is a fear

that a different form of voting, for example with polling stations, generates

mobilization within the Mexican community in the U.S. and a consequential

organization . . the Mexican government has always had a fear that the

community there organizes because then it would demand its rights with more

force. (translation)120

The PRD has recognized the major problem of double exclusion facing undocumented

Mexican workers, and it has begun to address the need for pursuing political rights both

in Mexico and in the U.S. The PRD's emphasis on organization has led it not only to

119 Author's interview, ex-Senator and Federal Deputy (PRD, Zacatecas), Chairman on Constitutional

Reform, Chamber of Deputies, Mexico City, 30 October 2006.

120 Ibid.

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support expansive version of overseas voting that includes credentialization, public

campaigns and collective voting, but also to propose direct representation of migrants

through the creation of a sixth regional district. Though highly improbable,121

the sixth

district proposal is one of variety of uphill battles identified by the PRD to organize the

emigrant millions with a stronger motivation than Presidential voting. Other initiatives

include U.S. incorporation strategies, regional development efforts, as well as efforts to

form public spaces outside the government.

Two counter-tendencies within the party signified vulnerabilities that would

undermine the party's strong pro-voting position in 2005-06.122

First, the party has a

penchant for all-or-nothing solutions accompanied by mass protest marches, along with

an institutional weakness in the realms of negotiation and second-best solutions. At the

same time, a second tradition of barely reconfigured PRI politics characterized an

important segment that had split off from the ruling party. The features of the latter

segment included nationalism, paternalism, and a cynical and often corrupt manipulation

of extreme positions. These two counter-trends came together in 2005-06 in the PRD's

treatment of overseas voting, first in the legislation process, and then in particular during

the dramatic campaign loss of candidate Andres Manuel López Obrador.

The PRD's internal split between massive reform and cynical conservatism

surfaced first in the legislative process in 2005, reflecting a growing distance between

121 Mexico is divided into five regional circumscriptions, or regional districts, in which voters elect 40

deputies to the national Congress. Creating a sixth district would require taking seats from the first

five. The PRD's proposal would establish an additional region for the U.S., from which migrants would

elect an equal number of their own to the national Congress. The massive weighting of the diaspora is

based on the PRD's generous estimates of the Mexican diaspora as equal in size to one fifth of the

nation, which relies either on a massive overcount of emigrants or inclusion of U.S. citizens of

Mexican ethnicity.

122 These and other tensions have since blown up into a major internal split over renewing the party

leadership that threatens to lead to the end of the PRD if it continues unabated.

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migrant activists and top party leadership. When the voting bill moved from the House to

the Senate in March, a pivotal PRI Senator and committee chair substituted a restrictive

bill, seeking to divide migrant advocates with the difficult choice of whether to support or

oppose restrictive reform. The main lobbyists of La Coalición recognized the choice

between a second-best proposal or quitting the game altogether, but they faced a tough

battle in convincing their multi-party coalition of members to stay together for the

reduced prize. A brief but loud internal debate occurred with the protests and defection of

PRD supporters from Chicago and Los Angeles nearly derailing the lobbying effort. But

the PRD leadership in the Congress stayed in and supported the restrictive bill in the end,

despite its preferences for a large-scale reform.

The split between PRD leadership and its migrant militants surfaced again during

the implementation stage, behind the scenes, when the party's Presidential candidate

rejected a proposal to register PRD voters abroad and win the overseas vote. A leading

PRD Deputy explained the surprising rebuff that candidate López Obrador dealt his

proposal.

After the law was approved, I went and I presented to AMLO a project to organize the

perredistas in the US to be able to win the overseas election, with numerical goals,

county by county . . . But AMLO was not interested because I think he-- although he

didn't say it-- he did not want to leave the country physically and in terms of the

campaign. (translation)123

The remarkable decision by López Obrador to turn down a migrant outreach effort

suggests two conclusions, one about the candidate and one about the political realities as

he then assessed them. First, it points out the strong isolationist streak in the candidate's

personality, as someone who had never traveled abroad and who here declined again the

123 Author's interview, ex-Federal Deputy, PRD, 18 December 2006, Mexico City. Due to the law's

prohibition on overseas campaigning, the proposal centered on registration drives without a partisan

message, anticipating likely PRD gains from efforts at grassroots levels away from the pro-PAN

communities linked to the consulates.

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call to step beyond the territory. The enormous success of such a candidate in a self-

identified global nation is itself a telling irony, which points out the power of nationalism

as it is institutionalized in state structures and rooted locally throughout the Mexican

polity. Secondly, beyond the candidate's gut-level inclination, it is likely that he also

calculated that the proposal would cause problems or might be a loser, for various

reasons. First, the IFE was at the time using its discretionary powers of implementation to

craft restrictive guidelines that would severely limit overseas campaigning, a fact that the

candidate had to consider. Furthermore, since he felt he knew how to win at home,

perhaps he did not trust that votes abroad would help him. But our source suggested that

the candidate miscalculated:

He minimized what he could have won from the overseas vote. He did not consider it

important. In retrospect I would say that it could have been the definitive vote. Maybe

there wouldn't have been the 250,000 votes that we needed but it was one of the factors

(in his narrow losing margin). And if half a million had voted instead of 40,000, I'm

sure that it would have been a very important vote for AMLO, and he did not grasp this

very clearly in this moment, but it was. And it was not that difficult, simply to help the

IFE and the consulates to distribute the forms that were free. (translation)124

Eschewing compromise, the PRD leader sacrificed his legion's principled

commitments only to become tangled in a politics of manipulation. In the PRD

leadership, as in all of Mexico's parties, there is little interest in overseas voting.

Remarkably, then, for all of the ideological differences and fierce partisan competition

that characterized party relations in Mexico in 2006, the three major parties‘ convergence

in support of reform reflected the tentative victory of conservative party leaders over

lower-level militants rooted in migrant communities. If all three parties shared the same

position, then where did the party leaders take their cues?

State actors: The Federal Electoral Institute and above all the Foreign Ministry

124 Author's interview, ex-Federal Deputy, PRD, 18 December 2006, Mexico City.

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played pivotal roles in steering the overseas voting reform both toward the late, restrictive

legislation and toward the cautious implementation that followed. Whereas President Fox

was inadequately forceful as an advocate, bureaucratic interests led these two units to

actively stall and then to guide legislator opinions in the direction of restrictive reform.

The call for emigrant voting ran against the command model at the heart of the SRE's

bureaucratic organization, provoking logistical and political concerns with voting. This

opposition evolved in the collaboration of Foreign Ministry officials with the IFE and the

leadership of all three parties. The institutional structure of these two units of the

Mexican state—defined as the preferences and capacities of the electoral commission and

a professional foreign ministry with a formidable, autonomous governing structure in the

consulates- decisively swayed skeptical legislators away from open overseas voting.

Federal Electoral Institute (IFE): The IFE has been both an obstacle to and a

necessary ally of the overseas voting movement. Its organizational structure makes it

slow to move, conservative and costly, but also a source of technical competence and

bureaucratic capacities. Driving IFE actions on overseas voting have been its legal

obligations to implement electoral law in addition to its mixed organizational interest in

minimizing risk and gaining resources. As well, its professionalism and impulse toward

bureaucratic expansion have given wind to a progressive orientation within its inherent

conservatism. IFE gradualism has played a part in the politics of delay and postponement,

yet after the 2006 implementation it stands as a key source for measured expansion of

overseas voting. It has housed important proponents of the overseas vote, from early days

to the recent creation of the Coordination of Overseas Voting unit (COVE). IFE support

for a painstakingly thorough and gradual approach to overseas voting reform took shape

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under the leadership of José Woldenberg, the director of Mexico's federal electoral

institute under the traditional ruling PRI party government of Ernesto Zedillo.125

The

1998 commission issued a positive conclusion as to the feasibility of the vote for the

2000 Presidential election.126

The IFE has sought to direct the implementation of overseas voting according to

its core principles and material interests, at the expense of more participatory

formulations. The IFE's basic institutional interests lie in minimizing risks and securing

the territorial control, information and resources necessary for Mexican national

elections. In this light, overseas voting represented a major new risk and a potentially

enormous new task. IFE director Luis Carlos Ugalde sought to insulate his bureaucracy

from blame, protect it from risk, and win it more resources.

IFE campaign regulations of 2005 were a key part of the restrictive format for the

2006 cycle. The 2005 guidelines were explicitly prohibitive of overseas campaign

activities, coming as they did in the wake of the 2000 Friends of Fox case that had

tarnished the ruling PAN government‘s reputation and the PRI‘s massive misuse of state

oil company funds during the same 2000 campaign cycle. Furthermore, the 2005

regulations were taken seriously by the leadership of the PAN and the PRI, both having

borne major financial and criminal punishments so recently as a result of their 2000

misdeeds. In other words, the ruling parties past and present took very seriously the IFE‘s

edict to freeze overseas campaigns in 2005-06.

As a result of the IFE‘s 2005 regulations, the parties cancelled their plans to build

125 A former student activist and ex-member of the PRD, Woldenberg had been appointed by Zedillo's

conservative secretary of the interior Jorge Carpizo as director of the citizen-based electoral

organization and faced the challenging task of directing the rules for Mexico's political pluralization.

126 p. 3, IFE, Informe final que presenta la Comisión de Especialistas, 12 November 1998.

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overseas organizations, as the PAN‘s overseas coordinator explains in regard to his party:

We had representatives that were approved and regulated by basic norms for the

organization of the party in the US. This was OK‘d by the IFE before the electoral

process in 2005 . . . but when the IFE approved the specific lines for the functioning of

the campaign there, this structure was in effect frozen. (translation)127

The effects went beyond the PAN as well. When contacted by PRD campaign leaders,

the IFE informed them that its candidate would not be allowed to campaign abroad and

that the physical presence of its candidate abroad would be considered a campaign

activity, and the same for press conferences held for foreign media.128

In the absence of such restrictive regulations, overseas organization would surely

have been greater in the 2006 election. Nevertheless, there remains a two-sided aspect to

the IFE‘s doctrine of gradual controlled expansion of democratic participation—the

―system of mistrust‖ that has been the best hope for competitive electoral politics in the

nation‘s history. A paradoxical result is that Mexico has become a global innovator in

overseas voting with leading, state-of-the art technology and administrative systems, all

the while marshalling these impressive capacities toward the dubious achievement of

record low participation in 2006. The difficulty of voting from abroad together with the

broader national controversy involving allegations of domestic fraud have damaged the

IFE‘s prestige, at home and in the diaspora. But the organization‘s technical capacities

and slow-but-steady record of consensus-building and electoral effectiveness point to its

survival and resilience, generally and in particular in relation to overseas voting.

The restrictiveness of the first exercise notwithstanding, the transparent and

thorough nature of Mexico‘s implementation has created the bureaucratic groundwork for

127 Author‘s interview, Director of Overseas Organization, PAN Executive National Committee, Mexico

City, 16 August 2006.

128 PRD Deputy and campaign director for overseas organization, Comments at special seminar, El voto

de los mexicanos en el exterior: Realidad actual, agenda de reforma, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo

de México, Centro para Estudios y Programas Interamericanos, México DF, 4 December 2006.

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a gradual, continued expansion of the vote in future elections. The 2006 results of very

low participation and uncontested results present a mixed record that is also conducive to

gradual expansion.129

In this, the IFE continues to play a role as necessary ally.

Ministry of Foreign Relations (SRE): The overt opposition to migrant voting in

the Mexico's political ruling class originated within its Secretaría de Relaciones

Exteriores (SRE) in its historical relationship with the PRI. Decades of PRI hegemony

endured according to a clear division of labor defined territorially: the PRI would

organize Mexican workers and elections internally in the national territory, while

externally the Foreign Ministry would handle the protection of Mexican migrants. Over

seven decades of PRI rule, the SRE honed its part of the arrangement in line with

international law to form Mexico's foreign policy doctrine of non-intervention. Based on

a Weberian bureaucratic model of hierarchy and state-led political organization, this

doctrine never contemplated migrant self-organization, but it had a ready line for fending

off external interventions in its legal proscriptions on foreign agents and rights.130

The Foreign Ministry had equally strong institutional and political reasons to

oppose overseas voting, and its interjection in opposition at a crucial moment in the

Senate hearing was important in steering legislators toward a restrictive reform. Staffed

by a career foreign service and governed by hierarchical chain of command directed in

Mexico City, the organization has no interest in overseas electoral activities, which

129 According to the Director, the IFE received three complaints but dismissed them as groundless, actions

that were not challenged. And none of the parties submitted post-electoral legal claims on overseas

voting to the national electoral tribunal. Author's interview with the Director, IFE Coordinator of the

Overseas Vote (COVE), 11 September 2006, Mexico City.

130 Gómez Arnau 1990, 111-113. The Calvo doctrine of 1861 stated that foreign expatriates could give up

their international rights in particular situations. It was formalized in the Mexican Constitution of 1917,

which (i) established that only Mexican nationals had the right to acquire ownership of land and

mineral rights and (ii) required foreign nationals investing in Mexican real estate to renounce the

protection of their governments and sign a waiver at the Foreign Ministry acknowledging the Mexican

state's discretion to seize properties in case of breach of contract.

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represent distractions and potential problems for its diplomatic officers. The consuls in

diaspora cities were particularly alarmed, sensing themselves vulnerable to campaign

controversy, post-election protests and negative media attention.

In its leadership and throughout its consular infrastructure, the SRE has opposed

mass voting by Mexicans abroad and favored no voting throughout the institution-

building process. During the years of lobbying, the SRE was cool to the overseas voting

movement. From the beginning of the Fox administration, elites at the Foreign Ministry,

beginning with Chancellor Jorge Castañeda himself, viewed transnational politics as

problematic in relation to the primary diplomatic goal of negotiating a migrant accord.131

At middle and lower levels throughout the ranks of the foreign service and the more than

50 consulates in the US, diplomatic officers viewed migrant voting as a massive

headache at best.132

In the prospect of large-scale elections, the diplomatic corps feared a

new mandate outside of its traditional expertise and purview, in which it would have to

work closely with—and open consular administration and foreign policy up to— a set of

Mexican federations and clubs that it perceived as fractious and poorly led. During

Castañeda‘s brief but eventful tenure, Mexican diaspora entrepreneurs had already proved

to be a political liability for the new Administration‘s foreign policy team: Juan

Hernandez, Mexican-American Fox ally, sought to parlay the enthusiasm of pro-Fox

networks in California and Texas into an aggressive campaign to reorganize Mexico‘s US

diplomacy from the new President‘s side at Los Pinos. The result was the Office of

Mexicans in the Exterior (OME), a Presidential unit of diaspora outreach and

131 Author's interview, former Chancellor, via telephone, México DF-New York, 13 November 2006.

132 Author's interviews with Mexico City lobbyist of La Coalición, 16 October 2006, and with an ex-

Federal Deputy, PRD responsible for the study and analysis of overseas voting in the Chamber of

Deputies, 18 December 2006.

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Washington-focused campaigning inside the executive mansion. Confronted with this

bureaucratic encroachment, the SRE ultimately prevailed: it managed to have Fernández‘

creation integrated into the Foreign Ministry at Tlatelolco as the re-designated Institute of

Mexicans in the Exterior (IME). But the OME affair was a costly distraction for the new

Chancellor, himself a maverick within the Mexican political establishment. The

experience fit with his view of diaspora entrepreneurship as individualistic self-

promotion, unpredictable and potentially damaging to Mexico‘s foreign policy.

The Foreign Ministry exerted its influence in framing the debate on overseas

voting with a powerful argument about Mexico‘s national interest. During the legislative

deliberations of 2005, Luis Ernesto Derbez, Castañeda‘s successor at the SRE, articulated

the fundamental strategic issue at stake for the nation in a message that resonated with the

Congressional leadership, thus far concerned with the particular partisan consequences of

the overseas elections. For Derbez and other members of Mexico's foreign policy

community, Mexico faced a choice— either overseas voting or an immigration accord

with the U.S. The Foreign Ministry was understandably sensitive to the political climate

in Washington dominated by the ―war on terrorism,‖ hardened borders, and anti-

immigrant eruptions; it feared a U.S. backlash against Mexican migrants in the event of a

highly visible display of Mexican patriotism on U.S. soil. In this view, immigration

reform and the long-distance vote were mutually exclusive, not complementary as

enthusiasts of Mexican migrant transnationalism had argued. Thus, large-scale overseas

voting would run the risk of exacerbating U.S. nationalism, bringing harm to overseas

Mexicans and derailing Mexico‘s foreign policy entirely.

The national interest argument amplified a Huntingtonian vision of U.S. politics

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that was pervasive among Mexican elites sensitive to nativism north of the border. It

touched on deep fears of national embarrassment in Washington triggered by displays of

Mexican patriotism. From the start of the administration of President Vicente Fox, the

primary foreign policy priority had been, and remained, an immigration deal with the

U.S. The Foreign Ministry was therefore particularly sensitive to the groundswell of anti-

immigration sentiment building in the U.S. in 2005. Especially feared was the possibility

of a Mexican electoral dispute or crisis inside the U.S., which it was imagined would

generate forceful anti-Mexican xenophobia and wipe out any chance whatsoever of

achieving anything in negotiations with the U.S.

A leading PRD Senator testified to the influence of the national interest argument

and explained the restrictive legislation in precisely these terms, addressing Mexican

emigrants at a roundtable panel discussion in Los Angeles: ―the principal idea that limited

the legislators on the voto en el extranjero was the fear of doing anything to annoy the

U.S. government‖ (translation).133

Referring to the Foreign Ministry in particular, he

stated that ―the Mexican government going all the way back has not moved a finger to

organize the Mexicans abroad.‖ He went on to identify the link between the Mexican

foreign ministry‘s traditionally passive attitude toward migrant organization and the

attitudes of the political insiders at home: ―for the political class, this creates fear in two

ways: they don‘t want there to be a strong class that will pressure them and they don‘t

want to annoy the US government.‖ In the left-wing PRD view, the capacities for holding

overseas elections clearly exist. The Senator concluded that ―as we see with the Matricula

Consular, it would have been easy (to organize a participatory election), but this would

133 Mexican Senator Raymundo Cardenas, PRD-Zacatecas, Comments as panelist (author‘s translation),

Roundtable discussion of Mexico‘s Voto en el Extranjero, First Annual Convention of the Consejo de

Federaciones Mexicanas (COFEM), Los Angeles, 27 October 2006.

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have meant migrant citizens moving in the streets.‖134

The PRD Senator‘s critique merits detailed citation since it goes to the heart of

double exclusion, with a vision of transnational politics that is hard-edged and strategic

while also open to elements of complementarity and resident country incorporation.

Raymundo Cardenas is a former Marxist from Zacatecas who is at home with PRD-style

confrontational politics, fond of protest marches, hostile to the IFE, and instinctively

mistrustful of U.S. power. He uses his critique to support his party‘s line in favor of a

massively open overseas election involving full-scale legislative representation with a

sixth regional district for the Mexican diaspora. In contrast to López Obrador and many

other PRD colleagues who share this inclination, however, Cardenas‘ approach to power

and deal-making focuses on process, legislation and negotiation. The goal of collective

organization in his view is political change through legislation and reform, not

caciquismo and protest for protest‘s sake— an evaluation that the Senator‘s behavior and

decision-making generally bear out. Cardenas‘ political reasoning and positioning reflect

a clear distinction from the recent national PRD norm, which has come to disregarded

governance and the delivery of goods through reform.

Cardenas assesses Mexico‘s national interest much differently than the political

establishment does. The risks from open overseas voting have been overstated, he argues.

Mexican emigrants are already suffering abuse in the U.S. at the hands of arbitrary

policing and terror from right-wing vigilante groups. An electoral demonstration could

not make their condition worse, he argues; rather collective organization would enhance

their strength to deflect the certain assaults – through the power of numbers and more

134 ibid.

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skillful, concerted strategies of legal and civic defense. Interestingly, although Cardenas

is hardly glowing in his attitude to the U.S., his view allows room for a much more

benign environment in the resident country than Mexican state-nationalists assume. It just

might be that U.S. society would tolerate Mexicans voting from abroad, perhaps even

lending moral support to their efforts to spur democratization in the neighbor to the south.

In fact, the U.S. government gave full support to the Mexican government to conduct

overseas voting in the manner it saw fit, in keeping with emerging international protocol

for resident countries and as part of the reciprocal interest of the U.S. in the voting rights

of nearly 1 million U.S. overseas citizens residing in Mexico.135

Cardenas critique allows

us to see through the false notion of a receiving country hostile to overseas voting. It

opens the possibility for complementarity between resident and home country activism,

for a meaningful binational activism that transnationalists espouse, but is much more

knowing about Mexico‘s domestic politics.

The influential intervention by the SRE came in 2005 at a pivotal moment in the

legislative process. The Foreign Minister‘s testimony sought to block the overseas voting

bill entirely, and it nearly succeeded.136

In 2006, during the registration phase, the SRE

collaborated with the IFE to restrain efforts to enroll overseas voters, which only avoided

complete failure by the intervention of IME counselors.

The causal significance of the SRE's opposition lies first in its influence as an

opinion-maker and simultaneously in its local presence and political centrality in diaspora

cities. First as an opinion-maker, the SRE tipped the political balance against expansive

legislation, toward a restrictive law. The key moment came on March 16, 2005. When

135 Author‘s interview, former U.S. Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere, Washington, 3 May 2006.

136 Herrera, Jorge. 2005. SRE estima poco factible voto foráneo en 2006. El Universal, Mexico City, 16

March.

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Secretary Derbez openly enunciated the control and territorial arguments and

simultaneously argued that overseas voting would work against the chances of migration

reform, he galvanized the shared concerns and uncertainties about overseas voting across

parties among elite Mexican politicians. Derbez' testimony appeared to sink the overseas

voting, which had been put forward in the form of a massively expansive ―transatlantic‖

format as a wide open target:

Between Ugalde and Derbez, they bombarded the ―transatlantic‖ proposal . . .

overseas voting was not convenient, and like all the others, they said ―yes, but in

reality no‖. For a human reason, and a political reason: the human reason is who

wants more work than he already has? The political reason was that the elections

were going to be very competitive and the overseas vote could spoil it for them.

―Because the system is not right, because there may be irregularities . . . this might

make a lot of noise. Yes but no then.‖ The target was perfect.

Derbez added principled objections to the IFE director's testimony emphasizing

logistical challenges. Ugalde detailed the administrative challenges and expensive costs

that overseas voting would entail; his essential message was that IFE was not opposed, its

support could be bought, but it would be expensive ($300 million dollars, precisely). By

contrast, for the Foreign Minister, halting the proposal was a matter of national security.

The most devastating attack was by Ugalde and Derbez. Ugalde had an advantage,

since after him comes Derbez whom many migrants knew through the IME. So,

when Derbez exaggerates -- because he exaggerated considerably -- it's he who

becomes the ―enemy‖ of the vote and not Ugalde. Derbez was more critical than the

IFE because he said that he was in agreement with all of the objections that the IFE

was putting ―and, furthermore, I have more.‖ (translation)137

The political effect of the national interest argument was to reframe overseas

voting debate in such a way as to provide legislators with cover for politically convenient

decisions to support an extremely restrictive law. Specifically, the national interest line

identified a valid potential scenario of overseas electoral controversy and re-interpreted it

through the powerful ideological lens of Mexican state-nationalism. For party leaders,

137 Author's interview with Mexico City lobbyist of La Coalición, 16 October 2006.

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this added a major new liability to the existing uncertainties about OV‘s direct electoral

consequences, which the Coalición lobby had attempted to mollify with reference to

various studies projecting moderate and balanced turnout at most. Overseas voting gone

wrong, in this view, would destroy any prospects for immigration reform and galvanize

anti-immigration forces intent on injuring Mexicans abroad. Confronted with the prospect

of an affront to the U.S., amidst the daily stream of reports of violations by the security-

obsessed North Americans, leaders saw expansive overseas voting in new light. Mexican

elites could honestly look across the table to their counterparts from rival parties and

agree that expansive overseas voting in 2006 would not only be unsettling to each

electorally, but more importantly, it would be a disservice to Mexicans at home and

abroad, damaging the co-national emigrants‘ safety and setting back its democracy. .

Secondly, as a critical bureaucratic presence in diaspora cities, the SRE played a

negative role in overseas voting implementation in 2006, with its consulates and the IFE

failing to promote the vote as tasked. The discrepancy between the three million forms

sent to the consulates and the 45,000 voters registered confirms testimony from focus

groups, interviews and news reports that the consulates mainly held registration materials

closely and then dumped them. Only in the last month of the enrollment period, with

registrations at 3,000, did IME counselors tied to migrant groups in the US prevail upon

the consulates to distribute the formats more liberally, which resulted in net registrations

for the month of 40,000 and saved the registration implementation from complete

failure.138

Subnational actors: Given Mexico's large scale and regional heterogeneity, an

138 Ibid and Focus Group testimony at the Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior, 4 October 2006.

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important component of migrant diaspora politics occurs at subnational levels. The

significance of translocal politics to the process of forming Mexico's national overseas

voting institution is complex but relevant as a source of indirect causation.139

While

Mexican migrant federations and clubs have not attained an influential presence in

national politics, they have provided key raw material for the binational lobbying

network.140

Puebla and Zacatecas are diverse cases with variation in political openness

and migrant political organization. Puebla reflects an exaggerated version of Mexico's

fierce exclusion of marginalized groups along with its acute absence of shared trust,

while Zacatecas shows a broader consensus in favor of openness to migrants and a more

institutionalized collaboration between state government and migrant groups.

Pueblan diaspora actors have responded with transnational entrepreneurship

exemplified by the leadership of two persons. Carlos Olamendi has invigorated a

privately funded state-chartered office for the attention of migrants, while Joel Magallán

has led the religious Asociación Tepeyac in New York for two decades to dispense all

range of services not provided by the government. Their bids to provide social relief and

formulate policies on behalf of Puebla's emigrants reflect the dire reality of the state's

emigrant communities and the organized neglect practiced by its political elites.

Interestingly, both leaders have been involved in the overseas voting movement, with

Olamendi one of five principal partners of the binational lobby.

Zacatecas stands in contrast to Puebla for the longer history and larger scale of its

own diaspora, along with the more institutionalized nature of migrant-state relations.

139 Smith and Bakker (2007, 20) describe the activities of hometown clubs and federations as translocal,

since they occur across national borders but also remain local or regional in nature.

140 Author's interview, La Coalición lobbyist and investigator, Instituto Mora, Mexico City, 19 September

2006.

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Highlights of emigrant politics in Zacatecas include the hometown associations and the

local policy innovations that they have stimulated. In 2003, the legislature recognized

Zacatecans abroad as citizens and established their right to vote in state elections.

However, the absence of overseas voting in Zacatecas points out that politics has been a

secondary realm for migrant participation.

Puebla and Zacatecas diverge in the extent of institutionalization of their emigrant

politics, but they do not differ in overseas voting outcomes at the state level. Translocal

politics at the subnational level are diverse and by definition distinct from national

politics. However, they have also been a significant secondary factor related to the

overseas voting movement, principally in the venues and human talent that they have

provided for the binational coalition.

IV Instituting the Extraterritorial Polity: State-led remittances

Mexico's intermediate outcome in 2005-06 was a partial accommodation of

migrant demands as well as an instance of continuity in the political exclusion of

migrants. It was the direct result of deliberate actions by legislators to specify in the law

restrictive measures for voting, with the 2005 law reflecting an elite consensus for

restrictive voting as the least worst option. Field interviews confirmed Parra's analysis of

legislators' preferences. The PRI hoped for no reform, the PAN favored restrictive reform,

and the PRD called for a massive open extraterritorial reform. With intense pressure from

migrant lobbyists upon legislators to vote on a reform bill, restrictive reform emerged as

the consensus choice as the least worst option .

This much is known, and it corresponds to the existing descriptive research of the

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outcome and the events leading up to it presented in the prior section.141 However, the

extremely risk-averse behavior of Mexican political actors stands out as remarkable,

especially when considered in light of comparable cases of other labor export

democratizers, in which parties view diaspora contacts as a potential source of resources

to be actively developed and electorally mobilized. The contribution of this analysis is to

explain the convergence of preferences in favor of restrictiveness on the part of Mexican

party leaders across a vigorously competitive political spectrum, despite burgeoning

resource flows from abroad and the enormous potential in votes and campaign funds

abroad available for capture. Something acted to block the incentive effects that we

would expect from political competitiveness. The key causal mechanisms, I argue, lie in

the ways that institutional structures shape the interactions of political elites and

emerging diaspora actors. What caused the move forward to voting legislation in 2005

was the binational lobbying campaign; what drove home elite resistance to reform

throughout followed by the adoption of restrictive voting was the strong argument by the

Foreign Ministry about the territorial sovereignty with overseas elections.

The political effects of labor export between diaspora and state actors flow in both

directions, requiring a conception of state-led political remittances to capture the ways in

which state actors influence and direct overseas citizens. Within its acercamiento

doctrine, the Mexican government has developed a broad policy repertoire for engaging

its diaspora, including enhanced consular services, civic organizations, collective

investment, cultural activities-- anything but voting. In Mexico, transnational

entrepreneurship related to emigrant politics consisted in large part (although not

141 Author's research, Calderón and Martínez 2004, Parra 2005.

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exclusively) in the bureaucratic innovation of state actors in the foreign ministry, the state

governments, and the national electoral commissions. A leading example is Carlos

González Gutierrez, the Director of the Institute for Mexicans in the Exterior (IME), who

has provided the main strategic intellectual and leadership behind Mexico's acercamiento

policy within the Foreign Ministry for two decades. González' vision has shaped the

IME's model of state-led social service provision and support for a transnational

―network of networks‖ uniting overseas Mexicans in systematic dialogue with the

government. The IME program has taken on a particular importance given the country's

rejection of open electoral institutions. Despite its restrictive voting rules, Mexico has

earned a reputation for bureaucratic innovation in state-diaspora programs among labor

export governments across the global level, as a result of efforts by González and other

state actors.

A different instance of state-led entrepreneurship in Mexico is evident in the

efforts of Mexican electoral authorities to locate, define and elaborate a ―global state of

art‖ in overseas voting administration. Ironically, Mexico has become a global innovator

on overseas voting even as it has continued to uphold important de facto limits on

overseas voting. In the 1990s, the overseas voting area had been an international policy

vacuum. Electoral authorities in Mexico and other developing countries came together in

international technical bodies in search of resources for resolving their own national

administrative challenges. Motivating the collaboration was a shared set of desires to

legitimize fledgling democracies, identify best practices based on comparative learning

and pooled data, and establish enduring institutions for overseas participation. Drawing

upon support from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance

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(IDEA) and the International Foundation for Elections Systems (IFES), the epistemic

network of electoral experts has advanced a new set of institutional standards for

overseas voting at the international system level, which now exists as a meaningful

normative reality for other developing countries.142 This process shows how Mexico's

electoral authority has developed significant bureaucratic capacities, namely in the part of

an internal braintrust that has internalized democratic norms and developed overseas

voting expertise, but that these capacities will be deployed only as the conditions of

Mexico's political transition will permit.143

Consulates and their officers play a central role in diaspora politics as the public

symbol of the nation-state's legitimacy and the physical site of public venues for overseas

nationals. State structure is a powerful reality rooted in the sovereignty principle and

sanctioned by the international system. This point is evident if we imagine the

perspective of an expatriate citizen intent on politically reconnecting with his or her

global nation at a pivotal historical or electoral moment. Long-distance participation

raises a few concrete questions. Where is the public space and what are the rules for

access to that space? Who runs the government and where is it? At this point, emigrant

belonging to a separate home country is not just a subjective matter of identity; to remain

real, it requires public institutions, which involve state structures due to the nature of the

international system. Generally, due to the Westphalian institution of territoriality, the

consular infrastructure stands out not only as critical signifier of nation, but also as

physical arena for public affairs abroad and pipes connecting diaspora to national

142 In 2007, the IDEA Handbook on External Voting was co-published by Stockholm-based IDEA and

Mexico's IFE, with the latter's Carlos Navarro an instrumental contributor.

143 The Mexico-led diffusion of overseas voting expertise also has implications for world polity theory,

including important evidence of mechanisms in the relationship between nation-state actors and

epistemic communities.

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structures at home.

A leading PRD Senator discussed the role of Mexican consulates as an obstacle to

autonomous migrant organization. Responding to a question about the challenge of

migrant organization, he contrasted the prestige of the Mexican Consul in Los Angeles

and the leadership of a newly formed migrant organization called the Council of Mexican

Federations (COFEM).

Interviewer: how do you unite the migrant community without the government?

You have to do it, it is an issue of maturity, you have to do it. Because, look, who

conducted the meeting of the COFEM, the closing ceremony, who directed it?

Who gave the last word? The Consul Beltrán. This is a very clear image that the

COFEM does not have the independence that a political entity must have if it is

going to make people listen in Mexico and Washington.

The Mexican diaspora lacks and badly needs an umbrella organization, in the Senator's

view:

No such entity exists. La Coalición maybe, but it is very small, it still does not

represent what it ought to represent. Some leaders of the federations may be on

the way, they may acquire the maturity to convert themselves into political

leaders. The same with various coalitions, the same with various human rights

advocates, with the people of Hermanidad Latina, with the people with the

present Council of the IME, these are people who may lead to the next step.

(translation)144

The PRD Senator showed a subtle evaluation of the IME, distinguishing its counselors

from its state housing, and he points out the enduring power of the consulates as a

conservative force.

The Council of the IME cannot be the representation of the Mexicans in the US

in the struggle for their rights, because the Council of the IME is an entity linked

to the Mexican state. But some of its members, yes, they are leaders.

The absence of unity fractures and delegitimizes Mexican organizational strength, in his

view.

144 Author's interview, ex-Senator and Federal Deputy (PRD-Zac), Chamber of Deputies, México DF, 30

October 2006.

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Here is the problem: that all of them take a step to convert themselves in one

organization that fills in the absence of a Mexican Martin Luther King. We do not

have a leader recognized by all. There is not one (now), but there may be one

group that constitutes itself independently from the Mexican government, from

the state governments, and independently from the consulates, so that it

represents all in the struggle. Because one club or a federation of clubs, well, it's

fine to work for the 3X1 and all of the programs that they manage very well . . .

But above all, Mexican state in the form of the consulates is fundamentally opposed to

the recognition and fulfillment of diaspora participation rights:

. . . but they are never going to be able to participate with the necessary force to

win their rights, because in one way or another, there is the mediation of the

consuls. (translation)145

The significance of the consulates has an important theoretical implication that

challenges a good deal of the existing transnational literature: nations remain largely,

though not entirely, the property of states. The ―globalization from below‖ perspective of

transnationalists implies that national community can thrive by circumventing states

structures, utilizing technological linkages and civic organization to link diaspora actors

and national society. However, they present a weak vision of political community.

Overseas nations that lack access to public venues are likely to remain stunted and

subordinated to government actors in home and resident countries. The alternative route

of creating public associations out of informal spaces is politically problematic:

ultimately, any extraterritorial institution-building of a non-state nature, if it is to

guarantee rights and provide public goods in the long run, will need to connect itself to

the nation-state that animates it.

A clear illustration of the limitations on any sort of diaspora governance without

government can be seen in the 1994 and 2000 mock elections held by Mexican activists

in Chicago and Los Angeles; their votes overwhelmingly supported the left-wing

145 Ibid.

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opposition PRD party, but they did not count in the election. The exercise functioned as a

political demonstration of protest against the ruling PRI regime. But for electoral

purposes, the voting was meaningless because the Mexican government had not

established any legal authority for diaspora actors to organize elections and vote. The

problem of public legitimacy in overseas politics takes on a specific character in the

special status of state structures as conduit between diaspora and polity. This problem is

crucial to the process of building institutions for overseas voting. It requires that the

analysis focus on state actors preferences as institutionalized in and by state structures.

Conclusion

Mexicans abroad are extremely plural involving a range of high-skill

entrepreneurs, with many millions retaining an active interest in home country politics.

The scale of this population alone puts Mexico in the upper reaches of diaspora nation-

states (an emerging global policy category); along with working class migrants, it

includes an upper class of highly-educated elites with potential economic and political

capacities, who have been recognized and targeted by the Mexican state. However, the

promising demographic characteristics and attitudes of Mexican citizens abroad stand in

contrast with the absence of enduring political organization among the diaspora. The

organization that does exist has mainly taken the form of civic and cultural groups, which

lack institutional depth. The one political exception has been the binational activist

network that congealed around the lobbying campaign for the overseas vote. The

exceptional nature of the coalition's success and its subsequent disbanding point to the

hostile institutional environment confronting Mexican diaspora political organization.

Mexico's capable overseas state has acted to shape a restrictive regime for

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overseas voting, which makes electoral participation extremely difficult for all but the

most educated and attentive overseas citizens. Through four mechanisms – campaign

regulation, consular domination of overseas organization, issue framing, and

implementation—the strong capacities and preferences of the Foreign Ministry and the

IFE have shaped a consensus among Mexican political elites that overseas voting is a

political loser for the nation, and therefore a political risk for each party. On the other

hand, overseas voting galvanized Mexican political entrepreneurs in the diaspora, who

for fifteen years articulated a persistent demand, adapted an increasingly coherent

political strategy, and lobbied effectively on behalf of the partial step to overseas

elections in the 2005 law. Yet the Foreign Ministry confirmed the risks of these calls for

the nation, leading legislators to favor an extremely restrictive law.

Despite the absence of full-fledged overseas elections, the development of

transnational politics in Mexico has been stunted, not still-born. The combination of

political pluralization and massive remittance economies has created powerful forces in

support of political participation by emigrant Mexicans, which have been diverted from

electoral participation to other forms. Transnational political entrepreneurship is evident

in civic organization at local and regional levels, in bureaucratic innovation at different

levels, and in a focus upon windows of opportunity in the resident country society.

Political ideas can cross over borders more cheaply than ever, as transnationalists

and globalization enthusiasts like Thomas Friedman point out. But for the new ideas

(such as the notion of the right to vote from abroad) to exert influence, they need to locate

institutional hooks to catch onto, otherwise actors drop them. Why do politicians in

Mexico perceive overseas voting as a costly risk, and not a great growth opportunity as in

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the Dominican Republic? Why do party leaders differ in their assessment from the rank

and file? Calculations about the organization of diaspora politics depend upon how the

government is organized, I have argued. Through four specific mechanisms, the

capacities and preferences of the overseas state shape and define the political incentives

that guide elite legislator decisions on overseas elections.

By documenting the pivotal role of the two key overseas state units, this analysis

contributes a more complete account of Mexico's response to the overseas voting

question. It challenges conventional explanations of rationalist scholarship and

mainstream political analysts who assign all agency to PRI party leaders. In the first

place, it identifies in full the decisive impact of the diaspora lobby network, which

pushed Mexico against all odds to an intermediate outcome by 2006. Moreover, it

provides a deeper understanding into the structural roots of the containment response.

The absence of competition for migrants' favor between parties rests upon an elite

consensus across their leadership, which is not limited to the PRI's familiar dinosaurs but

also includes the conservative inner circles that rule the PAN and the renegade left-wing

populist candidate of the PRD. Diaspora advocates were seen as a threat to insider power,

within each of the parties, and as a dangerous element in conflict with Mexico's doctrine

of foreign policy. The initiative of the Foreign Ministry to oppose overseas voting,

together with the constant obstacle of its consulates, reinforced arguments about electoral

security that served conservative elites across all three parties concerned with avoiding

uncertainty and loss of control to new migrant actors.

Looking forward, the alliance between state foreign policy elites and party leaders

will have consequences, especially given the pace of diaspora learning and its multiple

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points of political entry. The restrictive voting institution has blocked transnational

entrepreneurs from access to Mexico's electoral politics, a fact likely to accelerate the

erosion of party orientations of concerned Mexican diaspora citizens along with the

possibility of their re-orientation to the country of residence.

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Chapter 5

Overseas voting in Asia and Africa

191

Remittances intensify diaspora politics, putting overseas voting on the national agenda in

democratic countries. Chapter two documented the global diffusion of overseas practices

in terms of its historical practice and recent popularity, pointing out the strong association

between political openness and remittances with open overseas voting. Investigating the

puzzle of variance in Mexico and the Dominican Republic, case study research found that

the nature and strength of state structures is crucial to whether labor export countries will

adopt open overseas voting or not. In developing democracies with sizable remittance-

sending communities and weak state structures, transnational political entrepreneurs are

more easily able to institute open overseas voting. If the state structures are strong,

however, then open voting is unlikely.

This chapter extends the state-diaspora analysis in three sets of paired cases in the

regions of East Asia, South Asia, and West Africa. The chapter first relates the research

question to the six cases investigated here and then elaborates my argument in the form of

four key mechanisms. In the second section, it discusses case selection and offers a

comparative overview of the regional pairs and all six cases together. It then presents the

mini-case studies.

What makes similar cases from the same region adopt different responses on

overseas voting? To explain persistent variance, my thesis is two-fold: i) political

openness and remittances are sufficient to put open voting on the national agenda; ii)

however, countries will implement open overseas voting only if political entrepreneurs

are not inhibited by overseas state structures, namely strongly institutionalized foreign

ministries and electoral bureaucracies committed to doctrines of nationalism and

territorial organization. This chapter refers to countries lacking such structures as weak

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states; in these countries, overseas elections can be organized immediately. The extension

cases test the hypotheses generated thus far, with particular attention to the mechanisms

that link theoretical factors to their expected effects.

I The overseas state at work

Among East Asia‘s recent democracies, why does the Philippines adopt open

voting, while South Korea has rebuffed diaspora participation demands until recent signs

of change? In South Asia‘s first post-colonial nations and great multi-ethnic states of

strategic scale, why do we find an even more clear-cut distinction between India‘s denial

and Indonesia‘s liberal adoption? In Western Africa, why does Senegal steadily expand

overseas voting while Ghana stops short?

The studies in this chapter test the author‘s ―overseas state‖ hypothesis in relation

to two alternatives: a rationalist domestic politics argument focusing on elite party

decision-making and a sociological perspective that applies an ideographic methodology

and emphasizes the configuration of the diaspora‘s experience and demography within

national political history. In the rationalist view, the key actors are national legislators

voting on the basis of their party‘s interest—a view that offers leverage within a narrow

timeframe but lacks predictive power in explaining outcomes linked to processes that

extend one electoral cycle. The sociological view represents, in effect, a null hypothesis

that overseas state structure does not explain the outcomes, that there is no common

causal explanation; in this view, outcomes are explained by the interaction of diaspora

capacities, the particular meaning of emigration within the polity and the

transnationalization of shared national experience over time.

Thus, three main rival views are associated with respective sets of alternative

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explanatory factors: overseas state structure (bureaucratic capacity and disposition in the

foreign ministry and electoral commission); domestic politics (party structure, electoral

formulae and other incentive structures in the domestic arena); and diaspora demography

and an idiosyncratic historical factor (socioeconomic and organizational characteristics,

transnational memory and experience of emigration). Table 5.0 presents the author‘s

argument in graphic form, presenting a roadmap of the chapter that classifies the cases

across the range of OV outcomes in terms of the key factors in the argument.

Table 5.0 Overseas state structures

Capacities

Strong

(professionalized & autonomous)

Weak

(personalized & dependent)

Values

&

Preferences

State

sovereignty

No OV

(Mexico, India)

non-determinate

(Ghana)

Individual

Rights

Gradual/Partial openness

(South Korea)

Open OV

(DR, Senegal,

Philippines, Indonesia)

While the rationalist view is parsimonious, it is insufficient and too often in

conflict with the facts, I contend. The interests of political elites are unclear at best,

shifting quickly in South Korea and Mexico and provoking costly miscalculations, as we

will see in Ghana. Guiding elite re-calculations in these cases are the institutional factors

associated with the overseas state in four mechanisms, which occur in rough sequence

from first surfacing of a diaspora voting claim.

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Fundraising controls: within the domestic arena, strong electoral commissions

that uphold bans or domestic normative prohibitions on foreign fundraising deter

partisan outreach and overseas party-building.

Diaspora organization: in diaspora cities, strong foreign ministries staffed by a

professional foreign service present a pre-existing venue for non-partisan

diaspora organization in the consular infrastructure, driving transnational

entrepreneurship to state and civic sectors. Strong state capacities also raise

concerns about government manipulation of overseas voting in favor of the

incumbent party, making opposition leaders more risk averse in deciding whether

to support OV or not.

Issue framing: in the legislature, the foreign ministry and electoral commission

frame the domestic politics of the overseas voting issue when they weigh in with

the media and legislators about the costs, logistics and consequences for external

relations with resident countries; foreign conflict and hostile states are inimical to

overseas voting; in states founded on principles of nationalism and territorial

organization,146

bureaucratic actors make overseas voting politically toxic when

they invoke potential risks to state interests.

Implementation: abroad, strong overseas state structures disposed to minimize

risks to state and ruling party can obstruct expansive implementation of diaspora

voting, seen concretely in the coordination between electoral commission and

foreign ministry.

146 Indicators of this sort of ―state nationalism‖ include strong adherence to territorial organization,

national jurisdiction and non-intervention in the operational plans of the foreign ministry and the

electoral bureaucracy.

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In each of these four regards, weak states in which transnational electoral organization is

unimpeded by territorial-nationalist doctrines are more conducive to the growth and

institutionalization of open overseas voting.

The mechanisms of overseas state intermediation involve specific capacities

matched to particular bureaucratic norms and preferences. As the extension cases will

show, this more complex argument is better suited to the full complexity of variant

outcomes. Nevertheless, two simple points merit mention. Necessary conditions for

today‘s transnational politics as theorized are a minimum level of domestic political

openness and a remittance-sending overseas population. Secondly, overseas state factors

shape incentives for transnational political entrepreneurship. Self-interested calculations

by domestic political bosses, transnational agents and diaspora advocates play out in a

structural context that is more or less conducive to expansive overseas voting. Actors

weigh the uncertainty and costs against the force of rights claims and their anticipated

future benefits, each interpreted according to his or her position in the government, the

parties, or civil society. Especially in recent democratizers, calculations about political-

institutional pathways are fraught with uncertainty amidst tenuous rules of the game.

Thus the overseas state argument incorporates two crucial strategic propositions:

A necessary condition of open overseas voting is a ruling party that wants it.

When a party leader with a potential veto perceives uncertainty (namely risks of

opposition cheating or non-acceptance), he or she will not support open OV.

The rationalist perspective is necessary in pointing out essential strategic calculations

and interactions at work, but insufficient to explain variance across cases. Its weakness

lies in taking actors‘ interests as given and self-evident rather than problematizing these

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interests and probing their structural and ideological sources. What makes ruling parties

want OV, and what are the conditions required for cross-party consensus? It is puzzling

why entrepreneurs in one remittance-dependent democracy regard OV as risky and

dangerous, while elites in a comparable nearby country accept OV as an automatic

opportunity space to be exploited. Anomalies across similar cases and puzzling instances

of apparently significant miscalculation suggest that interests are not that obvious and call

for qualitative research into the dynamics of interest formation and calculation.

The overseas state argument that develops is thus a somewhat friendly critique of the

rationalist perspective. As such, it is also naturally better equipped to assess the diaspora

politics phenomenon than the sociological view. Contrary to the latter‘s primary focus

upon diaspora actors, the existence of millions of overseas nationals does not necessarily

signify the emergence of a new political actor. One may emerge, but there is not an

automatic relationship. The unity and political influence of transnational voting advocates

is an empirical variable. The ensuing case analyses will investigate whether purely

internal or transnational factors are most significant in structuring incentives.

II Case selection & comparative overview

The extension cases fall within the dissertation‘s scope of developing democracies

with significant remittance-sending populations overseas. Case selection controls for

region while maximizing variance on the key dependent and independent variables. Thus,

each set of paired cases share the same region but present a contrasting overseas voting

outcome. Otherwise, the most important difference lies in the institutional characteristics

of the specified state units.

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In East Asia, Philippines and South Korea present a paired comparison that is

directly analogous to the dissertation‘s core Mexico-Dominican Republic pair. Both are

middle-income developing countries with highly visible overseas populations that contain

important concentrations in the U.S. In both pairs, the insular weak-state case

(Dominican Republic, Philippines) has experienced open overseas voting, while the

hierarchically organized and more industrialized cases with a stronger state (Mexico,

South Korea) have resisted increasing diaspora mobilization, despite increasing political

competition and party alternation in power.

Both East Asia cases experienced democratization in the 1980s, too, though they

also differ in some basic ways. Philippines has high levels of inequality and poverty,

whereas South Korea has joined the OECD countries with its greater income distribution

and higher per capita income. In terms of overseas voting, Philippines presents a case of

expansive overseas voting driven by transnational NGO networks rather than political

parties. By contrast, in South Korea, diaspora networks have encountered a territorially

defined national state that initially rejected the constitutionality of overseas voting but

presently shows signs of a wholesale shift in the elite consensus, driving Korean courts

and parties to establish the legal basis for overseas voting. Lastly, prominence of national

security concerns in South Korea together with its declining birth rates present unique

(and contradictory) factors of potential importance.

In South Asia, India and Indonesia present a pair of two of the world‘s four largest

nation-states, both formed out of tremendous internal diversity in the middle of the 20th

century and built around the principle of secular nationalism. India has rejected overseas

voting to date, resisting the recent demands for electoral participation rights of its more

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numerous diaspora, despite a significantly longer experience of multiparty open elections.

At first glimpse, its overseas voting profile resembles an extreme version of Mexico, with

a strong internal and external state hierarchy setting the bounds for party-diaspora

relations. Indonesia, by contrast, has recently implemented open overseas voting in recent

elections, building upon early foundations established under the authoritarian regime and

integrating a relatively less prominent diaspora population in national elections since

2004.

The cases of Senegal and Ghana show the overseas voting issue playing out in

Western Africa states amidst a context of ―brain drain‖ and recent democratization in two

small-medium size countries. Cross-border migration is deeply ingrained in the societies

of western Africa, for which the historical legacies of diaspora are profound but part of

the region‘s deep structure and historical memory147

; in the region‘s contemporary

politics, common characteristics are weak nation-states with significant internal ethnic

divisions that have nevertheless acted to institutionalize a managed migration region in

forming the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 1975. The

experiences of Senegal and Ghana in recent decades have been marked by traumatic

effects of neoliberal economic policies, including renewed labor export along shifting

lines and greater global dispersion, along with competitive multi-party elections and

peaceful transitions in power to opposition-led regimes.

Contrary to initial evidence of reversion from overseas voting, research shows

Senegal to be a steady expander of open overseas voting, with a volume of activity

remarkable in proportion to the country‘s relatively small scale and low income. Senegal,

147 Polgreen, Lydia. 2005. Ghana‘s uneasy embrace of slavery‘s diaspora. New York Times, 27 December.

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with highly personalistic politics and increasingly pluralist forms of clientelism, presents

a paradigmatic case of a weak state with open overseas elections. In comparison, Ghana

initially shows a remarkable resemblance to Senegal in the timing of democratization, its

personalistic politics, and the great dispersion of its diaspora, yet it has rejected overseas

voting to date. Overseas voting legislation passed in 2006 sparked major political

controversy in Ghana, and the opposition party blocked implementation of overseas

voting in the 2008 Presidential election. Ghana has institutionalized a more traditional

foreign policy doctrine based upon nationalism and the pursuit of foreign development

assistance. The no voting outcome is puzzling, and it is unclear whether Ghana‘s

marginalized Foreign Ministry can account for the outcome. The extension case

investigates the transnational and domestic politics to locate the main sources of this

opposition.

As Table 5.1 shows, the expatriate populations range from roughly 2% to 10% of

each national population. All received over $1 billion U.S. in remittances in 2007. The

cases fall into two clusters in the magnitude of remittance dependency, based on

aggregate GDP differentials between the larger more industrialized countries and the

more peripheral economies. Moreover, all of the cases in this chapter except for India

moved to competitive multi-party elections in the late 1980s or early 1990s; including

India, all six first experienced ruling party changes in the 1990s. Similar high levels of

political openness are evident in their Polity scores at the top end of the twenty one-point

range.

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Table 5.1 Developing democracies with transnational politics in three regions

Demographics Economics Democracy OV

as of

2008 Expats, mill.

Pop.,

mill.

Remit-

tances,

$bill.

GDP,

per

capita

Remit. % of

GDP

Polity -10 lo 10 hi

Regime

onset (# yrs)

Philippines 8.7 88 $11.6 low 12.9 8 1987 (21) Yes

South Korea 3.0 48 1.1 high 0.1 8 1987 (21) No

India 25.0 1,150 27.0 low-mid 2.4 9 1950 (48) No

Indonesia 6.0 230 6.5 low-mid 1.3 8 1999 (9) Yes

Senegal 1.0 13 1.0 low 8.5 8 1993 (15) Yes

Ghana 2.0 23 1.2 low 10.0 8 1992 (16) No

Sources: UN, World Bank, Polity IV

In the individual mini-case studies that follow, the analysis uses evidence obtained

from government documents and secondary sources. It describes the overseas voting

outcome along with the country‘s experience with labor emigration and democratization.

In considering the domestic politics and state structures, essential aspects reviewed

include electoral history, recent status and trends of the country‘s political openness, the

number and types of political parties, the relevant government institutions, and any

idiosyncrasies that may be significant. After a chronology summarizing key turning

points and events, each case study analyzes the outcomes in terms of state-diaspora

relations, investigating the interactions of political actors and structures including

political parties, civic organizations and state actors. It then assesses the relative causal

significance of the main domestic and transnational factors at work.

Philippines: Policy-bred transnational coalitions & open OV in a weak state

The Philippines has put in place an expansive overseas voting institution in recent

years. As anticipated in the 1987 Constitution and following passage of the Overseas

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Absentee Voting Act in 2003, the Philippines first implemented overseas voting in the

2004 Presidential election. More than 250,000 overseas Filipinos voted in over 100

embassies, consulates and other official overseas voting sites with participation among

expatriates in the Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions (COAV, 175). Philippines again

implemented overseas voting in the interim legislative elections of 2007, boosting

registration to 487,000 overseas voters but resulting in a disappointing participation rate

of only 20%. Efforts to clarify the rules and expand outreach to overseas citizens led to

mixed participation results from the 2007 interim election, with growth in registration to

approximately 450,000 but only 20% turnout (112,000) due to a generalized let-down

linked in part to it being a mid-term election.

5.2 Philippines OV Chronology

1946 Independence: U.S. colonial administration (1898-1942), Japan wartime occupation (1942-45)

1972 - 1986 Martial law under President Marcos

1974 Labor Code for Overseas Workers

1977 Overseas Workers Welfare Administration established

1980 Commission on Overseas Filipinos established by Presidential directive

1982 Philippines Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) by executive order

1986 Anti-Marcos People Power movement; Opposition leader Corazon Aquino elected President

1987 Constitution establishes workers' rights to organize trade unions

1992 Election of Fidel Ramos to Presidency (1992-1998)

1995 Act on Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos signed by President Fidel Ramos

Inception of June 7 Migrant Day celebration and Month of Overseas Filipinos (Dec.)

1998 Election of Joseph Estrada

2001 Resignation of Estrada, assumption of Macapagal-Arroyo

2001 Overseas worker demonstrations in Hong Kong on worker protections and wages

2003 Overseas Absentee Voting Law passed

Citizenship Retention and Re-acquisition Act passed

2004 Implementation of overseas voting; Re-election of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo

2007 Second implementation in interim elections

2010 2nd

Presidential election with overseas voting

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Philippines is a world leader in labor export, with an overseas population

estimated to be 8.7 million, equivalent to 10% of the total national population of 88

million.148

The total amount of remittances received in 2004 of $11.6 billion was

exceeded only in India, Mexico and France; in the Philippines, they composed 12.9% of

national production, indicating a high remittance dependency. Politically, the Philippines'

high levels of political openness have been crucial to overseas voting, especially in recent

decades. In 1987, the People Power movement instituted a new Constitution that restored

electoral democracy following the fall of authoritarian rule under Ferdinand Marcos

(1972-1986). The 1987 Constitution guaranteed worker rights to form trade unions, and

its suffrage article established the constitutional basis for overseas voting:

The Congress shall provide a system for securing the secrecy and sanctity of the ballot as

well as a system for absentee voting by qualified Filipinos abroad (Art. V, Section 2).149

Nevertheless, high political openness scores have not coincided with stable

governance in the Philippines; instead, weak institutions, widespread poverty and

extreme concentration of wealth have sustained oligarchic patterns of politics. The

government is a unitary state with incomplete capacities, which opens large spaces for

strong private actors including family-based industrial monopolies, a powerful national

Catholic church, and guerilla groups. A recent World Bank governance analysis rated

government effectiveness in the Philippines in the middle of all countries, at -0.01 on a

five-point scale from -2.5 to 2.5 (Kaufmann et al 2007, 87).

Filipino labor export began in earnest in the 1970s amidst a context of political

repression and economic underperformance. Originally focused on Asian destinations,

148 Philippine Overseas Employment Administration. 2007 Overseas Employment Statistics, p. 42.

http://www.poea.gov.ph/stats/stats2007.pdf (14 April 2009).

149 1987 Constitution of the Philippines. http://www.gov.ph/aboutphil/a5.asp (14 April 2009).

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outflows accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s with a greater dispersion, as seen in the

increase in remittances from under $1.0 billion in 1985 (1.9% of GDP ) to $13.6 billion in

2005 (or 13.4% of GDP). Diversity across region, skill, gender and duration mark the

Filipino diaspora as a complex field. Geographically, major undocumented populations

work in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states, as well as Hong Kong, Singapore,

and Taiwan. Of registered Filipino migrants, the large majority resides in the U.S. (68%),

as well as Canada (14%), Japan and Australia (6% each).

One major distinction of the Philippines' labor export is the weak state's active

and early role in organizing and facilitating emigration. The first oil boom of 1973 and

the ensuing need for workers in the Middle East generated a rapid, active response of the

Philippines government (Asis 2006, 34). As a response, the 1974 Labor Code established

guidelines for the regulation of labor export, and an ensuing Presidential directive set up

the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) to provide insurance and welfare

services. This led to the creation of the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency

(POEA) in 1982 to promote and monitor the work of Filipino workers abroad. As early as

1980, the Philippines had set up a National Commission for Overseas Filipinos, an

organization that has focused on permanent migrants.

In the 1980s, labor export became a permanent feature of the national economic

strategy, and attention shifted to protecting workers. Today, the Department of Foreign

Affairs identifies the obligation to protect Filipino workers as one of three pillars of the

country‘s foreign policy, along with national security and international economic policy.

After the termination of authoritarian rule, the new regime reorganized the POEA in 1987

with an emphasis on protection of overseas Filipino workers' rights. Along the same lines,

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but in more substantial fashion, the 1995 Act for Overseas Filipino Workers consolidated

the state's formal commitment to protect Filipino nationals in contracting and undertaking

overseas jobs (Rodriguez 2002, 347-8). State rhetoric has evolved from the 1973

―balikbayan‖ (national returnee) program that emphasized overseas contract work to a

more positive celebration of Filipino migrants as national heroes. In 1995, it designated

June 7th as the Day of the Migrant Worker and December as the official month of the

Overseas Filipino days a year to celebrate diaspora contributions (Asis, 37).

State-diaspora relations in the Philippines

Despite its early start in developing an active state policy on labor export, the

Philippines' implementation of overseas worker protections has been complicated by the

country's weak institutions and a political bias in favor of elite corporate interests, which

has spurred a response by civil society activists. From the outset, Philippines policy

envisioned a major enabling role for private enterprise, which today comprises over 1,000

licensed recruitment agencies. The pro-business orientation of state policy has led to the

active involvement of Filipino civil society in efforts to protect overseas Filipino workers

and communities.

In response to the pro-business regime, NGOs and the Catholic Church have

sustained the importance of protecting Filipino migrants, ensuring a space for workers'

rights in the national agenda. In particular, transnational Filipino NGOs have had a

significant impact not only internationally but also on the domestic politics of the country

(Asis, 41-42). Their criticism of the government for insufficient efforts to protect the

human rights of overseas workers was vital in spurring the 1995 Act. Utilizing their

transnational presence, the overseas workers‘ advocates have also advanced programs on

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worker savings and community development. Basic welfare functions have become

institutionalized element in state policy, with the OWWA organized to provide health and

disability insurance, education and other welfare services for overseas workers and their

families. The ongoing tension and struggle between labor advocates and private elites

over emigration policy is a major fault line for Filipino diaspora politics.

The obligation to protect overseas Filipino workers has major political resonance

abroad and at home, and it has driven the overseas voting agenda in recent years. Filipino

NGOs have played the pivotal role in prodding the state forward not only on worker

protection reforms but also on overseas voting.150

2001 to 2002 saw a strong long-

distance lobbying effort, as overseas Filipino activists from Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia

led the charge with support globally including Europe and North America (see photo in

Appendix II).151

One group called the International Coalition for Overseas Filipino

Voting Rights was based in Saudi Arabia and exerted a strong presence on-line.

Coordinating the effort out of Manila was the Coalition for Migrant Advocacy. The

Filipino legislature passed the Overseas Absentee Voting Act in 2002, which led to a two-

year period of organization and lobbying focused on implementation. The Philippines

Commission on Election (COMELEC) established its Committee for Overseas Absentee

Voting (COAV), which organized the 2004 overseas voting in the national election.

COAV cooperated with the Department of Foreign Affairs in an effective manner.

150 David, Randy. 2002. The absentee voting law/ The Philippine Daily Inquirer, Manila, 25 August.

http://www.philsol.nl/of/02/AV-opinions-sep02.htm (14 April 2009).

151 The next page shows a photo of organized Filipina migrant workers rallying in Hong Kong in 2001.

The rally, which protested regressive changes in local Hong Kong laws regarding wages and rules for

overstays, was organized by the Asian Migrant Theatre Company in association with the Coalition for

Migrants' Rights. The same coalition was instrumental in lobbying for the 2003 OAV act and for

making Hong Kong the largest site of OV registration with over 90,000 voters enrolled in the new

process for the 2004 election.

http://www.december18.net/web/general/page.php?pageID=70&menuID=36&lang=EN (14 April

2009).

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F i l i p i n a m i g r a n t s ra l l y i n H o n g K o n g , I n t ern a t i o n a l L a b o r D a y, Ma y 1 , 2 0 0 1

S o u r c e : au t h o r ' s o w n p h o t o g r a p h .

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Coordination between the DFA and the COMELEC to implement overseas voting

has shown a measure of technical effectiveness and enabled a gradual but steady

expansion in overseas participation, although initial turnout expectations proved

exaggerated, with COAV falling well short of its ambitious registration goal of 900,000.

Together the two agencies spent roughly 15 million US dollars in the 2003-04 electoral

cycle – approximately $15 per registrant and $25 per overseas voter (COAV, 198). The

government coordinated voting in 81 consulates in 2004 and then expanded further in

2007. The initial experiences led administrators at Commission on Elections to push for

amendments to the law to make it work better; accordingly, the revised Act authorizes

coordination between the COMELEC and the Department of Foreign Affairs Secretariat

for overseas voting and designates the Committee for Overseas Absentee Voting as the

lead implementing agency, establishing the classifications of ―posts‖ as consulates or

embassies with jurisdiction to direct the counting of votes. Regarding the method of

voting, the revised law also authorizes the COAV Committee in consultation with the

DFA Secretariat to determine for each country whether postal or direct voting will be the

method. The law directs the Committee in determining the voting method to take into

consideration the number of registered overseas Filipino voters, the accessibility of

consulates, and the efficiency of the host country mailing system.

More recently, activities to expand OV have continued. Interestingly, low initial

overseas turnout has not caused abandonment of overseas voting in the Philippines, but

has instead led to renewed efforts to make mass participation more likely. With the

support of COMELEC, NGO groups and legislators, efforts to broaden the accessibility

of the overseas franchise are underway in House and Senate amendments to the 2003 OV

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law, including clauses that would enable choice of means for voting, remove the ―intent

to return‖ affidavit now required for all voters, and ease re-registration procedures.152

The Philippines case shows the effects of overseas state structures in shaping

political incentives as a result of mechanisms of diaspora organization, issue framing and

implementation.153

The Philippines overseas state is pliant and moderately effective,

disposed to addressing diaspora demands and neither an obstacle nor an initiator of the

organizations that articulated and campaigned for overseas voting demands. Decades of

national policy development on behalf of overseas Filipino workers spurred the

organization of transnational civic networks and established a discursive basis for their

overseas voting demands. Within the context of democratic consolidation, when overseas

voting demands arrived, Macapagal-Arroyo sought to solidify her profile as a President

who strongly supported overseas Filipinos.

These mechanisms explain why the ruling party responded favorably. Unlike in

Mexico, the government lacks the protocol and means to control Filipino transnational

organization. The foreign ministry did not frame the overseas voting issue in terms of

territorial sovereignty and risks to state interests, nor did the electoral commission

emphasize the difficulties and costs of implementation. Empowered by a more favorable

balance of capacities, the transnational NGO coalition voiced forceful demands for

overseas voting, and the ruling party and the bureaucracy have responded favorably to the

law by acting to expand overseas access, as seen in their introduction of mixed methods

152 Comments on H.B. Nos. 2812, 2046 and 32091 by Atty. Henry S. Rojas, Legal Counsel, Center for

Migrant Advocacy, Manila, Philippines. Available online at: http://www.pinoy-

abroad.net/lungga/index.shtml.

153 Regarding overseas fundraising, the extent to which transnational money politics and consular

patronage have driven the overseas voting issue remains uncertain and requires further qualitative

research.

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to ensure broader diaspora participation (Navarro 2007, 181).

South Korea: Post-territorial norms, rights claims turn a strong state slowly

South Korea is an interesting East Asian case due to its significant overseas

population of approximately 3 million Korean nationals and as a recent democratizer that

is also a wealthy, industrialized OECD member. Migrant remittances make up just 0.1%

of national income, but the political remittances thesis (p.1.) identifies the existence of

remittance-sending overseas nationals (and not the level of remittance dependency) as a

sufficient condition for the emergence of the OV issue in democracies. South Korea‘s

demography and its political and economic development therefore suggest that an open

voting institution would be in place. However, after a decade of increasing contention on

the topic, South Korea has yet to implement overseas voting, not passing an overseas law

until February of 2009. The Korean case combines strongly institutionalized territorial

structures exhibited in the Mexico case with a highly organized set of civic and business

organizations dedicated to overseas Koreans.

5.3 South Korea Chronology

1953 South Korea established with Korean War armistice

1960s Ad hoc voting for overseas South Korea‘s soldiers in Vietnam organized

1972 President Park Chung-Hee banned growing diaspora component from voting

1987 Constitutional referendum affirms Sixth Republic, peaceful transition from military rule

1992 First civilian President elected since 1963: Kim Young Sam assumes office in 1993

1997 Opposition party candidate Kim Dae Jung elected President, defeating NKP (DLP)

1997 Opposition party introduces bill for overseas voting

National Congress for New Politics, predecessor of Millennium Democratic Party (MDP)

2003 Left-liberal candidate Roh of MDP elected President

Overseas Korean associations call for overseas voting

Seoul District Court upheld state ban on overseas Koreans from voting

2004 Grand National Party introduces expansive OV legislation in national legislature

2007 Constitutional Court rules OV ban unconstitutional, law required for overseas Koreans.

Conservative Grand National Party candidate Lee Myung-bak elected President

2009 National Assembly passes Overseas Voting Act, enfranchising 1.4 million overseas Koreans

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Based on conservative estimates of its diaspora population, South Korea ranked

among the top 30 labor export democratizing countries. The Foreign Ministry data

indicate that as of 2007 over 3 million South Korean nationals reside abroad. South

Korea‘s domestic population was 48.3 million in 2005. While recent data show

remittances to be just 0.1% of GDP, the overseas population is important to this mid-sized

nation due to its high skill segments abroad and broad dispersion. South Korea‘s overseas

population is significantly dispersed, with the largest portion in North America (over 1

million in the U.S., including over 100,000 students in U.S. universities) as well as

significant contingents in the major states of East Asia and Europe. Korea‘s diaspora

features a vibrant organizational profile, with civic and state-linked organizations

cementing a set of structured overseas networks in a transnational extension of its well-

documented corporate polity (Evans 1995, 124-6, 201-3).

The OV issue emerged in South Korea in the late 1990s as a result of demands

made by overseas Korean diaspora organizational leaders and activists. Partisan and legal

contention grew as organized groups of overseas Koreans presented voting rights

demands to the President and twice sued the state for violating their constitutional rights

to democratic participation, with opposition parties of left and right adopting pro-

overseas voting positions at different times.154

The project initially moved forward with a

bill launched by the left-wing opposition Millennium Democratic Party, and a group of

Japanese-Koreans filed suit against South Korea for violation of their political rights and

invoked international norms among OECD to attempt to shame the government into

154 The Korea Times. 2003. Overseas Koreans Ask Roh to Pay More Attention to Europe. 27 February.

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opening OV. But a Seoul District Court upheld the status quo of the state ban on overseas

voting in a 2003 decision.155

In that year, the MDP took control of the Presidency, and the

conservative opposition party took over possession as leading advocate of overseas

voting, offering an expansive bill to enable open overseas voting for nearly 3 million

overseas voters. The left-wing government and the Foreign Ministry upheld the

traditional ban on overseas voting, expressing nation-territorial argumentation as recently

as 2006.156

Addressing 254 leaders of Korean communities in 53 foreign countries

convened in Seoul at the World Korean Community Leaders' Convention, Lee Joon-gyu,

director of the ministry's consular affairs bureau, clearly indicated the ministry‘s position

against overseas voting rights. "(Such a law) would have a bad impact on their lives in

foreign countries, since it would provoke nationalism," said Lee. With no ministry

backing for their proposals, the community leaders conveyed their views instead to

President Roh that afternoon; in coming months, the overseas Korean advocates would

expand their campaign to the opposition party, legal challenges and media airwaves.

In 2007, the Supreme Constitutional Court revisited the topic, but this time it

ruled against the government‘s ban on overseas voting and required the legislature to act

on voting legislation. Also in 2007, Korean-American organizations organized an

overseas letter-writing campaign advocating the overseas voting rights,157

and the

Alliance for Suffrage for Overseas Koreans set up an office in Seoul with links to major

online Korean websites for overseas Koreans and major opposition parties. That same

year, victory in the Presidential election by the conservative GNP party placed a pro-OV

155 Joo-hee, Lee. 2003. Court rules overseas Koreans cannot vote. Korea Herald, 14 September, via Lexis-

Nexis.

156 Chung-un, Cho. 2006. Government rejects suffrage calls from overseas Koreans. Korea Herald, 8

June.

157 Hyo-lim, Ahn. 2007. Overseas Koreans lobby for suffrage. Korea Herald, 17 April.

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force at the head of the government.

The Grand National Party has stepped up overseas organization significantly in

recent years, though Korean rules restrict overseas fundraising. In the 2007 election, it

sought to organize return travel for overseas voters and held meetings and fundraisers

with Korean-American organizations in New York and Los Angeles, while its candidate

spoke out in favor of overseas voting.158

Since taking office, it has announced new

programs for overseas Koreans. GNP outreach is based on the understanding that the

overseas Koreans are more conservative and likely to support it. Overseas fundraising has

been less central as a transnational mechanism supporting OV expansion in South Korea,

for two reasons. First, Korea‘s large national income provides a domestic base for party

finance with multiple streams including public funding and private domestic

contributions. Secondly, amendments to the Political Funds Act passed in March 2004

prohibited donations from foreigners to Korean political parties (Transparency

International 2006, 47). Donations by overseas Korean nationals are permissible, but they

must be registered and disclosed according to the same strict criteria governing domestic

donations.

Early in 2009, South Korea‘s National Assembly passed major voting legislation,

which will authorize open overseas voting with an expansive format as soon as 2012.

Conforming with the Constitutional Court‘s directive to rewrite electoral law, the

Assembly bill extends voting rights to 2.4 million overseas Korean nationals, including

not only those who are employed in overseas government offices or residing abroad on a

158 Korea Times. 2005. GNP Head Promises Voting Rights for Ethnic Koreans. 22 February, via Lexis-

Nexis.

Hyun-kyung, Kang. 2007. Lee Urges Absentee Vote for Overseas Citizens. Korea Times, 3 September

http://gopkorea.blogs.com/ (27 February 2010).

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temporary basis, but also those who are permanent residents of foreign countries.159

The

voting rights apply to Presidential and national legislative elections, and the bill specified

the voting method as direct voting in overseas government offices such as consulates and

embassies. Korea‘s National Election Commission has begun planning for first

implementation in 2012, laying out a budget of $7.8 million (US) based on its count of

1.03 million eligible voters out among 2.8 million overseas Koreans and an assumption

that 50 percent of them will register for absentee ballots.160

According to news stories of

diaspora polls, analysts of Korean politics anticipate the potential for decisive

interventions by this newly enfranchised overseas bloc, given its significant scale and

survey evidence indicating strong interest in voting among overseas nationals (Ha, 2009).

But if other countries‘ experiences count, overseas participation is likely to begin below

target and steadily increase.

South Korea illustrates a mixed outcome and a different kind of diaspora politics,

with political remittances in the absence of remittance dependency acting to break up the

restrictive consensus associated with a strong state. Driving the politics of overseas

voting in South Korea are persistent diaspora rights claims in a context of more deeply

institutionalized rule of law and renewed party interest. South Korea shows the complex

but crucial mechanisms of overseas state intermediation in the way the government

reframes the issue. Clearly a strong state founded on principles of territorial organization,

South Korea maintains a persistent ban on OV but then shows the beginning of moves to

change. Changing norms and preferences within the Korean state—namely the desire to

159 Yonhap. 2008. South Korean parliament passes bill to allow voting by expatriates. Seoul: 5 February.

160 Choson Ilbo. 2008. Overseas South Koreans may vote starting in 2012 general election. Seoul, 19

October. Yonhap. 2008. Election watchdog to submit bill granting suffrage for overseas Koreans. 10

September.

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resemble OECD countries and the diminished concern about overseas risks to national

security—have provided an opening for diaspora demands, as reflected in the successful

legal campaigns that resulted in the favorable Constitutional Court decision. The South

Korea case remains a mixed outcome since it has yet to implement OV. A serious delay is

imaginable only if consensus in the bureaucracy erodes and gives rise to stories of risk

with the potential to activate a veto-wielding opposition coalition. Given the South

Korean state‘s slow but steady institutionalization of liberal norms, a more likely

trajectory to anticipate is one of implementation with heavy controls that expands

overseas participation gradually.

India: Elite transnationalism and state-led participation

India has a highly restrictive form of overseas voting, limiting it to legislative

elections only and, more importantly, by eligibility in terms of overseas employment

class, specifically confining the right to military personnel and government officers (Ellis

et al, 2007). The global survey in IDEA's Handbook indicates that it first implemented

the practice in 2004, though the national Election Commission of India lists no results for

overseas voting in its general election statistics. India has undergone major economic and

political openings since 1991, sparking ferment in state-diaspora relations, however it has

not passed an overseas voting law. Rather, the matter remains governed entirely by its

founding constitution and electoral law of 1950, which requires individual registrants to

reside in their ordinary constituency in India, although it specifies exceptions in cases of

state service obligations (Manual of Election Law, 59). Thus India presently defines a

second restrictive outcome: no law, highly restrictive overseas voting.

In terms of potential diaspora voting, India is anomalous for its scale and for the

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diversity of its diaspora. It is a labor export democracy with many decades of political

openness and institutionalized multi-party electoral competition; its massive diaspora is

geographically dispersed, socioeconomically segmented and closely linked to the home

country; its recent geopolitical emergence extends a tradition of high-profile foreign

policy activism as leader of the non-aligned movement and a major regional power. In

2004: India's population was 1.08 billion; its estimated 20 to 25 million diaspora

population made up roughly 2% of the population and sent back $19.8 billion in

economic remittances (2.9% of GDP); Polity2 measures scored its political openness

level a 9 (on a scale of -10 to 10), indicating a high degree of relative competition and

rights, and dated the age of its present regime at 54 years.

India's mixed characteristics make it an interesting case. Based on political

openness and diaspora remittances, we would expect it to have an overseas voting law

and an open institution. Its large diaspora population suggests that it should have an open

voting law but not an open institution, and its extremely large domestic population

suggests that both outcomes are likely to be negative. Looking at the values of individual

variables in isolation obscures the locus and nature of causal effects. We need to consider

how the diversity of the diaspora interacts with the main features of the domestic polity

including its powerful parties and state ministries.

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5.4 India OV Chronology

1947 Independence from England

1950 Constitution and Representation of the People Act

1991 Economic liberalization

1998 Opposition electoral win, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party rules through 2004

2000 High Level Committee Report on the Indian Diaspora

2001 NRI voting issue advocated by Minister of State for External Affairs

2002 Report and recommendations of High Level Committee

2003 Annual Pravasi Bhartiya Divas (PBD) commence

Passage of Citizenship Amendment Act expanding access to PIOs

2004 Initial OV implementation along extremely restrictive format (state employees only)

2006 Prime Minister M. Singh (INC) advocates OV for NRIs at PBD assembly Hyderabad

Progress on restrictive OV bill (requiring voting in home district)

Parliamentary committee report calling for more study and comprehensive bill

Issuance of OCI citizenship for PIOs

Negotiations with Europe and Gulf states for protections, overseas citizenship status

2007 Introduction of full-scale NRI voting bill including National Commission for NRIs

2009 PBD in Chennai theme: Overseas Indians & India's emergence as a global power

The Indian diaspora began to take shape in the 19th

century with the first of three

distinct emigration waves and so predates the modern Indian state; it is distinctive for its

scale, global dispersion and socioeconomic diversity. In a seminal analysis, Robin Cohen

classifies India as the prototypical labor diaspora (1995, 80); on the other hand, Kapur

identifies the elite component of overseas Indians in the U.K. and the U.S. in arguing that

diaspora pressures played an instrumental role as intellectual catalyst in prompting the

Congress regime to adopt economic liberalization in 1991 (2003, 383-4). Both analyses

are relevant: active transnational links bond India to both its working class masses

residing in the Gulf states and its heterogeneous overseas intelligentsia composed of

middle- and upper class segments in the U.S. and the U.K.

In 2000, the Indian government's High Level Committee report estimated the total

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Indian diaspora population to be approximately 20 million, including both Non-Resident

Indian citizens (NRI) as well as the broader population of ethnic Indian referred to as

Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs).161

Data in the government report indicated the NRI

population to be approximately 4 million. However, for OV scenarios, the distinction

between NRIs and PIOs appears uncertain, pointing out a major complication about who

would be eligible to vote. Presently, the benefits of overseas Indian citizenship (NRI

status) do not include political rights, but rather relate to visa, tax and employment

permissions. Recent efforts to facilitate and expand access to these classifications for

PIOs have been at the center of the Indian state's diaspora initiatives. Specifically, the

passage of a citizenship amendment in 2004 cleared the path for PIOs to become overseas

Indian citizens with greater ease and in greater numbers.162

Geographically, Indian

government estimates indicated the primary concentrations of the diaspora population to

be distributed as follows:163

Southeast Asia 5,500,000

Asia-Pacific 650,000

North Africa/Gulf region 3,000,000

South Africa 1,000,000

East Africa 200,000

Mauritius and Reunion 900,000

United States 1,700,000

Britain 1,500,000

Canada 840,000

Caribbean/Latin America 1,100,000

source: Government of India

161 High Level Committee Report 2000, Foreword (v, viii) and ―Estimated Size of the Overseas Indian

Community.‖ http://indiandiaspora.nic.in/contents.htm (14 April 2009).

162 NRI Online, section on ―India / US Dual Citizenship.‖ http://www.nriol.com/returntoindia/india-dual-

citizenship.asp. (14 April 2009).

163 Table from Waldman 2003, India harvests fruits of diaspora, New York Times. See also Wikipedia,

Non-resident Indian and Person of Indian Origin.‖ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_diaspora (14

April 2009).

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The geographic and economic breadth reminds us of the need to distinguish

between diaspora as an element of identity, on the one hand, and as an objective

designation—a population of overseas nationals— employed here and developed in a

growing niche scholarship.164

Indeed, as we contemplate the India case, these

characteristics remind us to remain critical and avoid overstatement in assessing the

diaspora politics phenomenon: the existence of millions of overseas nationals does not

necessarily signify the emergence of a new political actor. One may emerge, but there is

not an automatic relationship.

State-led diaspora politics in India

Overseas voting has emerged in the recent period to join the agenda of India's

diaspora politics, however for various reasons, it remains a second-tier issue of

questionable intensity. Foreign Minister Sinha's comments in 2004 pointed out the

preliminary nature of the issue: ‗‗India is a democracy and democracy does not merely

mean casting a vote once in a while. It means accountability on a daily basis,‖ Sinha said.

―Whether they (dual citizens) be given political rights or not is an issue which has to be

widely debated in the country for a while before reaching a decision.‖165

However, the

diversity and dispersion of the overseas Indian population has made the political

organization of the diaspora multi-stranded, without a unified demand-driven movement

for voting rights from abroad. There has not been a unified interest in OV, but instead a

steady and growing visibility of a set of issues and arguments on behalf of particular

164 Key recent works developing the state-diaspora niche in international relations and comparative

politics include Ostergaard-Nielsen 2001, Sheffer 2003, Gonzalez Gutiérrez 2006, Adamson 2006,

Brand 2006 and Shain 2007.

165 Times of India. 2004. PIOs voting rights need to be debated: Sinha. 9 January.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/414941.cms (14 April 2009).

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groups of Indians, often on internal sub-national and ethnic affairs.

Historically, however, the Indian state's posture to the diaspora has been one of

passivity and neglect, stemming from its hierarchical organization, its dedication to the

non-intervention principle externally and to its internal focus on state-led development

and the domestic needs of its population at the time of its founding in 1947 (Sharma

2006, 70). The Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has carried on the

responsibility formerly entrusted to the colonial Political and Foreign Service concerned

with territorial administration in its external dimension:

. . . to look after the general welfare of migrant Indians who were despatched by the

British Government of India to other parts of the British Empire as indentured laborer or

contractual labour from the third decade of the 19th

century onwards (Dixit 2005, 8).

The Ministry of External affairs has broader responsibilities than a traditional foreign

ministry, responsible not only for India‘s relations with foreign states and consular

functions but also for managing extradition of criminals and repatriation of foreigners

from India, emigration of Indian nationals and return of emigrants, and all immigration

from South Africa (Jain 1998, 49). Today, the MEA is the key institution in India‘s

foreign affairs: its policy planning board advises the Prime Minister on strategic policies;

Parliamentary oversight lacks substantive reach, while partisan politicization has been

minor except in Vajpayee‘s BJP government; and the Minister of External Affairs heads

an Indian Foreign Service with more than 3,500 career diplomatic officers deployed

across 203 overseas missions and the home ministry in 1998 (Jain, 53, 62-3).

Furthermore, the Indian Foreign Service has undertaken its consular work without

any legal recognition of people of Indian origin as Indian citizens (Dixit 2005, 8), and

there have been occasional charges of haughtiness for its treatment of Indians in overseas

missions (Jain 53). To redefine POIs as Indian citizens goes against the institutionalized

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ethos of state interest and diplomatic service in the Indian Foreign Service. Reflecting a

higher than average level of professionalism, the IFS is an elite unit in within the total

Indian government that scored a 0.03 government effectiveness score in the World Bank.

With its strong bureaucratic capacities and its detached relationship to the diaspora

communities, the MEA is likely to prefer continuity in the practice of limiting overseas

voting to state employees only and not advocate against OV.

In the post-independence period, the Indian Government had been careful to

advise the overseas Indians to assimilate and identify with their countries of adoption

(Singh 2002). Indeed, the dominance of the Indian National Congress party resulted in a

sidelining of the private interests of overseas Indians, even as emigration boomed in the

1960s and 1970s. The collapse of the country's socialist economic model in 1991 led to

the election of the Hindu nationalist opposition party in 1998 and the beginning of the

deconstruction of the ―permit raj‖ and its stifling protections. Economic liberalization

proved favorable to diaspora Indians in two regards, first in the stark light cast on their

relative economic success compared to the home country; and more materially, in the

new openings to lucrative business opportunities in the home country.

State-led efforts at diaspora engagement began seriously in 2000, when the

government commissioned a High Level Committee on the Indian Diaspora. The

Committee's 2002 report recommended an annual forum along with special attention to

improving the country's policy on citizenship in light of expatriate concerns and needs.

The report's editor stressed the cross-party nature of the board, deliberately designed to

forge a national consensus and implement the Indian government's diaspora institutions

beyond political party interest. More recently, commentators have criticized the

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government for focusing its programs solely on overseas elites at expense of poorer

overseas Indian communities, as in Malaysia and Singapore (Kaur 2009, 87).

The most concentrated organization embracing the entire overseas community has

been the establishment of a state-led annual forum, the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas held

annually in New Delhi on January 9th

through 11th

since 2003. The annual Indian

―diaspora days‖ reunion have stimulated developments on a set of distinct issues,

including India's citizenship laws, social and economic needs of the Indians in the Gulf

region, economic interests of Indian diaspora investors and other philanthropic activities

including communal remittances, as well as more divisive ethnic issues involving

religion, separatism and wedge political issues. The divisive issues of ethnic politics

include violent separatist projects, such as Jammu and Kashmir, Sikh nationalism and

Hindu nationalism, with potential appeal for overseas party-building. At present, the

controversial issue of Hindu nationalism offers the major parties a potent (and polar)

vehicle for overseas party outreach emphasizing ethnic identity. Prior to liberalization,

the Congress-led corporatist India had eschewed active diaspora politicking. The BJP, the

Hindu Nationalist Party, first broke with the non-intervention principle and actively

fomented its cells of nationalist, upper-middle class conservatism in England and the U.S

(Brown 2007, 167; Jaffrelot 2007, 293).

The Indian National Congress party (INC) now also practices overseas outreach

involving fundraising; as with the BJP, it invokes the overseas voting issue to gain favor

in meetings with diaspora activists. Now governing the nation again, the INC has found

a source of support for its secular nationalism among Muslim NRIs in the Gulf region. In

recent years, at every one of the PBD ―diaspora day‖ reunions, the Prime Minister and

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the Minister for External Affairs have addressed the voting question in terms ranging

from neutral to accommodating. And by 2006, the Singh government had introduced

legislation through the Parliament to enfranchise 20 million NRIs. However, the Indian

government actions were also consistent with the maintenance of a restrictive regime; to

date, they have not gone beyond legislative machinations. In the fine print of the INC

government's proposal to establish the right of NRIs to vote in Indian national elections is

the requirement that they return to the home district within the national territory to cast

the vote.

As of 2007, the Indian Parliament (Rajya Sabha) Standing Committee on

Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice had returned the bill with a 35-page report

to the Ministry of Justice for further analysis and deliberation (Parliament 2006). The

report equivocates and offloads costly political decisions. Suggesting a cautious

approach, the Committee highlighted as the most contentious issue discussed ―the right of

NRIs contesting elections once being registered as a voter,‖ further noting that ―the

people in general are apprehensive of the social, financial and political influence of the

Non-Resident Indians, especially the use of money power in the elections‖ (Section

18.7). On the other hand, the Committee suggested a concern with expansive accessibility

in pointing out to the government the need to consider ―the mode of casting votes by the

NRIs‖ and noting the bill would result in minimum participation (Section 18.12). The

absence of testimony from India‘s electoral commission or the MEA indicates that

overseas voting politics in India are still at an early stage. Diaspora relations with home

country politicians have begun, but the issue has yet to generate much discussion or any

contention.

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The transnational structural analysis shows that any sustained advancement of OV

in India will have to overcome a number of obstacles. Consistent with the first hypothesis

(on p. 1) that remittance growth puts overseas voting on the national agenda, recent years

have seen an interesting uptick in attention devoted to the cause of overseas voting,

including the submission of an expansive voting proposal for NRIs by a Communist

Party legislator from the labor-export state of Kerala in 2007.166

Aside from the

Communists, the BJP party would have a natural incentive to join a coalition in favor of

OV. With the organizational bonds of overseas Indians loose and dependent on the state,

such insider linkages loom large as necessary conditions for OV but have not been

consolidated to date.

Most importantly along these lines, the ruling Congress party and the government

are the key factors. As we see in the professional, paternalistic nature of the Ministry of

External Affairs and its Foreign Service, India‘s overseas state possess the experience and

capacities in governing overseas organization to direct overseas organization, issue

framing and implementation as they please. Thus, the government‘s PBD days have

manipulated the question of overseas voting and sidelined any non-state diaspora

organization to date. In this context, elite insider strategies are likely to favor continuity

in the highly restrictive rules in coming years. Thus, for example, the legislature has not

yet acted on the much more far-reaching and expansive proposal for diaspora

participation offered in Shri Chanrappan's Non-Resident Indian Voting and Welfare bill.

The legislation includes expansive NRI voting as well as a National Commission for

NRIs, an assistance fund for overseas Indians, and embassy-linked participatory councils

166 http://164.100.24.219/BillsTexts/LSBillTexts/asintroduced/k.pdf via

http://www.parliamentofindia.nic.in/. On Indian emigration from Kerala to the Gulf states, see

Zachariah et al 2001 and Nair 1999.

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in the diaspora cities. In India, instead, OV implementation remains highly restrictive,

and opportunities for legislative-bureaucratic obstruction are myriad.

Indonesia: Transnational activism, “money politics” prod open OV

Indonesia presents an interesting case of overseas voting in the lesser profile of its

diaspora and the mixed profile of its state characteristics. Its emigrants send remittances

but are largely working class residents in Malaysia. It is too large and centralized to

qualify as a paradigmatic weak state, yet too corrupt to mistake as a strongly

institutionalized state. The strongly nationalist polity, comprising 143 million voters on

500 islands, has had only one decade of political openness since the 1998 fall of

Suharto‘s authoritarian party-state.

In fact, Indonesia‘s recent shift to implement OV shows political remittances

playing out powerfully in a marginal case far less dependent economically on emigration.

Indonesia is an early formal adopter in which democratization advances have spurred the

recent development of an expansive overseas voting institution. Like India, it was among

the first great decolonizing nations, and as part of Sukarno‘s progressive orientation it

pursued a foreign policy of non-alignment for the first two decades of its existence. The

country‘s original 1953 electoral law established the right of overseas Indonesians to vote

in domestic elections; but with authoritarian politics obstructing multiparty elections until

the 1990s, overseas participation was limited to official voting by government employees

in the state‘s overseas embassies and consulates.

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5.5 Indonesia OV Chronology

1945 Formation of Indonesia, creation of Constitution

1953 Election Law

1999 Law #3 on the General Election

1999 Overseas voting implemented for national legislature only (DPR).

Opposition Democratic Party of Struggle candidate elected President

1999 Election Reformasi movement

2003 Electoral law #12 establishes National Election Commission (KPU) and right to vote from abroad

Opposition Democratic Party wins Presidency

April: legislative June: Presidential

2004 OV implemented for first time

Incumbent Sukoparni defeated

2009 National election – 2nd

OV implementation

In 2004, approximately 250,000 diaspora citizens cast votes in the second round

of the Presidential election, favoring the opposition party candidate of Wahid by a 2-to-1

margin that was an exaggeration of the national vote (ANFREL). Overseas Indonesians

voted in embassies and consulates (EU report, 27), as the national election commission

(KPU) created an Overseas Election Commission in each overseas representative office.

Overseas Indonesians voted for legislative elections in 2004 in two districts (one assigned

for Malaysia and Singapore, and the second assigned to the national capital). In April of

2009, Indonesia held national legislative elections in a day hailed as a major step forward

for the nation‘s democratization, with over 123 million participating.167

Prior to the

election, the KPU announced that it had registered about 1.5 million overseas Indonesian

voters out of a total of 6.2 million overseas Indonesian workers.168

167 The Economist. 2009. Indonesian democracy: Beyond the crossroads. 2 April 2009.

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13403041 .

168 The KPU overseas registration figure comes from a Jakarta Globe posting on the Indonesia Election

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With little more than a decade since the collapse of the Suharto dictatorship in

1998, Indonesia has developed relatively open and competitive elections. As the world‘s

fourth most populous state, it has over 3 million overseas citizens whose remittances

provide approximately $6.5 billion in foreign exchange in 2008, according to World Bank

estimates, an amount equal to 1.3% of the gross domestic product. The weakness of the

rule of law and the scale of patronage-ridden politics in the state apparatus suggest a

permeable and hence permissive condition for transnational entrepreneurs to organize

overseas workers along partisan lines in order to raise money and boost overseas

elections. On the other hand, potential institutional obstacles to overseas voting are

pointed out in the hierarchical administrative structures of Indonesia‘s state capitalism

(Hutchcroft 2002, 499) and the powerful role of anti-colonial nationalism and anti-

communism as foundational principles of the modern Indonesia state (Anderson 2005,

153).

The government of Indonesia has a centralized Presidential system with 5-year

terms and a limit of two terms. The territory‘s 33 provinces encompass 500 inhabited

islands sprawling 3,200 miles across a 14,000-island archipelago. Enfranchising its 143

million voters has presented major logistical challenges, so that the peacefulness and high

turnouts since 1999 are considered a significant victory not only for Indonesia but for

democracy advocates in general.

The 2003 electoral law #12 established the KPU (Komisi Pemliham Umum) – the

General Election Commission—and guarantees the right to register and vote to

Indonesian citizens residing abroad. The system of voting is in person at the consulate,

2009 blog at http://indoelection2009.blogspot.com/2009/04/election-begins-for-indonesian.html.

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and there are no provisions for mail-in voting (Article 25 and 26). The 2004 election was

a major race in a landmark election, the first instance of a direct Presidential election in

Indonesian history (EU, 28); with over 75% turnout, the incumbent Megowati

Sukarnoputri fell to popular army general Susilo Yudhoyono of the Indonesian

Democratic Party (EU, 58). Also that year, Indonesia held a massive set of legislative

elections on three levels (national, regional and local), the biggest and most complex

single-day elections organized in the world to date, with 2,286 electoral races held in the

same day.

Despite the scale of Indonesia‘s centralized authority, the state‘s bureaucratic

capacities in the electoral commission and the foreign ministry show instances of mixed

and weak institutionalization. Since its founding in 1945, Indonesia‘s Foreign Ministry

(Deplu) has experienced powerful incursions by the military and Suharto, and it has

struggled to develop its own corps of career diplomats commensurate with the

Indonesia‘s geopolitical significance. With a civilian staff of over 1,000 professional

officers in 110 countries in 1995, Deplu has managed to develop its capacities though not

to the point of being able to direct Indonesia‘s course on external affairs, which remain

subject to the country‘s turbulent national politics (Sukma 1998, 38-41). In the latest

decade, the reformasi movement has generated demands for more transparency and

greater space for non-state actors to participate in making foreign policy. One such actor

has been the migrant labor network coalition advocating overseas voting. Deplu has been

responsive to many of the reformasi demands, which points out the primacy of domestic

politics in shaping Indonesia‘s foreign policy making (Sukma, 45)

The electoral authorities are of little relevance in enforcing any standard controls

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on overseas fundraising. The electoral agencies' decisions are a function of party

struggles, and its powers to impose penalties on offenders are weak with no instances to

date of enforcement, according to peer comments in one recent international assessment

of institutional quality (Global Integrity 2008, 33-43). Indonesia‘s overall score for

government effectiveness in the World Bank review was -0.41, the lowest of all six

countries profiled (Kaufmann et al 2007). ―Money politics‖ is a prominent part of

Indonesian politics, with vote-selling commonplace (Shimizu 2004). While it is

technically forbidden to accept donations from abroad (EU 2004, 42), the weakness of

enforcement capacities points out the permissive context and financial incentives for

expanding transnational partisan activities.

The commitment of the Indonesian state to protect its overseas migrant workers

has become a core part of national policy discourse, allowing space for the overseas

voting rights claims as in the Philippines. Indonesian migrant workers have their own

acronym adopted officially—they are the TKI—and they were recently hailed by the

President in a statement that shows the breadth of state commitments to uphold the rights

of overseas workers, economically and as citizens of the nation:

TKI are citizens, just the same as the other citizens. We should not differ in the service

and protection to every citizen. The government is and will keep on working to improve

and perfect the recruitment, placement, protection and service system for TKI . . . The

State is obliged to provide work opportunity for every citizen as mandated in the

Constitution . . . We made a bilateral cooperation with the TKI destination country and

place our staff as a labor attaché in every representative office abroad . . .169

The full quote is included since it points out not only the extent and variety of state

obligations in the President‘s conception of state-diaspora relations, but the explicit

application of Constitutional guarantees on behalf of its overseas nationals.

169 Presidential statement, 2006, ―Develop educated workers‖ 30 August. Available online at:

http://www.indonesia.go.id/index.php/content/view/1836/691/ (15 February 2009).

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In the organization of Indonesian overseas voting, migrant worker NGOs and

official intergovernmental organizations have devoted their capacities to assist the

Indonesian government and fill in for its weaknesses. Indonesian labor NGOS emerged in

a wave of organization in the 1980s and 1990s (Ford 2004, 106). As in the Philippines,

the nation‘s labor advocates integrated themselves into a sprawling but vibrant networked

coalition of Asian labor NGOs, with Indonesian NGOs adapting political strategies that

utilized the language of development and human rights (Ford, 107). The NGOs have

advanced the overseas voting demands that have spurred the recent expansion of overseas

voting; in this regard, one crucial linkage has been the research and advocacy generated

by a collaboration of the Asian Network for Free Elections with the Asian Forum for

Human Rights and Development (Shimizu 2009). At the same time, multiple IGO

monitors and study teams have created a broad body of recent analytic work that reflects

the fruits of large-scale international assistance in support of Indonesia‘s democratization

(IDEA 2003 & 2007, European Union 2004, UNDP 2005, Global Integrity 2008, Wall

2007). Early evidence points to a potentially significant growth in overseas participation,

perhaps to over half of a million, suggesting that the Indonesian government has utilized

technical assistance with effectiveness. In sum, strong transnational civil society groups

have acted to push overseas voting forward in Indonesia, drawing skillfully on concrete

support from international actors within the permissive context of Indonesia‘s sustained

democratization.

Senegal: Hybrid transition, state erosion and consular patronage grow OV

The case of Senegal illustrates the effects of weak state structures upon the

expansion of overseas voting. Senegal resembles Mexico and the Dominican Republic for

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its experience with open elections, a historic instance of peaceful transition in executive

power, and a newly visible diaspora amidst neoliberal economic adjustments (Martin

1998). Yet in Senegal, a recent drift towards authoritarian politics calls into question the

durability of the overseas voting institution, as well as its significance as an external

contribution to democratic consolidation. Nevertheless, there has been continuity in the

gradual expansion of overseas voting at the same time that there has been some recent

erosion of political democracy in Senegal. At the same time, continuing growth of

overseas participation shows the institution‘s robustness despite the adverse domestic

circumstances. Democratization has seen an evolution from a PS-dominated ―party-state‖

to a weak party system of coalition and Presidential dominance (Martin 1998, x). What

led Senegal to implement overseas voting? And why have setbacks to the nation‘s

democratization not precipitated a slowdown in the rollout of overseas voting?

Since a major electoral reform in 1993, Senegal has implemented overseas voting

in the national elections of 2000 and 2007. In 2000, roughly 150,000 overseas Senegalese

registered made up 3% of the total electoral list, though overseas turnout was low at 41%

of all who registered (Vengroff, 106). In 2007, 270,418 overseas registrants equaled 5%

of the total registered electorate of 5.4 million (CENA Rapport General 2008, 174).

Participation also increased in the second exercise, with turnout up to approximately 55%

in 2007 and the number of countries up from 15 countries in 2000 to 35 countries in

2007.170

Overseas Senegalese are allowed a direct vote for President and a separate vote

for the national legislature, though the country‘s practice of holding legislative elections

170 Senegal limits participation to those countries in which it has an ambassador, and in 2000 it required a

minimum of 500 registrants for votes from given country to count, according to Vengroff (2007, 105).

Participation data for 2000 come from Vengroff, and those from 2007 come from Senegal‘s

Commission Electoral National Autonome (available online at http://www.cena.sn/).

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later in the year has focused overseas organizations on the Presidential election. Overseas

participation was concentrated in three major areas: the nearby western African states,

western European states, and North America.

Senegal‘s diaspora population is approximately 5 to 10% of the national

population of 13 million (Diatta & Mbow, 256). It is heterogeneous and dispersed yet

closely linked to the home country society through dense transnational networks (Baird &

N‘Dyiaye 2006, 100). A former French colony with a long history of migration,

particularly among elite segments, Senegal has recently experienced an emigration boom

of greater magnitude and more pronounced transnational character fueled by economic

liberalization policies. The transformation of Senegal‘s economy from rural state-directed

to an urban informal services-orientation has failed to generate adequate economic

opportunities, with estimated per capita income of $1,800 and unemployment rates above

40% (CIA World Factbook, Encyclopedia Britannica). Remittances reached 8.5% of GDP

in 2007, up from 2.5% in 1990 (World Bank). Evidence of the significant human

outflows was evident in two crises involving maritime trafficking of Senegalese

emigrants: the sinking of the M.V. Le Joola in 2002 that scandalized the government

domestically; and, in 2006, the Canary Islands interception of Europe-bound Senegalese

migrants that spurred a coordinated response by the European Union.

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5.6 Senegal OV chronology

1961 National independence from France as Senegambia

1961 – 1992 Authoritarian rule under Presidents Senghor and Diouf (Parti Socialiste)

1993 Major electoral reform legislation includes overseas voting rights law

Formal independent electoral commission (ONEL) established

(reorganized in 2005 the Commission Electoral Nationale Autonome (CENA)

1997 Conseil des Sénégalais de l‘Extérieur established

2000 Peaceful transition from Parti Socialiste (PS) incumbent President Abdou Diouf to

democratically elected Senegalese Democrat opposition candidate Abdoulaye Wade

First instance of overseas voting

2002 Sinking of MV Joola leads to drowning of 1,800 Senegalese emigrants

2004 Arbitrary imprisonment of prominent journalist spurs news boycott

2006 Canary Islands emigration crisis

2007 2nd

instance of OV implementation

Re-election of incumbent President Wade (SDS)

Opposition boycott of National Assembly elections

The recent emigration has broadened the geographic and demographic

characteristics, as well as the political preferences, of the Senegalese diaspora. Whereas

the traditional profile of Senegalese emigration showed a more conventional image of

dependency upon the French metropolitan core – more educated and more closely linked

to the French mercantile economy—the recent boom reflects a greater heterogeneity and

dispersion across multiple regions characteristic of globalization‘s non-state networks. As

Table 5.6 shows, the three largest concentrations of overseas Senegalese were located in

Gambia, Ivory Coast and France; since 1997, there has been significant growth in

emigration to Italy, Spain and North America. Multiple socioeconomic profiles include

rural and urban lower-middle class segments, as well as university-educated elites. The

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organizational patterns of the diaspora have mainly been informal but show a variety of

forms developed in the last two decades, including civic associations, state-sponsored

Conseil Superior, and an important Sufi Muslim network. The sprawling growth of a far-

reaching official network of consulates and honorary consulates has played a role in

integrating these hybrid forms of Senegal diaspora politics.

Senegalese Resident Abroad, Official Estimates for 1997

1997

Gambia 300,000

Ivory Coast 150,000

France 60,000

Italy 60,000

Mauritania 30,000

Egypt, Mali 30,000 each

Gabon, Guinea, Spain,

U.S.

15,000 each

Total

714,000

source: Diatta and Mbow, 1997171

As a polity, Senegal is eclectic for the mixture of authoritarian dirigisme,

personalistic rule, and pluralist clientelism. A former French colony, Senegal was

governed by a single party authoritarianism under the Parti Socialiste (PS) from the time

of its independence in 1961 until 2000. Authoritarian rule of Leopold Senghor (1961-

1981) and Abdou Diouf (1982-2000) featured non-competitive elections while instituting

electoral opposition that grew gradually and especially from the 1980s.

In 2004 Wade‘s government arrested Madiambal Diagne, editor of the nation‘s

leading newspaper Le Quotidien following a string of critical reporting.172

The

government‘s repressive action led to a coordinated protest by the nation‘s media along

171 Diatta and Mbow identify as the basis of their 1997 estimates data from the Department of Senegalese

Resident Abroad within the Ministry of External Affairs.

172 Prier, Pierre. 2004. Chirac tance Wade sur la liberté d‘expression. Le Figaro (24 July), no. 18,651,

International section, p. 2. Obtained via Lexis-Nexis.

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with significant external criticism and marked a broader trend of reversion to

authoritarian politics. In 2007, following the re-election of President Wade and ensuing

post-election disputes, opposition parties boycotted the national legislative elections

scheduled for that year,173

driving turnout down to 35%.174

State-diaspora relations in Senegal

The puzzle in Senegal is about which element of its hybrid politics would

dominate state-diaspora relations in terms of the overseas voting rules – state-led

programs and renewed authoritarian tendencies, increasing political pluralism and non-

state actors, or political clientelism in the context of a weak state. Furthermore, our

analysis must explain the counterintuitive result of overseas voting expansion amidst

increasingly authoritarian domestic politics. The state structure hypothesis fits the

Senegal case better than a domestic politics argument or a diaspora-led perspective.

From 2000 to 2007, voting by overseas Senegalese expands from 15 to 35 foreign

countries, overall participation and overseas voter turnout increase from roughly 75,000

to 150,000175

, and the voting returns of overseas Senegalese shift from a pro-PS vote to a

pro-SD. Overseas voting in Senegal‘s 2007 election is organized in 807 bureaux de vote

in 434 locations across the 35 countries (CENA website), which make up 6.2% of the

total 12,894 bureaux de vote. 150,000 overseas votes would equal 2.7% of the nation‘s

5.4 million total electorate. Overall, the volume and geographic scope of reported

electoral activity, while not enormous, show clear growth to a level noteworthy in

relation to the poor economy of the home country.

173 Agence France Press. 2007. Sénégal: le boycottage des elections porte un coup a la démocratie. Dakar,

7 April.

174 June 3rd election note, Lawler 2009. Also New York Times, 2007, Senegal Bars a Singer, 15 December.

175 The participation figure is a conservative estimate from my review of available data from the CENA.

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A domestic politics point of view would focus on party politics and authoritarian

tendencies. In Senegal, however, political parties are weak, with research indicating

evidence of fundraising as a causal force but no full-scale transnational organization.

Moreover, the legislature switches with the change in government. As in the Dominican

Republic, steady but incremental expansion across each of the main instances of overseas

elections occurs as a result of shared inter-elite consensus that overseas voting is a low-

risk move in the interests of all parties. From 1993 to 2000, under PS rule, according to

Vengroff‘s study of the 2000 election, ―the government felt that providing the diaspora

with an outlet in electoral politics would act as a safety valve and would only entail

limited costs and risks for the regime, while opposition parties saw the inclusion of

external votes as an opportunity to expand their influence and revenue sources‖ (2007,

105). Similarly, research into the most recent phase shows similar expansion under a

different government, and interestingly we see that the Wade government‘s authoritarian

tendencies did not lead it to alter Senegal‘s trajectory of overseas voting expansion. With

the country‘s weak political parties and with no variance in the positions taken by

governments of different coalitions, then, we see that a domestic politics perspective does

not explain the expansion in the nation‘s overseas voting. How then do we explain the

Senegal case?

A diaspora-led perspective points out the shifting preferences of overseas

Senegalese, arguing that a more diverse and dispersed diaspora voted in 2007 in favor of

the traditional opposition party as opposed to the elitist vote of 2000 that favored the

traditional ruling PS. First, while the diaspora vote shifted, it followed the shift in

government, suggesting the possibility of effective electoral strategies involving political

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clientelism. In other words, when the PS controlled the consulates, the diaspora favored

the PS due to its position in power, whereas control over consular largesse enabled SD

incumbents to curry diaspora favor with it.

Senegal‘s weak state has seen an increase in personalistic use of resources for

political clientelism, across all range of activities in the recent period, according to Mbow

(2008). In the relevant bureaucracies, the Wade government has introduced bureaucratic

shuffles and new policy lines consistent with consular patronage politics. Senegal‘s

Foreign Ministry has changed its structure, disbanding the Conseil des Sénégalais de

l’Extérieur and dropping the division for Senegalese residents abroad into a separate

ministry for tourism and artisanship. Similarly, the Wade government reorganized the

nominally independent electoral commission, the ONEL, and relabeled it as the CENA.

Senegal‘s overseas elections are managed by the consulates with in coordination

with the electoral commission. According to an independent evaluation by Washington-

based electoral transparency monitor called Global Integrity, the CENA is professionally

staffed and structured, but limited in its resources. Its own press releases and election

reports show no principled concern with territoriality as an objection to overseas voting;

rather the CENA apparently relied heavily on the consulates to conduct the registration

for and implementation of overseas voting (CENA 2007). Not surprisingly, there has been

concern about the consular misuse of electoral registrations, with overseas Senegalese

publicly demanding transparency over alleged transshipment of the cards for electoral

fraud at home.176

According to the Foreign Ministry‘s website, Senegal‘s roster of embassies and

176 Fall, Aly. 2009. Les Sénégalais des Etats-Unis reposent le problème des cartes doubles. Le Quotidien.

Dakar, 7 February.

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consulates showed diplomatic representation in 70 nation-states with 73 missions in

addition to dozens of consulates and honorary consuls. The high number of honorary

consulates is consistent with consular patronage politics, since these posts are used to

curry favor with important members of the diaspora in return for political support. In

Senegal‘s case, it shows many of these occupied by resident country nationals, evidence

of a weak state unencumbered by Vienna Convention norms that restrict diplomatic

representation to non-nationals of the resident country. Altogether, the overseas state

structure hypothesis proves to be accurate in the Senegal case, offering explanatory

leverage and insight into the remarkable and somewhat unexpected outcome of open

overseas voting growing in a poor struggling democracy. In Senegal— again— a weak

state permits elite actors to expand overseas voting as a means to build ties with

financially and politically lucrative sources in the diaspora.

Ghana: Charismatic politics, polarization and diaspora exclusion

Ghana passed a constitutional amendment to enfranchise overseas citizens in

2006, and it was recently celebrated by Stockholm-based IDEA as a prominent African

understudy on the verge of adopting open overseas voting.177

However after intense

politicization of the matter in 2007, overseas voting was not implemented in the

Presidential election held in December 2008. This outcome is surprising in light of the

country‘s similarity to Senegal along major economic and political lines. Recent decades

have seen increasing activism among overseas Ghanaians including a concerted push for

dual citizenship in the 1990s and calls for overseas voting access in more recent years. In

contrast to many cases, however, Ghana‘s diaspora is thought to hold significantly

177 International IDEA, ―Ghana prepares for external voting,‖ 3 May 2007. Available online at

http://www.idea.int/elections/ex_voting_ghana.cfm (15 April 2009).

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different, more conservative, political views associated with support for the traditional

opposition party. This conflict raises the question of how the opponents of overseas were

able to outmaneuver OV advocates and block implementation in the 2008 election.

5.7 Ghana chronology

1953 – 1966 Rule of President Kwame Nkrumah (first of Gold Coast, then Ghana)

1957 Ghana‘s independence from Britain

1966 Military coup deposes President Nkrumah

1981 Air Force Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings establishes rule following 1970s countercoups

1992 Multi-party elections make Rawlings first constitutionally elected President

1996 Re-election of President Rawlings (National Democratic Congress – NDC)

2000 Election to Presidency of opposition candidate John Kufuor (New Patriotic Party - NPP)

2004 Re-election of President Kufuor with NPP legislative majority

2006 OV law passed as Representation of the Peoples Amendment Act (ROPAA)

2008 No implementation of OV in election by Electoral Commission

Election of NDC candidate John Evans Atta Mills

Ghana‘s remittances are likely three times greater than official counts (Mazzucato

et al 2008, 104). Based on data from the central Bank of Ghana, the Migration Policy

Institute estimates that in 2006 Ghana received foreign remittances equal to $1 billion, or

roughly 10% of its national economy. Likewise, estimates of Ghana‘s diaspora

population range between two and four million Ghanaians abroad, of which the

conservative estimate would equal roughly ten percent of the national population of 21.7

million in 2004 (Bump 2006, 3; Sabates-Wheeler, 7). In comparison to Senegal, Ghana is

a slightly larger but similar small-medium size country, with a similar economic

development level at income of $1,500 per capita, a greater proportion of its population

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abroad, and a greater level of economic dependency on their remittances.

With a long history as destination, transit and source country, Ghana has

experienced steady emigration since the mid-1960‘s (Bump) and especially since the

1980s. In the earlier decades following independence, an economic downturn together

with a move to join ECOWAS facilitated regional emigration to nearby fellow western

African states on temporary working visas, particularly in the 1970s. Political turmoil in

Ghana in the 1980s, both internally and in its regional relations, affected much of the

emigration of that decade, including a set of reciprocal actions by Ghana and Nigeria to

expel one another‘s foreign nationals between 1979 and 1983. As a result of Nigeria‘s

massive deportation action, as many as one million overseas Ghanaians were suddenly

uprooted (Peil 1974, 370). With Ghana‘s politics extremely unstable, many return

migrants opted to look to other regions of the globe rather than repatriate in the native

country‘s struggling economy. Beginning in the mid-1980s, steady streams of skilled

workers began to emigrate from Ghana to Europe and North America.

Principal destinations of Ghanaian emigration, beyond Nigeria and nearby

western African states, have been Britain and the U.S., as well as Canada, Germany,

Holland, Italy, Sweden and South Africa. ―Brain drain‖ has been a major reality,

particularly in the medical fields, with Ghana losing to emigration a staggering 69% of

general practitioners trained between 1995 and 2002 (487 out of 702 newly minted

medical doctors), according to a 2003 study by the University of Ghana (Bump). At the

same time, the ongoing and deepening nature of outflows spread into the nation‘s lower

socioeconomic ranks, so that by the mid-1990s emigration had become a ―basic survival

for individuals and families to cope with difficult economic conditions‖ (Anarfi 2000 in

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Sabates-Wheeler et al 2005, 5). The twin sides of what Anarfi call‘s Ghana‘s

―diasporisation‖ is evident in the facts that private construction of homes in Ghana is paid

for out of foreign dollar accounts, while in 1998, Ghana‘s government indicated that 58

foreign countries deported over 2,000 Ghanaian nationals (Anarfi,, 27-28).

In its organizational profile, the Ghanaian diaspora has been active in civic and

religious activities, forming hometown and regional associations to church building and

other local activities (Arthur 2008, 98-99). Above all, the strongly economic character of

recent emigration, social networks focused directly on employment and remittances have

been a principal form of organization, along with business ventures by private individuals

and partners often along informal lines. Political activism has been a less important part

of Ghana‘s diaspora organization, with the one exception of the movement for dual

citizenship (Owuso 2006, 279-81). Overseas Ghanaians engaged in an eight-year

networked campaign to oppose a provision of the 1992 Constitution that stripped

overseas nationals who naturalize in the resident country of their Ghanaian citizenship.

Blocked by President Rawlings, the diaspora campaign obtained its goal only in 2001,

when Ghana‘s Parliament passed the Dual Citizenship Act.

Formerly Britain‘s Gold Coast colony until its founding as an independent nation-

state in 1957, Ghana saw its politics in its initial decades marked by nationalism,

economic stress, instability and violent interruptions in the form of military coups. Rule

by the military or by one party characterized most of the first four decades. In 1992, a

new constitution established the fourth republic, and Jerry Rawlings became the nation‘s

first democratically elected President. Today, Ghana is a unitary Presidential republic,

with a unicameral legislature, a strong Presidency with four-year terms, and ten

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administrative regions. Since 1992, democratization has been characterized by alternation

in party control with a peaceful transition, pluralization and economic instability –

conditions similar to Senegal‘s politics. As in Senegal, political parties in Ghana are not

deeply institutionalized, with campaigns revolving around coalitions linked to

charismatic individuals (Salih 2008, 91-92). While sixteen parties are officially registered

with the Electoral Commission, two main forces dominate national politics: the New

Patriotic Party (NPP), the traditional opposition party that governed for two terms

through 2008; and Rawlings‘ National Democratic Congress that recently regained power

after leading the opposition with John Mills narrow victory in the Presidential election of

December 2008.

Interestingly, the founder of modern Ghana, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, was a product

of the Ghanaian diaspora in an earlier era. Nkrumah conducted college and graduate

studies and later taught in Pennsylvania, for ten years from 1935, followed by further

studies in Britain for three years before the independence politics drew him back from the

diaspora. As the leader of the independence movement and then first democratically

supported President of the first newly independent African state, Nkrumah was a major

figure in the development of African nationalism and Pan-Africanism, including his

leading role in founding the Organisation of African Unity in 1963. As President of

Ghana, however, early economic difficulties and Cold War politics overwhelmed

Nkrumah; following internal resistance to confiscatory economic policies and external

resistance to Ghana‘s involvement as a Soviet ally in Cold War struggles outside of

Ghana, a military coup removed Nkrumah from the presidency in 1966. Still, Nkrumah‘s

politics loom large in their commitment to regional pan-African institutions, investment

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in state service and bureaucratic capacity, and one prominent example of pivotal

involvement in national politics from abroad.

Since officially recognizing itself as a country of emigration in 1994, Ghana has

taken a number of initial steps to institutionalize policy programs aimed at its diaspora,

though many of these remain nominal. In 2002 it legalized dual citizenship and a year

later established the Non-Resident Ghanaians Secretariat to foster diaspora linkages.

Initial studies have documented significant flows of return migration with skill

enhancement.

The overseas voting issue emerged officially when President Rawlings initially

identified it as a long-term priority for the national agenda in a 1996 State of the Nation

speech.178

In the present decade, however, diaspora associations have made persistent and

increasingly emphatic appeals for enfranchisement. In 2005, the leader of the Ghana

Leadership Union, a U.S.-based non-profit organization formed by overseas Ghanaian

professionals in the U.S. and Europe, published a detailed manifesto in the capital

newspaper calling for legislation and implementation of overseas voting for the 2008

elections.179

Ghana‘s Parliament passed overseas voting legislation on February 24th

, 2006 in

the form of the Representation of the Peoples Amendment Act (ROPAA) despite major

political opposition, including demonstrations and threats coordinated by the opposition

NDC party. NDC leaders expressed concerns that overseas voting could be used to rig the

2008 general elections. According to one analyst, the NDC‘s mistrust was rooted in

178 The Daily Graphic. 2006. President, Christian Council meet over ROPA Bill. Accra (GH), 15 February.

Available online at: http://ghanareview.com/review/index.php?date=2006-02-15&id=13118.

179 Bonna, Okyere. 2005. Voting rights for the Ghanaian diaspora: A challenge for Ghana‘s Parliament.

Accra Mail. 29 June.

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insider experience: ―Their party knows from its time in government how easy it would be

to rig elections if, as envisaged, diplomatic missions were used as registration centres and

polling stations, with government employees counting the vote‖ (Africa Research

Bulletin 2006, 16569).

NDC-led opposition to ROPAA deployed power bases of the former President

Rawlings coalition. Outside of Parliament, the anti-ROPAA coalition organized

thousands in a march on the legislature to demonstrate public opposition to the

amendment.180

NDC leaders called overseas voting in its current state a danger to

Ghana‘s national political stability, expressing concerns about damage to the credibility

of the electoral list. They made open threats to block implementation, threats that they

would uphold in the coming period prior to the 2008 election.181

Overseas Ghanaians are

predominantly supportive of the governing NPP, since many of them fled during the

military regime under Rawlings that gave birth to his NDC government (Africa Research

Bulletin 2006, 16569). Thus, the NDC sensed a clear interest in obstructing the incursion

of a massive, hostile voting bloc, and especially so as the Presidential election neared

given the relative parity in the support enjoyed by each of the two leading parties.

Thus motivated, the NDC was able to prevail over the diaspora advocates and the

majority party because of important structural capacities in Ghana‘s state bureaucracy

and in its own institutionalized power bases. It is important to remember that Rawlings

had governed the country for twenty years, before and after open elections. Concrete

evidence of Rawlings' led-NDC influence lies in its close ties to the national electoral

180 Thousands demonstrate against ROPA Bill,‖ Accra (GH): 15 February 2006. Available online at:

http://ghanareview.com/review/index.php?date=2006-02-15&id=13114.

181 Ghana Review. 2006. Defiant Bagbin issues apocalyptic warning,‖ Accra (Gh): 8 February. Available

online at: http://ghanareview.com/review/index.php?date=2006-02-01&id=12963.

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commission, the CENA, which is sympathetic to the NDC (telephone interview with

Ghanaian political scientist, 2 April 2009)

Following the amendment‘s contested passage, the site of the struggle between the

NDC forces and OV advocates shifted from the legislature to the Electoral Commission

(EC). Formally authorized in the 1992 Constitution, Ghana‘s Electoral Commission has

recently been evaluated by independent non-governmental analysts as technically

proficient and professionally staffed, though also seen as lacking in resources (Global

Integrity 2008, 40). The determination to not implement OV in 2008 occurred in the EC,

which had been given wide latitude by the Constitutional amendment to devise the means

for implementing overseas voting. Interested in avoiding risk and ensuring adequate

resources for the agency, EC Deputy for Finance and Administration indicated early in

2007 that ROPAA would not be effective in 2008.182

In Ghana, a weak Foreign Ministry has been a secondary factor affecting overseas

voting outcome. The institution‘s weakness stems from different causes, and so it has not

been linked to transnational patronage. In the early 1980s, economic crisis induced

Rawlings to shift Ghana‘s external strategy from protectionist economic policies to a pro-

western orientation rooted in structural adjustment and overseas development assistance.

As a result, the Foreign Ministry lost importance in relation to the economic

bureaucracies; more importantly with regard to diaspora politics, the Foreign Ministry‘s

focus became devoted to the pursuit of overseas development aid at the expense of

consular services (Akokpari 2005, 190). The lack of responsive service to overseas

Ghanaians and the absence of close relations with diaspora communities has made an

182 Ghana Review. 2007. Ghanaians abroad can't vote in 2008, Accra (Gh): 24 February.

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already polarized relationship worse. If overseas voting does go forward, one can imagine

resistance to collaboration with the Foreign Ministry and problems in implementation.

In sum, Ghana‘s experience with overseas voting politics breaks from the general

pattern in which weak states have presented permissive contexts for transnational

entrepreneurs to migration fields to conduct partisan politics. Multiple ingredients give

rise to the blockage, in particular the domestic politics of the NDC party‘s opposition, the

electoral commission‘s concerns, and the Foreign Ministry‘s distance from diaspora

society. Analyzed in terms of transnational mechanisms, overseas fundraising occurs on a

small scale only, and transnational partisan organization remains stunted. Powerful

framing effects occur when vested actors in the establishment define overseas voting as a

risk to state. Rawlings‘ influence goes beyond party, having shaped the national

bureaucracies in the Foreign Ministry and the electoral commission. Moreover, the

polarization bred of a politically tinged emigration pervades Ghana‘s diaspora politics.

The precedents of sudden, massive deportations mean that for a significant portion of

Ghana‘s polity, overseas emigration represents political danger. The country‘s governance

score of -0.04 is stronger than Senegal‘s but still rather weak. Ghana‘s bureaucracy

retains ties to personalistic politics, and it is instilled with a strong commitment to

national-territorial jurisdiction. The neoliberal incumbent NPP party‘s decision to not

push overseas voting is especially interesting. Its narrow loss in the recent Presidential

election at the end of 2008 could easily have been – would have been – reversed by an

open implementation of overseas voting, given its greater closeness to the diaspora

voters. There is evidence that miscalculation did occur in the NPP‘s misreading of its pre-

election standing. But it is also possible that the NPP did not push overseas voting out of

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a broader awareness that open implementation requires consensus beyond the ruling party

alone. Fear of post-election challenge linked to ―decisive‖ overseas votes is a real factor

in the heads of political decision-makers, as we have seen in Mexico.

Conclusion

What makes similar cases from the same region adopt different responses on

overseas voting? Looking beyond Latin America, we see that the overseas voting (OV)

phenomenon has traveled in a remarkably similar manner across the major regions.

Within the scope of countries specified –those I have labeled the labor-export

democracies—there is global convergence in issue emergence. Driving overseas voting

issue is the broad historical conjuncture experienced across much of the developing

world: democratization‘s third wave, growing labor emigration, and new technological

linkages in communications and transport. Together these three powerful forces have

made the question of long-distance electoral participation a staple topic in the second tier

of essential reforms for democratic consolidation. It arises like clockwork, generally as a

new idea in the 1990s and as an implementation issue in the recent decade. Yet while

there is a persistent convergence across regions in issue emergence, implementation

outcomes reveal instead a persistent divergence.

Table 5.8 summarizes the six case studies in terms of their OV outcomes and main

active factors leading to the result.

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Table 5.8 Implementation & Participation Outcomes

Outcome Year(s) Turnout Government

Effectiveness Overseas

state Mechanisms

Philippines Adopt 2004,

2007 250,000 -0.01

Weak or

Mixed

NGO organizations Friendly framing context Embedded in diaspora

South

Korea

Deny

==>

Restrict

OK‘d

for

2012 -- 1.26 Strong

Political openness

Persistent rights clams Liberal norms in state

India Deny No -- 0.03 Strong

Strong state National-territorial norms

Divided diaspora

Indonesia Adopt 2004,

2009 200,000 330,000

-0.41 Weak

Transnational NGOs ties,

migrant-friendly framing Money politics abroad?

Senegal Adopt 2000,

2008 75,000 150,000

-0.35 Weak

Weak state Dense TN networks Pro-OV consensus Consular patronage

Ghana

Deny

No -- -0.04 Weak

Polarized politics National-territorial norm Strong veto player

After describing the participation, it shows the government effectiveness score and the

nature of the overseas state as documented in this case. As it shows, there is a general

correlation between the nature of the overseas state and the OV outcome. This is

impressive when we consider that the case studies show evidence of different

theoretically specified mechanisms at work. Not all of the four mechanisms fit all of the

cases, but in each, we find government bureaucracies and actors at work in at least a

couple of ways as theorized—intermediating the politics of overseas voting in one

direction or another by means of fundraising controls, organizing the diaspora, framing

the issue, or implementation. Depending upon whether the overseas state is a strong

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proactive guiding force or a secondary follower, it is a decisive factor, though not the

only factor. These mechanisms shape the stage for transnational politics and establish the

parameters in which domestic political elites assess the political costs and benefits of

overseas voting.

From the cases studied thus far, we can summarize the main conclusions as follows:

The existence of a significant remittance-sending overseas population in

democratic or democratizers is a sufficient condition for the emergence of the

overseas voting issue onto the national agenda.

The first requisite for open OV is a government that wants it, which requires both

a favorable disposition on the part of the ruling party and state actors in the

electoral commission and the foreign ministry;

More broadly, there must be consensus across main parties; otherwise, veto

players can obstruct the majority‘s OV project, if the risk of opposition challenges

does not constrain OV supporters from acting first.

In determining what makes political elites in the government and the parties

disposed to view overseas voting as an opportunity for political gain and not as

liability or risk, we have to look beyond individual parties or diaspora

characteristics.

The characteristics of the overseas state play a decisive role in shaping the

political incentives that guide elites in calculating whether to favor or oppose

overseas voting. States with strong transnational capacities can too easily control

overseas voting, raising doubts among opposition leaders about political gains;

furthermore, unless they have deeply internalized rights norms within state

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ideology, stronger states prefer to adhere to the doctrine of territorial jurisdiction

that eschews transnational elections. In states with weak transnational capacities,

political leaders of competing parties face fewer constraints and risks in extending

electoral competition into the diaspora, as long as diaspora preferences are

perceived as plural. In cases of polarization, when diaspora preferences are

perceived to be monolithically opposed to one party, that party‘s leadership will

emerge as a veto player to block overseas voting, even if transnational capacities

abroad are weak, as seen in the case of Ghana.

Finally, the qualitative analysis of the broader range of cases shows the need for a

richer and more specific conceptualization of overseas state characteristics. State

capacities in and of themselves are inadequate, since their impact and importance

depends upon what states want. The deployment of bureaucratic capacity depends upon

what norms and preferences the state has internalized. Therefore, we look not only at the

existence of strong bureaucracies in the electoral agency and the foreign ministry, but the

purposes to which these capacities are devoted. Is the state in its foundational thinking

and purpose committed to national-territorial jurisdiction and state interests? Or has it

internalized liberal norms to the extent that it prioritizes rights claims over state interests?

As the Table 5.9 shows, the overseas state framework accommodates not only the

yes and no cases, but also those involving complexity and change. India is a clear

instance of a hierarchically organized transnational governing structures that has

prohibited overseas voting; in its state characteristics and its outcome, it is similar to and

a more extreme version of Mexico. The polar opposite of these cases of state-led politics

are those of transnational patronage, in which weak state capacities and a favorable

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disposition to liberal norms and rights claims enable an expansive growth in overseas

electoral organization. First identified in the Dominican Republic, the paradigmatic

―weak state with open OV‖ pattern is replicated in the developing labor export

democracies of Senegal, Philippines and Indonesia.

5.9 Overseas State Characteristics & OV Outcomes

Overseas state Capacities

professionalized,

autonomous

personalized,

dependent

Bureaucratic

Norms

&

Preferences

Territorial

Jurisdiction

&

State

Nationalism

No OV

state-led politics

(Mexico, India)

ad hoc treatment of OV

charismatic politics

(Ghana)

Liberal Norms

&

Rights Claims

Managed OV

gradual opening

(South Korea)

Open OV

transnational patronage

(DR, Senegal,

Philippines, Indonesia)

A number of countries have responded to OV opportunities or adapted their OV

rules in a way that exceeds the explanatory power of rationalist theories that take interests

as given. In Ghana, multiple factors point toward an open OV outcome including the

relative weakness of the state and the ruling party‘s support for OV implementation.

Looking at the nature of the overseas state, however, points out the institutionalized

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power bases linked to a polemical leader opposed to OV and the commitment instilled

throughout the relevant bureaucracies in prioritizing state risk aversion over a liberal

approach to diaspora outreach and rights.

Finally, in South Korea, as we saw in Mexico and to a lesser degree in Indonesia,

strongly institutionalized bureaucracies committed to territorial organization and wary of

overseas voting as injurious to the national interest have evolved in their positions over

the years. In the face of pressure from newly formed non-state networks of diaspora

activists, these states have, to differing degrees, adopted gradual opening or a semi-

restrictive form of overseas voting.

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Chapter 6

Conclusion

A demographer viewing the earth from the moon in 2010, peering at the world on

a clear day with a strong demographic telescope, would observe a subtle change in the

global human landscape. Today as in 1969, the vast majority of the world‘s population

continues to live within national territories of birth. But now the blurry overlapping edges

are more apparent.

The 3% of world population who reside abroad are becoming increasingly visible.

Analysts, national leaders and activists can now see much better what has always existed,

namely the populations who inhabit the globalizing regions with overlapping clusters of

nations. In Southeast Asia and along China‘s coast, in the Persian Gulf, across North

America and western Europe, and throughout the word‘s large cities, international

migration commonly makes up between a tenth and a quarter of the population in the

resident and origin country. An old story, some say. It is true that that today‘s migration

builds upon historically founded migration networks. But new transport links have

expanded its absolute volumes, new technologies and trends in world politics have

altered its social and political dynamics, and accessible banking services have made the

accounting of financial flows much more complete. Migration scholars and advocates

hail the remittances and lively long-distance email chats that stream across borders as

evidence of a newly animated migrant agency. The proud economic and social citizens of

transnational migrants, indispensable providers, are lauded as heroes. Migrant leaders

repeat: what of our political citizenship?

To what country do migrants belong politically, and where should they exercise

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citizenship? One way to answer the question begins with the resident country, and more

and more countries have been involved in intensified debates over immigration, with a

thorough body of social science research. But another, equally important way is to

consider the home country. By law, the membership remains in the home country. By

habit, migrants retain bonds to the home country. Far less is known about this topic,

despite its burgeoning growth.

This dissertation has documented the global trend in overseas voting (OV). What

is behind the worldwide trend? The conjuncture of democratization, accessible

information technology and continuing cross-border migration has formed a permissive

global context for the trend. A world at war, or one swept up in a reactionary tide of

authoritarian government, would be less conducive to the trend.

From the research arise two arguments and a set of generalized statements of fact.

Overseas voting rules matter politically and merit their own analytic attention, I argue,

and overseas state structure is a crucial causal factor affecting the rules instituted.

Empirical findings clarify the relationship between economic remittances and overseas

voting. This chapter summarizes the dissertation‘s argument and main contributions,

considers its implications for debates about globalization, and closes with a discussion of

normative and policy issues related to overseas voting and transnational citizenship

politics.

I Research question and core arguments

The study began with two questions. How do we explain divergence in the

openness of OV institutions adopted by the Dominican Republic and Mexico? More

generally, what factors make a nation-state more or less likely to implement OV along

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open lines?

The dissertation‘s research concludes with two arguments along with a number of

generalized statements based on its empirical work. The first of these is an analytic

argument about how to study the topic: the politics of overseas voting are best understood

as a process of instituting overseas participation in home-country affairs. Overseas voting

elections entail three sequential stages: first comes legislation, then implementation, then

participation. The rules adopted matter not simply because of the evidence that they are

controversial and contested, though that is important, but moreover, since they

substantially influence the form and extent of diaspora participation in home country

matters. Voting at the consulate is different from participating in a cultural festival,

registering a hometown club, or receiving legal help with a child‘s birth certificate—to

offer a few examples of different forms of participation.

When countries do adopt overseas elections, the particular rules implemented

determine the range of likely participation levels. In many cases, a significant minority of

the diaspora population desires to vote, depending upon the rules of eligibility,

registration, campaigning and vote delivery. Frequently one hears that overseas masses

are apathetic and do not want to vote. Such a blanket claim is unsubstantiated, however –

we know that some of them do want to vote, based on consistent evidence from recent

survey research (Marcelli & Cornelius 2005, McCann et al 2007). Thus we should ask

why participation rates are low, keeping in mind the direct causal effects of the

implementation format upon participation rates. The case studies confirmed that the

voting regime affected the degree to which the ―significant civic potential‖ among

Mexicans and Dominicans was truly activated. As opposed to a purely behavioral view,

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the analytic argument here views participation dynamically, as a result of citizen attitudes

and preferences embedded in a social and institutional context affected by voting rules. In

this light, with evidence of intense political struggles, the rules as implemented merit

their own analytic treatment.

The second argument is the causal thesis about the impact of state structure upon

overseas voting. Put simply, the way in which a country’s government is set up abroad

structures its transnational politics and thereby influences the overseas voting rules that

it adopts. The core argument is, in a general sense, an old one: state structures affect

political outcomes, exerting a causal significance independent from societal factors or

decision-maker strategies. In its application to diaspora voting, however, it is original and

leads to a novel ―overseas state‖ thesis, which also includes a more nuanced version of

the main causal argument. With a consistent pattern in the cases studied, strong state

capacities in the foreign ministry and the electoral commission make overseas elections a

prohibitively risky prospect for politicians, who therefore opt to restrict or prohibit OV in

the face of potentially costly consequences to party and nation. In the absence of such

structures, when the state apparatus and national sovereignty norms are comparatively

lax, politicians perceive transnational communities as an opportunity for resources, flock

to them, and generate a dialogue that leads to expansive diaspora voting rights and rules.

Thus, in Senegal and the Dominican Republic, overseas elections expand in proportion to

the dense economic and social exchanges between diaspora and home country.

The effects of overseas state structures occur through at least four mechanisms of

fundraising controls, diaspora organization, framing effects and implementation.

Immediately, and even before OV enters appears on the agenda, the existence of overseas

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fundraising controls affects the practice of diaspora politics. When parties face the risk of

sanctions for foreign fundraising, overseas party-building is a non-starter. The existence

of a strong electoral agency capable of monitoring and policing activities abroad is a pre-

condition that negatively structures insiders‘ calculations about whether to support OV

and pursue diaspora outreach.

The foreign ministry plays a central role in diaspora politics through the consular

infrastructure. Whether the consulates are part of a strong, autonomous bureaucracy or

instead resemble more permeable, client-led units affects the organization, activities and

goals of diaspora politics. In the former case, government initiative matters much more,

and this usually leads away from open overseas voting. In the latter case, non-state actors

from parties, civic groups and private firms take on prominent roles. The foreign ministry

and the electoral agency also take effect in the way that their bureaucratic interests and

conceptions of foreign policy and electoral management lead them to frame the OV

administration task within the domestic arena. Legislators seek their testimony as experts

on implementation. Overseas state actors committed to territorial organization and strong

sovereignty concerns inevitably present overseas voting in a negative light. Similarly,

bureaucracies of this nature are capable of and disposed to exerting heavy control over

OV when it comes time to hold the election. Weak states present far fewer encumbrances

of these sorts for overseas electoral organization; as a result, the incentives to engage with

the lucrative and vote-rich diaspora segment spur party leaders to prioritize transnational

entrepreneurship and support open overseas voting.

Overseas state structure entails not only the capacities but also the preferences of

the foreign ministry and the electoral commission. Ideological structure – norms as a

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basis for assessing the appropriate response of the state to overseas voting demands –

becomes a factor when strong states deviate from a generalized pattern of preference for

no overseas voting. In developing countries with stronger overseas states, doctrines of

territorial sovereignty and non-intervention make overseas voting problematic politically,

legally and diplomatically. Thus disposed against OV, such countries possess and exert

the capacities that block its adoption. In more institutionalized liberal democracies,

however, deeper commitments to democratic-rights norms within the relevant

bureaucracies lead them to respond differently, marshalling their capacities to roll out

overseas voting, as South Korea‘s recent turn exemplifies.

Rival explanations center upon legislator preferences, according to rationalists,

and diaspora characteristics, according to the ideographic case studies. Of these, I would

argue, legislator preferences are more important, since they are closer to the outcome of

OV rules as implemented. However, the sources and calculations that generate these

preferences are obscure. It is essential to probe the political construction of elite

preferences with regard to the diaspora. Here, I argue, overseas structure guides the

process by determining how accessible diaspora financial resources are to politicians,

setting the legal rules of political engagement, adjudicating the significance of OV in

relation to overall national security interests in domestic debates, and controlling the

manner of implementation. In all, the overseas state is crucially at work.

Main findings and contributions

Democracy and economic remittances are necessary conditions for overseas

voting, and the quantitative analysis confirmed that the levels of each were positively

correlated with open outcomes. First, a basic requisite for overseas voting is democracy

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in the home country. The large-n study confirmed that levels of political openness were

positively associated with having an overseas voting law and open implementation in all

periods tested. Quantitative measures of democracy are based on two main components

of political rights and electoral competitiveness. How did the components of openness

matter or not in the case histories? Interestingly, process-tracing found political rights to

be more important to OV politics, since it allowed legal means and venues for diaspora

advocates to advance their voting rights claims. This occurred across all of the cases—

and mattered, whatever the final OV outcome (and impact of a strong state). In contrast,

the second component of democracy, electoral competitiveness, was not important in all

of the cases, although it existed in all. Instead, its effect of stimulating party competition

for diaspora favor was mediated by the overseas state factor, active only when the

overseas state was relatively weak, but otherwise shut down by strong states.

Secondly, the existence of cash remittances signifies a diaspora population linked

to the nation, without which there is no basis for overseas voting. Theoretically, a polity

could choose to issue the diaspora vote for citizens who do not send home any money,

though this is difficult to imagine in today‘s world. More importantly, the large-n study

found the volumes of economic remittances to be strongly correlated with open

implementation in the recent period.

Process-tracing research helps to interpret the widespread statistical correlation

between economic remittances and open implementation. In the mid-1990s, the Central

Bank of the Dominican Republic first recognized remittances in the national accounts,183

and it took little time and action for overseas voting claims to emerge on the national

183 Author's interview, former Chairman, Central Bank of the Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo, 27

July 2007.

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agenda. And so in many other countries at this time, the economic fact entered the

political arena, and professions of deep solidarity with the overseas nationals ensued—

not only in Latin American countries but across world regions, a global pattern associated

with the world-historical conjuncture noted above. However, governments, politicians

and activists were unable to tax or intermediate the remittances in a material sense.

Instead, they struggled to tap the rhetorical resources contained in the flows—to credibly

associate themselves with the patriotic aura and home-country kin of the emigrant

workers. In overseas voting legislation debates, the statistical findings suggest, the

magnitude of remittances may correspond to their power as a rhetorical resource. The

more remittance-dependent, on average, the more rhetorical punch the diaspora advocates

pack in contests to shape OV rules. However remittance volumes are just one factor; they

do not cause open implementation, as OV outcomes in world remittance leaders Mexico

and India make clear.

Thirdly, the large-n study also offers clarification about the relevance of singular

factors of scale, wealth, regime age, and population. To begin with, relative scale of the

transnational sector in relation to the nation mattered far less than the former‘s absolute

magnitude; in other words, proportional variables (remittances as a percentage of the

economy, diaspora citizens as a percentage of the national population) showed no pattern

of significance across the statistical tests—in contrast to the absolute volumes. This

signals that we should analyze the effects as independent factors, as opposed to

composites that conflate two variables. Secondly, GDP and regime age were positively

correlated in the historical time-series but not in the recent years. In the recent decade,

neither higher income nor regime age has mattered, since so many developing

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democratizers have been moving ahead with OV legislation and implementation.

Fourthly, diaspora population size was found to be positively correlated with

having a voting law in the model based on recent years, a shift from no correlation during

the time-series consistent with the global OV trend. Diaspora population size showed a

weak negative correlation in the recent years with open implementation. The findings

suggest that in countries with larger diasporas, the politics of overseas voting may shift

from rhetorical competition to risk aversion during the run-up to implementation. The

shift occurs as decision-makers, who have approved overseas voting in principle,

contemplate the myriad prospects of diplomatic and political complications arising from

a first massive overseas election. Mexico and Ghana stand as exemplars among the cases

studied.

Fifthly, national population size is highly negatively correlated with both overseas

voting laws and overseas voting implementation. The latter negative correlation occurred

with high levels of statistical significance not only in 2000 and 2004 years but also across

the larger span tested in the time-series model. The overseas state argument provides

insight into the political logic behind the correlation. Thus, it helps to momentarily

consider states as ―stationary bandits‖ rooted in control over a particular population and

territory (Olson 1993, 568).184

States derive their power from the achievement of

concentrated control over a large nation in one central authority. The larger the

population, the more resources available for the state to extract. The concentration of

power in large nation-states is particularly significant in foreign relations, in which a

strong foreign ministry is a basic face of large nation-states and great powers. On

184 Olson‘s concept applied here helps explain why overseas state effects would be stronger in countries

with large populations. His broader theory of property rights leading to political liberalization is not

relevant here.

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average, then, larger populations offer more support for hierarchical overseas state units

prone to monopolizing political spaces in the abroad.

Academic contributions

The dissertation contributes the first systematic comparison of overseas voting

institutions, which cannot be explained simply as a result of democracy plus diaspora

remittances. Drawing upon multiple research methods, its research fashions a context-

sensitive institutional approach of qualitative political science to a topic overlooked by

the field. The analytic framework includes a disaggregated dependent variable, testable

hypotheses, and empirical analysis across world regions. The overseas state thesis

introduces the first causal explanation, a theory that accounts for more variance than the

existing literature‘s single-case studies. Based on this framework, the comparative

analysis identifies patterned regularities as well as divergence in overseas voting politics.

The same also leads to particular insights in the case studies – for example, in the causal

agency of transnational migrant labor groups in the Philippines, or the effects of state

norm change in South Korea. The dissertation reveals transnational political mechanisms

at work, consequentially, in grounded national sites.

Overseas state structure builds on the strengths of the mainstream approaches of

structuralism and rationalism. Its emphasis on bureaucratic structure defined as capacities

and ideology harkens to a long tradition in IR and comparative politics, building on the

incipient OV literature. The argument is flexible in its ability to develop more nuanced

explanations where necessary (Table 5.9). Its acknowledgement of powerful domestic

interests and incentive-driven elite calculations underlies the research design; it anchored

its field work in the decision-making centers of national politics. The analysis is

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innovative in its question and its dependent variable, and it has benefited from a

systematic approach. Recognizing the tradeoff between depth and breadth in executing

any research strategy, the dissertation diversified its approach to include three approaches

of deep qualitative case study, large-n analysis, and extension case studies.

Limitations of this study point out ways to improve the research going forward.

One item is to conduct a case study of a democratic country that prohibited overseas

voting. The mini-case studies sought to make up in part for this shortcoming with the

research on India and Ghana. The quantitative analysis was limited by the absence of data

available on the ―stateness‖ of the overseas units. As well, further within-region study

would be worthwhile in the future, particularly in the Latin America field, noting the

variance pointed out in chapter two (Table 2.4). In future research, an effort to find or

fashion a proxy indicator of overseas state capacities will be worth pursuing.

Alternatively, absent sufficient data available for large-n testing, one strategy for further

research into the dependent variable would be to conduct a medium-n study using ―fuzzy-

set‖ or Boolean algebra techniques on Latin America cases (Ragin 2000, 149, 241).

In theorizing overseas voting rule outcomes, I do not mean to suggest that

overseas state characteristics will explain all variance, but rather that they exert key

causal effects that play a large role in determining outcomes. A state structure argument is

sometimes criticized as an apolitical argument; however, the study‘s qualitative analysis

and specification of causal mechanisms renders the criticism of crude determinism

inapplicable to the overseas state argument. This formulation specifies structure in two

particular overseas state units, includes two dimensions (capacities and preferences),

locates and requires agency in each of four specified mechanisms, and also is malleable

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over time. Whether the state units are strong or weak, whether their normative ethos is

nationalist or liberal, structural effects rely upon state actors interacting with migrant and

party leaders. In Mexico, for example, the Foreign Ministry doctrine established national

foreign policy priorities at odds with expansive overseas voting. But the Ministry‘s

impact upon the OV outcome relied upon the action of Chancellor Derbez to testify in the

way that he did. Derbez‘ testimony is consistent with what the theory predicts on the

basis of his role. But a different Chancellor, in a different moment, might choose to act

differently. As discussed, norm change within the state can occur and alter bureaucratic

preferences.

Simplest is best

What would William of Occam say? In democratic countries, consensus politics

and weak states favor open implementation, while polarization and strong states with

concentrated power make it unlikely. In order for a country to implement open OV, the

government has to want it and push for it, and the opposition party cannot oppose it

entirely. Generally, political conditions of war, national security threats, strong

nationalism or xenophobia undermine the prospects for such consensus. Across the eight

country cases studied, evidence consistently confirmed the negative effects of a strong

overseas state on open OV. Such concentrated power undermines inter-party trust in the

overseas rules of the game, leading political insiders to take seriously the possibility of

overseas fraud. In such cases, logic and case evidence suggest that opposition leaders are

more likely to hold out against open OV—so as to prevent fraud or other manipulation by

the strong overseas state. The fear of a government-managed ―election of state‖ – an

official election limited to government employees and a sliver of the diaspora linked to

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the ruling political class—is evident in the opposition party calculations in Mexico and in

Ghana.

III Implications for theories of globalization and institutional change

Transnationalist scholars have documented and explored a thriving but overlooked

space of informal migrant society, providing an empirical point of departure for IR

research. In bringing transnational communities into the field of international and

comparative politics, the political study of overseas voting identifies a migrants-nation-

state dilemma—a concrete problem with implications for theories of globalization and

institutional change.

Overseas states, migrants and nations

The study of overseas voting points makes clear the historical conjuncture of new

technology, sturdier democratic norms and intensified interdependence. Amidst the broad

system-level forces at work, the nation-state is in transformation, too. The problem

centers on the adaptation of its institutions for an extra-territorial polity. The extent and

forms of such change vary significantly across countries, with the case studies showing

three different types of overseas institutions adopted, namely party-led, state-led, and

civil society-led. Overseas voting politics are one important phenomenon driving the

transformation, and overseas state structure is a key inherited factor shaping

transformation in a path-dependent manner and helping to explain the divergent

outcomes.

Consulates play a central role in diaspora politics as the public symbol of the

nation-state's legitimacy and the physical site of public venues for overseas nationals.

State structure is a powerful reality rooted in the sovereignty principle and sanctioned by

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the international system. Let‘s imagine the perspective of an expatriate citizen intent on

politically reconnecting with his or her global nation at a pivotal historical or electoral

moment. Long-distance participation raises a few concrete questions. Where is the public

space, and what are the rules for access to that space? Who runs the government and

where is it? At this point, emigrant belonging to a separate home country is not just a

subjective matter of identity. To remain real, belonging requires public institutions, which

involve state structures due to the nature of the international system. Generally, due to the

Westphalian institution of territoriality, the consular infrastructure stands out not only as

critical signifier of nation, but also as physical arena for public affairs abroad and legal

pipes connecting the diaspora to home-country structures and authorities.

The role of the consulates signals a reality at odds with the transnationalist view:

the use of nationality as a political resource for legitimization remains in large part,

though by no means entirely, dominated by states. The ―globalization from below‖

perspective implies that national community can thrive by circumventing states

structures, utilizing technological linkages and civic organization. However, overseas

actors who lack access to public venues are likely to remain stunted and subordinated to

government actors in home and resident countries. Creating public institutions out of

informal spaces is problematic as long as powerful state units exist.

The exchange of political resources between diaspora and home-country actors

flows in both directions, requiring a conception of state-led remittances. In Mexico, for

example, transnational entrepreneurship related to emigrant politics consisted in large

part in the bureaucratic innovation of state actors in the foreign ministry, the state

governments, and the national electoral commissions. A leading example is Carlos

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González Gutierrez, a Foreign Ministry career officer and founding Director of the

Institute for Mexicans in the Exterior (IME), whose writings have advanced the strategic

thinking within Mexico's acercamiento policy during the last two decades (1997, 1999,

2006, 2007). González' leadership shaped the IME's model of state-led social service

provision and guidance of a transnational ―network of networks‖ uniting overseas

Mexicans in systematic dialogue with the government. The IME programs185

have taken

on particular importance given the country's rejection of open electoral institutions.

Despite its restrictive voting rules, Mexico has earned a reputation for bureaucratic

innovation in state-diaspora programs among labor export governments across the global

level, as a result of efforts by González and other state actors.

A second instance of state-led entrepreneurship points out the causal effects of the

overseas voting trend upon epistemic network formation and formal global processes. In

the 1990s, the overseas voting area had been an international policy vacuum. Electoral

authorities in the Dominican Republic, Mexico and other developing countries were

explicitly aware of diaspora participation as a missing element in national

democratization efforts. They came together in international technical bodies in search of

resources for resolving their own national administrative challenges. Motivating the

collaboration was a shared set of desires to legitimize fledgling democracies, identify best

practices based on comparative learning and pooled data, and establish enduring electoral

institutions for overseas participation. Drawing upon support from international NGOs

and the U.N., the epistemic network has advanced new institutional standards for

overseas voting at the international system level, which now exist as a meaningful

185 Laglagaron (2010) reviews the programs of the Mexican government‘s Institute of Mexicans in the

Exterior.

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normative reality and administrative standard that transcend developing countries.

Migrant diasporas in world politics

For IR theories of transnational relations, diaspora citizens and groups are an

important but different type of TNA. Even as they incur upon international politics in

unexpected ways, diaspora groups are more local, particular, rooted and ascriptive in

nature in contrast to the elitist, cosmopolitan and universal aspects of more established

transnational types, such as the UNDP, CEMEX, and Amnesty International, for example.

The vogue in diaspora studies should not be mistaken as a fad since it rests on a deep,

underlying conjunctural change

As a different type of transnational activity, emigrant diaspora politics are

animated by the local domestic politics of national memory and partisanship rooted in

family and social ties. The translocal and regional elements mean that the more active

organization frequently involves social networks at subnational levels. In the Dominican

Republic, emigrants draw on party ties abroad as a social network, initially, and then as a

means to translate higher dollar earnings in New York into social and political prestige in

the home country. The density and volume of exchange of Dominican transnational

networks make home country party leaders and diaspora actors indistinguishable as

transnational political entrepreneurs.

Overseas voting politics thrive on the activism of diaspora activist networks. In

Mexico, one such coalition struggled to break apart the autonomy of an exclusive

national polity with mixed results. La Coalición formed across parties in 2003 as a

transnational lobbying campaign of overseas activists, civic leaders, and domestically

based academics and government insiders. Utilizing the Internet along with direct

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lobbying, La Coalición mounted an agile and relatively effective lobbying intervention in

2004-05. The campaign combined symbolic politics, moral leverage and accountability

politics186

as an effective means of pressing their agenda to a vote against the best efforts

of national legislators. The 2005 legislative compromise of restrictive reform reflected

the limits to the coalition's leverage, though it was a partial success.

Re-nationalization, not denationalization

As case study evidence shows, emigrant diaspora politics fail to fit two standard

perspectives of statism and systemic norms. On the one hand, a conventional state-centric

perspective would leave out the diaspora actor. Secondly, a system-level view associated

with globalists overlooks the varied processes and institutional channels that embedded

actors confront. Moreover, the latter view emphasizes a global logic of denationalization.

Emigrant diaspora politics do show a global logic in the common modes and templates,

but the activities and purposes center upon individual national authorities, utilizing rights-

democracy norms in localized transnational circumstances. Rather than denationalization,

the overseas voting trend and the broader diaspora activities reflect a contrary move to re-

nationalization.

In today‘s world politics, a defining characteristic of the international system is

the ubiquitous condition of nation-statehood. The tendency to posit forces of

globalization in opposition to the nation-state reflects an ahistorical view of today‘s world

politics, which leads to a false choice between system-level change or accurate

accounting of varying case outcomes. Refuting the convergence thesis does not mean,

however, that change in the world is not afoot. For example, soft power may be working

186 Keck and Sikkink define information, leverage, symbolic and accountability politics (1998, 21-25).

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in new ways, at times. The solution to the problem lies in recognizing the close ties

between globalization and nation-state transformation, historically and today. Rather than

downplay cross-border linkages and organization, the OV state thesis points out the

parallels between globalization and state-building, both as an ongoing continuity of the

modern era as well as a particular expression of the present moment. Globalization,

defined as more integration, more exchange and flows across borders, has been propelled

by the G-7 powers and the European colonial empires that preceded them. Our post-Cold

War period reflects a broader continuity across the modern era of simultaneously

expanding nation-state dominance and expanding cross-border interdependence.

State-diaspora relations should be of interest to IR scholars of all varieties,

including realists and other materialists for whom overseas citizens make up an ever

more accurately mapped, catalogued and visible source of strategic human resources for

nation-states. Increasingly, world events are leading to a greater recognition of Nye's

insights about the changing nature of power in the contemporary era (2004, 3-4).

Whereas the Cold War mentality understood national power mainly in military terms,

national power today is recognized as multifaceted and rooted not only in military

capacities but also in a country's ideological and cultural appeal, its economic power, and

its human capacities. Structural changes suggest that analysts recall the wisdom of

classical realism that counted human leadership and population as important determinants

of nation-state power. Various macro-forces are behind the widespread movement by

state actors toward an active cultivation of diaspora relations. From democratization -

―ballot power‖ -- to consumer capitalism -- ―market power‖ -- to the requirements for

scientific and financial breakthroughs-- ―brain power‖ -- large populations represent

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potential for political and economic returns. These forces are likely to sustain the

processes of extraterritorial organization now transforming the nation-state—IR‘s basic

unit.

Neo-medievalism

Some IR theorists have argued that we are entering into a neo-medieval world

polity, defined as ―a system of overlapping authority and multiple loyalty, held together

by a duality of competing universalistic logics.‖ Originally formulated by Hedley Bull in

The Anarchical Society (1977, 254), the neo-medieval conception actually corresponds to

the present era better than to Bull's era, according to Jörg Friedrichs and his application of

the five original criteria : i) regional integration of states; ii) disintegration of states; iii)

restoration of private international violence; iv) transnational organizations; and v) global

technological unification (2003, 482). One feature of the transformed landscape is the

arrival of influential non-state actors, such as transnational networks of scientists,

activists and local actors that mobilize campaigns around principled issue objectives and

affect international institutions. We now have diaspora activist networks, the expatriate

coalitions of fellow nationals informed by a global vision yet sharing a national political

project, a phenomenon that this research has substantiated.187

Imagining a world marked by the overlapping membership and jurisdictions of

global nation-states suggests confusion and contestation and brings us back to Bull's

image. In the medieval world, the dual logics of Christendom and empire provided

universal principles to anchor and stabilize a plural and chaotic-sounding medieval

landscape. Today the two logics are international capitalism and democratic nation-states,

187 See Keck and Sikkink (1998, 1-38) regarding transnational activist networks; see González Gutierrez

(2006, 12) regarding diaspora networks and their relations to states, in turn referring to Vertovec

(2005).

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with the latter's territorial organization and its grip on political identities blocking any

full-fledged onset of neo-medieval conditions. Diaspora settlement and overseas

citizenship have made the notion of ―global nations‖ somewhat real. Today in their

infancy, their life-span uncertain, global nations may not continue to thrive. However, it

is relevant to consider that they could, a fact with implications for our world today.

The possibility of global nations points to a scaled-down version of neo-

medievalism, in which deterritorialized nation-states have reinvented themselves to

sustain national communities across the different spatial patterns associated with today‘s

capitalism. In this model, multiple overlapping authority and membership is the basic

characteristic that contrasts with our present system, but it is anchored and stabilized by a

reinvented organizing logic of nation-state hierarchy, deterritorialized but retaining its

authority based on precedent and evolving sovereignty norms. The convergence of

international capitalism would sustain technological unification and a defining role for

transnational actors including highly empowered individuals and private networks, while

it would retain resurgent nation-states capable of evolving as deterritorialized units,

perhaps with even greater historical and functional differentiation, with alternative

evolving models of dependency as well as capitalism.

IV Normative and Policy Implications

Are political remittances good or bad? Overseas voting presents a unique form of

long-distance politics, different from elite intrigue and violent extremism often associated

with diaspora. However, case study findings present a certain ambiguity for the

normative analysis. Both the Dominican Republic and Mexico have formed institutions

that are not serving their millions of citizens abroad, though they have gone astray in

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different manners. In the Dominican case, openness to diaspora participation has come at

the expense of a competent government capable of planning policy beyond one electoral

cycle. In Mexico, state-diaspora relations are a mixture of ―safety-valve‖ politics of

exclusion and a more enlightened doctrine of state-led provision and incorporation. In

both cases, political remittances have not conformed with the predictions of liberal or

transnationalist theories, neither as long-distance political influence in proportion to

economic flows nor as a one-way north-south transmission.

The following photograph points to the ambiguity of Mexico‘s social, economic

and political transformation within a transnational context. The people in the photo

(mostly women) have travelled from rural (and increasingly semi-suburban) Mixteca

sierra, a poor region in the state of Puebla, to the provincial city of Atlixco; early on a

Monday morning in July, they are waiting in line for the opening of the local financial

transfer branch in order to receive cash remitted days earlier at week‘s end by their family

member in Chicago or Los Angeles; in their attire and standing, they appear to have

escaped poverty if not yet to have attained affluence—evidence consistent with World

Bank research findings that remittances have boosted family incomes and welfare in the

migrant-sending regions. Institutionally, the transmitter agency is a private transnational

corporation—InterMex—not a government welfare agency, state-sponsored bank or

political party.188

188 InterMex is a transnational firm with businesses in money transfer services and telephone call centers

headquartered in Miami, Florida with regional offices in Puebla and Guatemala City The firm was

founded by John and Cesar Rincón and sold in 2007 to Lindsay Goldberg & Bessemer, a private

investment firm in New York. Source: http://www.intermexusa.com/html_11_07/about_history.html.

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Outside the Money Counter, Atlixco, Puebla, July 24, 2006 (Author's photo)

What are the politics of this image? On the one hand, Mexico‘s labor export

economy has perpetuated the dependence of rural, indigenous populations who lack

leverage directly or indirectly over the government. On the other hand, labor export has

transformed the dependence, replacing the PRI party-state with the emigrant husband and

sons as providers. It has also generated new mobility and disposable income for

households within a socioeconomically marginalized segment. To the extent that

dependence continues, it has shifted from state and party to market—a fact that eludes the

state-nationalist view.

Still, politically speaking, something large is missing. The photo could be titled

―National champions: our sons and daughters.‖ It captures the rise of neoliberal market-

based model that prizes individual agency, in which workers are largely alone in a

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globalized labor market, challenged to access and realize economic opportunity through

family and social networks. ―My son, my daughter‖ -- the absence of collective

organization and the debasement of national political community are noteworthy.

Politically, each of the Mexican emigrant workers linked to the women in the photos is

effectively excluded as a citizen – the problem of this dissertation.

This descriptive statement contains the basis of a critique of Mexico‘s democracy,

which annoys the country‘s governing elite focused on altering a U.S.-dominated

migration regime. However, this critique is constructive. My point is not that Mexico has

an entirely bad record on this issue– on the contrary, it has achieved much in advancing

the systematic study of overseas voting administration. Rather, Mexico is caught up in a

much larger problem of realizing national citizenship and expanding democracy under

increasingly globalized economic conditions. As the comparative analysis has shown, the

problem transcends Mexico, a fact evident in the global boom in overseas voting

institutions. The photo could have been taken in the urbanizing areas of every one of the

world‘s continents; the local details and culture would vary greatly, but the basic

economic and political phenomena of labor emigration, new transnational capacities, and

democratization with incomplete citizenship have become generalized.

Should we see overseas voting as a standard or required practice of democracy?

The dissertation has thus far tabled the normative question in its efforts to gain a sound

empirical command of the topic. Political theorists have debated the appropriateness of

overseas voting as a norm for democracies, with some advocating a permissive approach

(Bauböck 2007) in opposition to critics of overseas voting (Rubio-Marín 2006, López-

Guerra 2005). In my view, OV is one among many normal, healthy practices of plural,

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liberal democracy. Nation-states should be expected to choose themselves if OV is

appropriate, and in what format or level of expansiveness, depending upon national

history and experience. Overseas voting is ultimately a political decision of the national

community. It can take on significance as an issue of human rights, national interest and

democratic expansion. With the experiences of many nations still unfolding, restraint is

appropriate. But a flexible consensus may be emerging: OV can be a routine and healthy

institution for democratic polities and their members to arrange, yet each community

must decide for itself whether and how extensively to adopt it.

Civic nationalism presents a problem for liberal theorists of democracy who per

Robert Dahl have considered resident country voting to be the correct solution to migrant

political rights. However, home country ties do not go away-- the grip of national identity

is as powerful as ever-- and resident country rights are not automatic. Rather, long-

distance communications technologies, interdependence and the proliferation of power

capacities have generated overlapping authority, multiple membership, and tiered or

partial belonging. Liberal transnationalists argue that long distance participation in the

home country is complementary to participation in the resident country.189

Thus, migrants

should do both, and good things will go together. However, in both Mexico and the

Dominican Republic, this research and that of Ayón (2006) have concluded that

connections between participation rights at home and in the resident country have more

often led to organizational conflicts than to complementarities.

Policy implications

Labor export may be a long-term loser for sending nations, but it has been a

189 Different versions of this argument pervade the transnationalism literature, with prominent examples

including Robert Smith 2006 and Portes et al 2007.

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winner for their politicians. In the Dominican Republic and Mexico, politicians recognize

remittances as a source of social stability, along with the individual political element in

the senders-- the potential opinion makers and voters who retain active ties to their

families, communities and nations of origin. These perceptions have prompted changes in

rhetoric more than in policies. The challenge is to break from ―safety-valve politics,‖ in

which remittances serve electoral politics, to structure extraterritorial politics so that

diaspora participation acts in service of institution-building.

At the international level, the new awareness of economic remittances generated a

burst of policy attention to the question of how to refine labor export. So far, multilateral

development banks have dominated public policy analysis of remittances, isolating the

topic from politics and focusing almost exclusively on the goal of reducing transfer

costs.190

Thus, according to the World Bank, more migration and remittances are

generally desirable, regardless of their social effects, since they enhance efficiency and

incomes in poor countries. Similarly, a recent article has concluded from survey data

analysis that Mexican migrants are ―agents of democratic diffusion‖ for spreading

democratic political attitudes (Pérez-Armendáriz & Crow 2009, 120-1). Findings from

my field work in multiple states and at the national level were not consistent with this

conclusion, tending more toward a refutation of the straightforward liberal diffusion

argument. Similarly the research here and by others found that remittances have had no

such benign effect upon political culture in the Dominican Republic (Gonzalez-Acosta

2008b, 9). The two different cases show much more ambiguous effects of political

remittances upon democratic institutions.

190 See the Inter-American Development Bank report by López-Córdova and Olmedo (2006, 27-30) as an

example.

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Nevertheless, remittance economies offer a potential site for U.S. and bilateral

foreign policy innovation for the way that they bridge the U.S. and dependent

democratizers. As dual transitions mature in Mexico and the Dominican Republic, the

enormous challenges of building institutions for democratic politics and economic growth

remain as urgent as ever. For the U.S., there is a national interest in better understanding

the dense web of intersocietal relations connecting resident communities in the U.S. to

foreign states in the Americas and beyond. Demonstrating an awareness of these

connections would generate goodwill, open specific areas for cooperation, and help to

revitalize U.S. engagement in the region, with gains for all parties.191

Within the U.S., a

secondary motivation is the possibility that any knowledge, concepts or framing

narratives generated by this study could serve in reorienting discussion on immigration,

whenever the costs of policy failure become sufficiently appreciated to unblock that

issue.

The research in this study repeatedly confirmed the existence of the ―ample

reservoir of civic potential‖ among overseas Mexicans that was originally documented

statistically by McCann et al. Contrary to the elite consensus, a large portion of overseas

Mexicans are eager to participate, while at least an equal portion is turned off from

formal politics. Particularly given the continuing hard-line U.S. stance against

immigration reform, six million face double exclusion – disenfranchisement in both the

host and resident country.

The Dominican case shows that more transnational political activity is not

191 Strong ethical and instrumental grounds support this argument: ethically, the U.S. should consider the

effects of its economic behavior on other nations and seek to exercise power in a morally conscious

and sustainable way; instrumentally, a U.S. leadership transparently conscious of migration

interdependence would generate bandwagon effects likely to enhance U.S. influence in the region, and

so boost security and prosperity.

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necessarily good. Dual citizenship does not automatically lead to win-win synergies and

can often take on zero-sum characteristics due to different interests of home-country

citizens, dual citizens and ethnic U.S. citizens. Differences within the diaspora and the

continuing problem of representation, aggregation and legitimacy point out the splits

between a minority of transnational party-connected activists and the diaspora broader

community.

For Mexico, OV clearly presents a difficult topic given the complicated politics

analyzed here. As stated, the issue is one for Mexicans to decide themselves. There is a

case to be made for overseas voting rights on the grounds of human rights, national

interest, and democratic institution-building. A human rights concern looms large across

the U.S., as the absence of political rights perpetuates exploitation and abusive treatment

by U.S. employers and authorities. As long as the migrant group remains itinerant and

doubly excluded, in the absence of any representative clout, its members will remain

vulnerable to continuing abuse and scapegoating.

Considering Mexico‘s national interest, the fact remains that an extremely

industrious, productive and promising segment of its workforce has left the country,

pointing to a major loss in human resources since long-distance ties will tend to diminish

over time in aggregate. As Robert Smith has stated, Mexico has subsidized U.S.

consumers and employers by raising and educating a significant portion of its youth who

come to work in the U.S. (2006). The subsidy is not limited to primary and secondary

education, but also includes tertiary and graduate training that emigration drains from the

nation‘s economy. A recent study by the International Organization of Migration

estimated that of the 19,000 Mexicans with doctorates, 14,000 live in the U.S., part of the

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exodus of middle-class and professional segments of recent decades.192

Voting is one sure way that some will use to maintain ties to the homeland, or as

one focus group participant testified in Mexico City in 2006, ―to continue to still feel

Mexican.‖ One younger Mexican politician whom I interviewed worried that the

emigrants would be lost altogether, stating that the first of the two countries to grant

citizenship would win a major coup of devotion and lock in loyalty of an especially

valuable segment.193

Mexican elites do not share his concern that migrant affiliation is

desirable and slipping away. Nor does the US perceive any advantage in making citizens

out of undocumented Mexican migrants. So the double exclusion is rooted in powerful

forces on both sides of the border. Rooted, but perhaps not altogether stuck.

What would it take to change overseas voting institutions in Mexico? Since

Mexico‘s government capacities in the overseas units are not likely to diminish, change

would be most likely to come from a shift in the ideological structure that underpins the

elite consensus against overseas voting. South Korea shows one case in which this

occurred. In such a scenario, it is imaginable that a broader version of transnational

politics could play a constructive role in reshaping the Mexican elite thinking. Gradual

growth in the overseas voting institution could help reduce electoral security concerns. A

shift to more cooperative bilateral and transnational politics could also lead Mexican

politicians to perceive the plural roots of US interests in supporting Mexico‘s overseas

voting. A broader, second-generation Mexican transnational organization would have to

192 Alfredo Corchado. 2008. Immigration: Brain drain threatens Mexico‘s prosperity. Dallas Morning

News, 2 November (accessed 30 March 2010). ―We're permanently losing our best minds and best

hands from both the countryside and the urban centers," said Rodolfo Tuiran, Mexico's education

official and demographer. "These people represent a tremendous potential for Mexico's future

economic development. Their migration needs to be reversed, or Mexico risks its future."

193 Author‘s interview, former Federal Deputy (PRD-Guanajuato) and Undersecretary of Government for

Mexico City, City Hall, Mexico City (18 December 2006).

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overcome the credibility gap that now exists within the political class. Immigration

reform in the US could change this dynamic, removing the Mexican elite fears of

backlash and galvanizing transnational political entrepreneurs now dispirited by defeat

and double exclusion. Finally, in the event of national crisis in Mexico, or in its wake, the

need for a healthy democratic infusion of civic willingness could generate a new sense of

openness. As Yossi Shain has theorized, diaspora politics typically surge in times of

abnormality, when pivotal events of national formation or crisis awaken the willing

participation of the diaspora (2007). Possibly Mexico is entering such a cycle, as growing

drug warfare risks a crisis of state.

In contrast to Mexico‘s multiple potential scenarios, the Dominican case shows a

clear tension between two major tendencies of, on the one hand, transnational consular

patronage within an ineffective and increasingly vulnerable home-country regime and, on

the other hand, a move to incorporation politics within the U.S. The fact that

approximately 70% of overseas Dominicans enjoy legal residence in the resident country

affects the future outlook for overseas voting. The expansive regime appears robust, but

its long-term growth will likely moderate, while greater political momentum mounts

behind resident country incorporation. For example, in 2009, a coordinated campaign

among Dominican-American activists was focused on the U.S. decennial Census –

showing clearly where the orientation of a major segment of the overseas population lies.

The transnational politics will continue, rooted in the continuing expansion of overseas

politics that most recently took the form of designated diaspora Congressional districts.194

However, overseas politics will face the same difficulties confronting the domestic

194 Pedro Germosen. 2009. Finjus advierte la Constitución quedaría petrificada en tiempo. Hoy, Santo

Domingo, 5 September.

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regime in the form of a perilous economic situation and weak governing structure.

Looking ahead

The overseas voting trend documented in chapter two (Table 2.0) continues to

evolve in today‘s world politics. Following the explosive growth in formal adoption

between 1991 and 2005, today‘s movements to accessible implementation continue more

slowly but are more significant politically. By no means should we assume that reversals

are not possible, but the global OV trend has sturdy supports in the dispersion of

communications technology, the continuing importance of migration for economic

growth nationally and worldwide, and the centrality of democracy as an organizing

principle for national politics.

Political remittance effects are occurring in the home country at the national level.

But voting rules structure participation, and more broadly, overseas state characteristics

structure transnational politics. The foreign ministry and the electoral commission

together administer the overseas spaces, police external political activities, embody

national understandings of diaspora that frame domestic debates, and control the

implementation of overseas voting. Beyond their direct effects, their capacities and values

in these regards work to structure the incentives facing legislators, who calculate the

impact of prospective overseas voting accordingly.

As an instance of world politics in transformation, overseas voting connects to

and reflects the powerful forces of technological linkages, democracy-rights norms, and

deepening labor interdependence. Overseas politics contains many potential germs of

significant entrepreneurship since as a space it attracts individuals who can mark and

define polities and their relations with one another. Mark Blythe has pointed out the

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importance of one-time, large-scale events in political economy – single cases of outsized

importance that are altogether off of the normal curve (2006, 493). Interestingly, the

human agents behind many such events have been great leaders marked by overseas

experience; in the 20th

century, among those to emerge from the millions of solders,

traveling students, migrant laborers and émigrés to mark world history were Deng

Xiaoping, Ho Chi Minh, Gandhi, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and Sayyid Qutb.

This is not to overstate overseas voting‘s importance, but merely to suggest that it

is a good site to look for potential sources of significant future trends in world politics.

Today‘s global population of migrants – laborers and soldiers, elites and intellectuals,

journeymen of all stripes – is only 3% of world population. But it is an outsized pool of

carriers of political resources. Given the broad expansion of access to political capacities

– what Thomas Friedman has labeled the ―democratization of globalization‖ – we can

anticipate that a larger portion of the world‘s migrants will mark international relations in

the 21st century than in prior eras. As the dissertation suggests, by looking at the overseas

state, analysts will be able to gain a reliable sense rather quickly, in any given case, about

which migrants are likely to have an impact and in what possible ways.

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Appendix I – A Terminological Glossary

Diaspora: according to Gabriel Sheffer, (2003, i-v), ―a social-political formation created

as a result of either voluntary or forced migration, whose members regard themselves as

the same ethno-national origin and who permanently reside as minorities in one of

several host countries. Members of such entities maintain regular or occasional contacts

with what they regard as their homelands and with individuals and groups of the same

background residing in other host countries.‖ Sheffer's definition is oriented to

contemporary world politics, and he also emphasizes the triangular relationship between

diaspora, home country and resident country.

Similarly, this study's usage of diaspora is concerned with the formal relationship

between overseas nationals and the home state. I operationalize diaspora to refer to the

population of overseas nationals residing outside of the home country, whether or not

they take on a second nationality by naturalizing in the resident country. This helps to

resolve a concrete problem pointed out by the quantitative analysis, which is the task of

approximating the population of various diasporas. The usage here differs from cultural

and historiographical conceptions of the term, which focus upon the sociological

conditions and subjectivities of collective identities that endure outside of a homeland.

Those who do not actively maintain a home country citizenship, as well as second and

third generation ethnic nationals, are not potential political actors even in countries with

overseas voting rules, unless they re-naturalize.

It is possible to distinguish between an ancient or classical version of diaspora, a

historical version, and a contemporary one. In the historical definition, group membership

is open to any group or individual outside the national territory who so identifies. Robin

Cohen (1995) identifies core characteristics of diasporas associated with the traditional

historiographical usage, which permits a more ample, descriptive definition of diaspora:

dispersal from an original homeland to two or more foreign regions, often traumatic;

alternatively the expansion from a homeland for economic objectives; a collective

memory and myth about the homeland, as well as an idealized passion for its safety and

prosperity; a return movement; ethnic group consciousness over time; troubled

relationship with the resident societies; a sense of empathy with co-ethnic members in

other countries of residence; the possibility of a distinctive yet enriching life in residence

countries that have a tolerance for pluralism.

These characteristics point out the historical roots of the phenomenon, but are not

essential to the contemporary meaning of diaspora politics. The etymology of the term is

based upon ancient Greek, speiro ―to sow,‖ and dia ―over,‖ with original references in the

Old Testament (Deuteronomy, 28:25) and in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian

War (II, 27). The term's meaning varies depending upon the time period in question, and

in this sense it continues to evolve amidst the context of contemporary world politics.

Diaspora politics down: diaspora political activities that aim to influence home country

domestic politics but originate outside of the territorial polity.

Diaspora politics up: diaspora political activities that aim to influence foreign entities,

including the resident country polity, transnational civil society groups, global policy

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networks, bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, and formal international institutions.

Expatriates: national citizens and nationals of a country who reside outside of the home

country territory.

External voting (voto en el exterior): see overseas voting.

Extraterritorial: beyond or outside of a nation-state's territorially-bound sovereignty.

Also: overseas, abroad, external, exterior.

Global nation: a national political community spanning domestic state and society and

including a significant diaspora population, that is economically and demographically

significant, committed to overseas citizenship in the home country, with active civic and

state-linked collective organizations.

Home country: the nation-state of origin (birth) and original nationality of the migrant,

synonymous with the homeland state, as opposed to the resident country. I use the term

and its antonym resident country since they identify the terms of political membership

relations between the migrant and the particular state, i.e. the nationality of the migrant.

The commonly used terms of ―sending country‖ and ―receiving country‖ are misleading

in two regards, in my view. First, these other terms eliminate the individual human

agency behind contemporary migration since they suggest that states actively send

migrants. Secondly, they suggest that migration consists of finite one-way movements,

and they obscure the analytic distinction between human flows and related but separate

flows of remittances, goods, ideas, etc.

Host country: see resident country.

Labor export: cross-border labor emigration, with net human outflows and

corresponding remittance inflows on a mass scale, whether home states are active or

passive. The contemporary version in Latin America tends to occur through market

mechanisms in conjunction with neoliberal economic policies, usually without active

state management or coordination. In other regions or time periods, however, it may be

state-managed to greater or lesser degrees.

Overseas voting (voto en el extranjero, voto ultramar): suffrage emanating from

outside of the national territory. Also referred to as external voting, exterior voting, voting

abroad.

Political remittances: the transfer of political resources for influence in the home

country by expatriates, i.e. political actions undertaken outside of the territory to affect

the national polity.

Polity: the political system of a collectivity including formal institutions and a shared

identity with rules for participation and belonging.

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Remittances: private cross-border financial transfers at the household level.

Sending country: see Home country.

Receiving country: see Resident country.

Resident country: country of residence of the migrant, as opposed to the home country.

Alternatively referred to in other studies as the ―receiving‖ or ―destination‖ country.

Territoriality: the international legal convention that assigns governing sovereignty on

the basis of control over distinct physically demarcated spaces.

Transnational: of or relating to activities or relationships across nation-state borders that

involve one or more non-state actor.

Transnational political entrepreneurs: individuals who engage in diaspora politics with

the intent of influencing national domestic or foreign policy of the home country, whether

via overseas party politics, extraterritorial state-building, or activism in global policy

networks.

Transnationalist: of the body of interdisciplinary research including especially

anthropology and sociology of recent decades that focuses on transnational life,

commonly associated with the work of Alejandro Portes, Nina Glick Schiller, Peggy

Levitt and Luis Guarnizo, among others.

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Appendix I – B : Chronology

Democratization, neoliberalism

OV law

No OV law

Open overseas voting

Restrictive overseas voting

No overseas voting

Conjuncture

Instituting Overseas Voting (OV): A Two-step Process

Legislation Implementation

DR

1994M

1996

DR

1997

M

2005, 2006 ---->

DR

2004 ---->

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Appendix I – D Top 50 States by Expatriates, 2004

Source: UN Population Division

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Appendix II - A

Time-series (1970-2004): Overseas Voting Law

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

1. Political openness 0.2001 ***

(0.0327)

0.2239 ***

(0.0342)

0.1997 ***

(0.0326)

2. Regime age (0.0173) **

(0.0074)

-- 0.0171 **

(0.0074)

3. Overseas citizens

population, est.

-- -4.59e-08

(1.64e-07)

--

4. Percent of citizens

overseas, est.

7.349 **

(3.093)

-- 7.357 **

(3.103)

5. National

population

-8.64e-09 ***

(3.17e-09)

-- -8.55e-09 ***

3.13e-09

6. Remittances 6.12e-10 ***

(1.63e-10)

4.33e-10 ***

(1.44e-10) (6.08e-10) ***

1.61e-10

7. Remittances/GDP -- -0.0091

(0.0287)

--

8. GDP 1.24e-12 **

(5.51e-13)

-- 1.24e-12 **

(5.51e-13)

9. Post-conflict

occupation

-- -- -0.4745

(1.906)

constant -3.158 ***

(0.4030)

-2.247 ***

(0.3445)

-3.138 ***

(0.3995)

Number of groups 130 129 130

Number of

observations

653 647 653

Obs per group,

avg (min, max)

5.8

(1, 8)

5.0

(1, 8)

5.0

(1, 8)

lnsig2u 1.968

(0.177)

1.940

(0.185 )

1.965

(0.176)

sigma_u 2.675

(0.236)

2.638

(0.244)

2.671

(0.235)

Rho 0.685

(0.038)

0.679

(0.040)

0.684

(0.0379)

Log likelihood -263.31 -275.95 -263.31

chibar2(01) 188.37 187.80 188.24

*p<0.1; **p<0.05; ***p<0.01.

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Appendix II - B

Time-series (1970-2004): Open implementation

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

1. Political openness 0.198 ***

(0.054)

0.201***

(0.057)

--

2. Regime age 0.062 *

(0.009)

0.0174 *

(0.009)

0.038 ***

(0.007)

3. Overseas citizens,

estimated

-6.41e-07 **

(3.28e-07)

-7.54e-07 **

(3.60e-07)

--

4. Percent of citizens

overseas, est.

-- 3.72

(5.33)

3.11

(3.836)

5. National

population

-4.67e-08 ***

(1.67e-08)

-4.10e-08 ***

(1.70e-08)

--

6. Remittances 9.60e-10 ***

(2.00e-10)

9.81e-10 ***

(2.08e-10)

--

7. Remittances/GDP -- -0.007

(0.056)

0.003

(0.0389)

8. GDP 1.84e-12 ***

(5.51e-13)

1.74e-12 ***

(5.37e-13)

--

9. Post-conflict

occupation

-- 2.058

(1.79)

1.52

1.703

constant -4.627 ***

(0.595)

-4.975 ***

(0.709)

-4.63 ***

(0.450)

Number of groups 130 129 130

Number of

observations

653 647 652

Obs per group,

avg (min, max)

5.0

(1, 8)

5.0

(1, 8)

5.0

(1, 8)

lnsig2u 1.739

(0.2139)

1.720

(0.2127)

1.803

(0.1891)

sigma_u 2.386

(0.2552)

2.363

(0.2513)

2.463

(0.2328)

Rho 0.634

(0.0497)

0.629

(0.0496)

0.648

(0.0431 )

Log likelihood -149.48 -148.42 -185.80

chibar2(01) 75.95 75.23 121.91

*p<0.1; **p<0.05; ***p<0.01.

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291

Appendix II - C

Heckman selection model, 2000 and 2004

Probit model:

Voting law only

Heckman probit:

Implementation and Selection

# Observations 254 censored: 109 (no voting law)

uncensored: 145

Outcome Variable Voting Law (stage 1) Open implementation (stage 2)

1. Political openness 0.084*** (0.002) 0.101 *** (0.036)

2. Regime age 0.002 (0.004) 0.005 (0.004)

3. Expatriates 2.66 e-07** (1.17 e-07) -2.02 e-07 * (1.10 e-07)

4. Population -2.85 e-09** (1.37 e-09) -2.34 e-09*** (7.22 e-10)

5. Expatriates % of

population

0.416 (1.092) -0.035 (1.623)

6. Remittances 5.09e-11 (8.56e-11) 1.41 e-10 ** (7.06 e-11)

7. GDP 4.25 e-13 (4.24 e-13) 1.72 e-13 (1.29 e-13)

8. Remittance

dependency

-0.032 * (0.019) -0.022 (0.026)

9. Post-conflict

intervention

-0.342 (0.642) -9.753

Constant -0.484 *** (0.175) -0.772 ** (0.307)

Pseudo-R2 0.2124 Selection equation (Stage 1 outcome)

Voting law 3.979 *** (0.443)

Political

openness

0.014 (0.029)

Expatriates -1.89 e-07 (2.47 e-07)

Population -2.05 e-09 (3.26 e-09)

Remittance

dependency

0.005 (0.036)

GDP 2.35 e-14 5.10 e-13

Constant -1.777 (0.297) ***

Log likelihood -137.61 -102.51

Rho -1.000 (0.000)

Wald chi2( 6) = 46.76; prob>chi2 = 0.000

*p<0.1; **p<0.05; ***p<0.01.

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292

Appendix II -D Description of variables, indicators and data sources

Dependent Variable(s) -- Overseas voting (OV) rules at 5-year intervals, 1970-2005, in

two sequential and related characteristics

1. LAW (in constitution or statute) establishing right and authority for overseas voting

2. OPEN: VE Institution is open, accessible to massive overseas citizen participation.

See below for specific criteria determining the evaluation and coding of country-year

cases.

Independent Variables

1. POLITY2 Home-country Political openness -- Polity 2

2. REGIME AGE Total years to date of home-country Regime at Time T

3. EXPATS Estimated overseas population based on emigrant population at Time T

4. POP National population at Time T

5. EX/POP Percentage of national population residing overseas

6. R$ Total annual recorded remittances at Time T

7. GDP Gross Domestic Productive

8. R$/GDP Percentage share of GDP from recorded remittances

9. PC_OCC Post-conflict occupation and international intervention by UN or US or

western states

Panel Time-series: Country-year at five-year intervals: e.g. 1970, 1975, 1980, 1985,

1990, 1995, 2000, 2004

The time-series analysis covered 130 countries with more than 1 million in

population in 2005, which accounted for over 9% of the global population: Albania,

Algeria, Argentina, Armenia , Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus,

Belgium, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina

Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile, China, Colombia, Congo (Democratic Republic),

Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican

Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France,

Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau,

Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy,

Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Korea, Kyrgyz, Lao, Latvia, Lebanon,

Lesotho, Libya, Lithuania, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania,

Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia,

Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman , Pakistan,

Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania,

Russian, Rwanda, Senegal, Serbia and Montenegro, Sierra Leone, Slovak Republic,

Slovenia, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Sweden,

Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia,

Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Uzbekistan,

Venezuela, Vietnam, West Bank and Gaza, Yemen, Zimbabwe.

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293

For twenty of the top 150 countries in population in 2005, there was no remittance data

available for any of the time periods. Therefore the model was run on the 130 countries

for which the data existed. The 20 omitted countries contained a total population of

approximately 313 million in 2005, According to World Bank data, a sum equal to only

5% of global population of 6.4 billion. The dropped countries come from all regions and

exhibit variance in other key characteristics such as income, so the risk of bias resulting

from the omitted panel series cases appears minor.

The twenty countries omitted were: Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, Canada, Central

African Republic, Chad, Congo (Democratic Republic), Cuba, Iraq, Kuwait, Liberia,

North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Somalia, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates,

Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Zambia.

Dependent Variables, Criteria for Coding

1. VE_L LAW (in constitution or statute) establishing right and authority for

overseas voting,

No or Yes 0 or 1

Test 1: there exists explicit law(s) that establish the right of citizens to vote

overseas AND the authority of the electoral agency to conduct such elections.

Test 2: there are no legal grounds, i.e. missing legislation, prohibiting or

preventing the national electoral agency to organize overseas voting.

Background: The analytic focus on overseas voting properly begins with the legal

foundations of a state's electoral institutions. Modern elections require laws and state

electoral authorities, and so citizens voting activities cannot precede the existence of

explicit legal-bureaucratic electoral institution. Electoral institutions structure citizens'

participation in voting, whether these institutions are controlled by the government or

autonomous units established as civic organizations. The reality of electoral institutions

similarly encompasses voting whether it occurs inside or outside of the national territory,

but especially in the latter case. A counterfactual case of a pure citizens' election can be

seen in the exercise of Mexican expatriate voting between 1988 and 2000, in the mock

elections organized by expatriate Mexican activists in Chicago and Los Angeles.

Important as these exercises may have been for the purposes of organizing migrants and

calling attention to their claims, the votes did not count since they lacked a legal-

institutional basis in the Mexican polity.

Most states conventionally establish the right to vote in the constitution, explicitly

or implicitly. Usually, but not always, a legislative statute confirms and/or elaborates this

right of citizens and authorizes the national electoral body to organize overseas voting to

realize this right for citizens. In some cases, constitutional law as originally written or as

amended has been sufficient to establish the right and authorize overseas electoral

procedures.

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294

2. OPEN Implementation: Access to VoE Institution is open or restricted/closed

No or Yes 0 or 1

who is eligible to vote citizenship, residency, registration

other limitations, restrictions: length of stay

what means of voting postal, embassies, polls

locations of voting embassies, polls, public spaces

support of state managed by embassies, by electoral agency

closed institutions target government employees (embassies) only

limit locations, means of voting

require difficult paperwork, registration process

result in minimal participation

criteria for openness target all overseas citizens

take place in multiple locations, outside of consulates

mixed procedures -- different options

services that facilitate citizens' registration

result in generally higher participation

i.e. > 1-2% of overseas potential voters

> 30,000-50,000 votes

establish a special legislative district for expat citizens

establish directly elected expat representative in national legislature

An example of the coding process is seen in Table 2.1, which shows Argentina and

Portugal and the key features of their overseas voting rules in the most recent time period.

Table Examples of coding decisions for Implementation -- Overseas voting

rules

Key Features Overall tendency Coding

Argentina,

2004

Registration available abroad;

regulation by electoral authority;

consular voting only;

extensive deadlines, documentation

Restrictive in effect due to

registration procedures, despite

some open characteristics.

Source: Chavez Ramos, 571-2.

0

Portugal, 2004 mixed procedures for registration

and voting; diaspora representation

Clearly open.

Source: Calderón, 582-3. 1

Sources: Ellis, Navarro et al, eds., IDEA Handbook, 2007.

CESOP, 2003.

Navarro and Morales, 2006.

Navarro, Comparative Overview, 2003.

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295

Appendix II-E Basis for citizen diaspora estimates (Expatriate citizens)

To construct overseas citizen population estimates by country at five-year intervals, I

created a simple model using country data from the UN Population division. In a second

refinement to the estimates, I have incorporated new more precise estimates from the

University of Sussex (UK) migration research center. My original simple model

combines net migration flow data with international migrant stock data provided by

country back to 1960.

I checked the numbers against commonly accepted benchmark diaspora counts of i)

known national totals and ii) global estimates for the migrant population, making

demographic assumptions about countries' 1960 base levels and diaspora growth rates as

necessary to stay close to commonly accepted benchmarks. Thus, my original equation

produced adequate numbers for Mexico and for the Dominican Republic in relation to

known estimates, as it did for dozens of other countries.

A more problematic assumption that I do not make is that the U.N. data is reliable as the

basis for accurately quantifying distinct populations of overseas nationals. The U.N. data

is problematic since it is based on national data that contains much undercounting of

human migration, according to Jeanne Batalova of the Migration Policy Institute, whom I

consulted in July. I avoid this issue by labeling this factor throughout the paper as

expatriate population estimates.

The country-year data for migration estimates used in the selection model in this chapter

draft have been wholly revised, utilizing the newly available Sussex database. This

dataset presents estimated migrant population stocks by country of origin for the year

2000, breaking down each population by country of residence, using UN Population

Division figures and different government and multilateral migrant classification

schemes. See Parsons' et al (2007).

The method that I utilized for incorporating this new source was to first compare it to my

original estimates used in the time-series models, then to revise estimates using Sussex

and UN data as appropriate, often taking the average of the two figures in the case of

discrepancies. It was reassuring to find that the average difference between my original

estimates of citizen diaspora and those generated from Sussex data was less than 0.5%.

My original model resulted in a global sum across all countries for the year 2004 of

approximately 210 million overseas citizens; the Sussex data resulted in a global total

sum for the year 2000 of 172 million. Both figures are reasonably close to the UN

estimate for 2005 of approximately 191 million.

Equation and assumptions for original time-series estimates (1970 - 2004)

The rest of the appendix details assumptions and calculations underlying my original

estimates.

1. I used country data from UN Population Division: Net Migration and International

Migrant Stock, combining flow data with stock data to generate five-year estimated flows

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296

for each country:

i) Net migration = Immigration minus emigration (both citizens and non-citizens)

(Positive net migration figure indicates: immigration country for the period)

(Negative net migration figure indicates: emigration country for the period)

ii) International migration stock = immigrants at time T, the number of people born

in a country other than that in which they live. It also includes refugees.

Formula = - ( Net Migration figure, five year periodT-5 to T )

+ Change in International Migrant Stock[T - (T-5)]

2. I established a 1960 base year diaspora population using the following assumptions

and techniques:

i. Overseas citizens set at 1% of national population in 1960, and adjusted as

documented.

ii. Overseas citizens base adjusted in some cases to grow at 1% or 2% annually

independent of net emigration figures, consistent with known facts, e.g. Mexico

-- positive balance of factors: non-recorded emigration outstripping deaths,

naturalizations

iii. in large immigration countries where numbers generated negative diaspora results, I

made two adjustments:

i) set 1960 base figure for Overseas Citizens at higher percentage of population, up to 8

or 9%

ii) adjusted equation of 5-year Emigration to include naturalizations and increase change

in immigration by a 1 - 2% annual rate

Net migration = net immigration minus net emigration

Net migration should equal immigrants in minus immigrants naturalized minus

immigrants repatriated minus immigrants dying minus emigrants out minus emigrants

returning minus emigrants dying.

Some discrepancies in large industrial countries result in repeated negative values for

five-year flows and suggest double counting of immigrants, or failure to count

naturalizations, repatriations in stock changes.

3. Use following formula to calculate diaspora estimate at five year intervals:

EXPATS at T = Diaspora(T-5) +/- 5-year net change in emigrant population

where 5-year net change in emigrant population

= - ( Net Migration ) + Change in International Migrant Stock

= - ( five-year net migration total ) + [Immigration stock(T) - immigration stock(T-

5)]

or in other words

= - (Immigration - Emigration) + Change in Immigration

Net migration = Immigration minus emigration (both citizens and non-citizens)

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(Positive net migration figure indicates: immigration country for the period)

(Negative net migration figure indicates: emigration country for the period)

4. Compare Sussex UN figures for country emigrant population on the year 2000 to

standing UN data. Integrate Sussex data as appropriate based on evidence of relative

accuracy..

and so direct qualitative case studies in search of causal mechanisms.

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Appendix III – A

298

Diasporasociety

President

Homecountry Politicalparties

Domestic society

ForeignMinistry

JCEElectoral authority

Consul

Local appointees

Consulates

Guidelines,personnel

Remittances

JCE OverseasOffice for Registration

Overseas party affiliates

Emigrants

NationalFirms

documents,access

Politicalcandidate visits

Managers,Formal & informal rules

jobs,prestige

Off-budget fundsFinancia

l and

political su

pport

Consular patronage system

voteroutreach

fees

Financial and political support

jobs,prestige

campaigndonations

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Appendix III – B Capital city residents among Mexican overseas voters

299

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300

References -- Author's Interviews

Date Interviewee -- 2006 Interviews -- MEXICO

02-24 Prof. Jerónimo Cortina, Columbia University, Department of Political Science

05-03 Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, CSIS, Washington, DC

05-03 Former U.S. Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Washington, DC

06-13 PAN Candidate for Federal Deputy, 5th Federal District, Puebla (elected on

7/02/06)

06-14 PAN Representative, IFE, 5th Federal District Committee

07-13 Electoral Counselor, Puebla State Electoral Institute

07-17 President, PRI State Committee of Puebla

07-21 Professor of Law, University of Puebla (PRD)

07-24 Genl. Secretary for Administration, Huaquechula Mayor (PAN)

07-24 Municipal President (mayor) of Tochimilco, Puebla (PRI)

7/26-27, 8/18 Electoral Counselor (PRD), Coalition of Democratic, Urban and

Campesino Organizations

7/26, 8/9 Councilman, Acatlán, and Advisor to Migrants (PRD)

07-27 Profesor, Yáonahuac, Sierra Norte, and PRD activist

07-28 Director, Fundación Colosio (PRI), former Puebla rep. to the CMPE (the federal

Commission for the Protection of Mexicans Abroad)

07-28 Director and Counselor, Fraternity of Migrants in the American Union and

Canada (PRD)

08-07 Legal Counsel, State Commission for Attention to the Pueblan Migrant (PRI)

08-08 Inter-Institutional Liaison, National Institute of Migration (PAN)

08-09 President, International Confederation of Mexicans Abroad (CIME) - Acatlán,

Puebla

08-09 General Secretary, Intl. Confederation of Mexicans Abroad (CIME)

08-10 Director, State Commission for Attention to the Pueblan Migrant (PRI)

08-11 Federal Agent, National Institute of Migration (INM)

08-11 Researcher, National Institute of Migration (INM)

08-11 Sociologist, Autonomous University of Puebla

08-11 Political Counselor, PAN Puebla State Committee

08-12 Municipal President, Zacapala, Puebla (PAN)

08-18 Journalist (politics and government), El Sol de Puebla

08-18 Sociologist, Autonomous University of Puebla

08-18 Secretary for Campesino and Migrant Groups, PRD Puebla State Committee

08-21 IFE Executive Director, State of Puebla

08-22 Special Secretary, Atlixco Municipal Presidency (PAN)

08-22 Personal Assistant to the Special Secretary, Atlixco Municipal Presidency (PAN)

08-22 Federal Representative for Atlixco Puebla (PAN), Candidate to be for President of

the Atlixco PAN Committee

08-22 Council of Advisors to the Governor, former CEAMP Director (PRI)

08-22 Taxi Driver, Former Migrant employed for ex NJ Governor T.Kean in Rumson,

NJ

08-22 Director, Local NGO

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301

08-22 Periodista, La Intolerancia, Puebla

08-14 Coordinator for Overseas Mexicans, PAN Executive National Council

09-08 Secretary for International Relations, PRD-CEN

09-08 Subsecretary for International Politics, PRD-CEN

09-08 PRD – CEN, former liaison to migrants

09-08 Director, Chicago Grupo Aztlán

09-08 Los Angeles PRD Committee director , E. Texas Committee

09-08 Valle Imperial, PRD Committee, Baja – CA

09-08 Secretary for Migrants (PRD)

09-10 Local activist, Redes Ciudadanas and Puebla PRD coalition's Socialist Current in

2006

09-11 IFE Coordinador del Voto en el Extranjero

09-13 Director of Political Studies, Fundación Rafael Preciado (PAN)

09-19 Investigadora, Instituto Mora y Autor, Votar en la Distancia

09-25 Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas

09-25 Instituto Electoral del Estado de Zacatecas, Asesor al Presidente

09-26 PRD, Presidente del Comité Ejecutivo del Estado de Zacatecas

09-26 Asesor a la Gobernadora, Director, Instituto Estatal de Migración

09-26 Vice President, PRI Comité Estatal

09-26 Asesor Jurídico-Político al Presidente del Partido PRI

09-26 Professor and Director, Universidad Aut. de Zacatecas, Estudios de Desarrollo

09-27 PAN, Secretario General al Pres. del Com. Estatal Zacatecas

09-27 Diputado al Congreso estatal por plurinominal, PRD, Zacatecas

09-27 Profesor Visitante y Experto en transnacionalismo, Universidad de Zacatecas

09-28 Director, MX Sin Fronteras, Ex director Coalición DPME (by telephone)

09-28 Ex Representative, Zacatecas Federation of Clubs in Southern California

09-29 Diputado al Congreso por plurinominal, PRI

09-29 Profesor, Director de Estudios Internacionales, UAZ, UAED

10-03 IME Focus Groups, Mexico City

10-04 IME Focus Groups, Mexico City

10-04 Consejero, IME, Palm Springs, CA – Michoacán

10-10 Director Ejecutivo, Instituto de los Ms en el Exterior

10-12 Consejero Electoral, Instituto Federal Electoral

10-16 Rep. en Mexico, CDPME

10-27 Presidente, Federación de Clubes Poblanos de CA del SUR

10-30 Diputado Federal, PRD, ex Senador, Comisión Puntos Constitucionales

10-31 Asesor, IFE COVE

11-06 Senadora, PAN-Estado de México, Comité de Relaciones Internacionales

11-09 Diputado, Presidente, Comisión de Población, Migración

11-09 Secretario Técnico, Comisión de Población, Migración

11-16 ex Consejero Presidente, IFE

11-16 ex Canciller de Relaciones Exteriores

11-17 Director de Estudios Electorales Internacionales

11-29 Profesor, ex funcionario de carrera del SRE

11-30 Sec. Nacional de Doctrina y Formación, PAN

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12-04 Actor working group, ITAM Center for Interamerican Studies and Program

12-07 Profesor ITAM, Departamento de Derecho, y Columnista, Reforma

12-13 Diputado Federal, PAN, Jalisco D-18, Com. Población etc.

12-18 ex-Federal Deputy, PRD, Undersecretary of Government for Mexico City

Selected Conferences & Workshops -- MEXICO

Date Event

9/25-26 UNAM Seminar on the 2006 election, ―2 de Julio: Reflexiones y Perspectivas,‖

Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales, Seminario ―Procesos Políticos y

Procesos Electorales,‖ Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico City.

9/29 Analysis of Second State of the State of Zacatecas (Análisis del 2o Informe de

Gobierno), State Legislature, Zacatecas, Zacatecas

10/3-4 Focus Groups with Mexican civic activists in the United States, "Enfoque

México," sponsored by ITAM-CEPI and the Institute of Mexicans in the Exterior,

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mexico City.

10/17-20 42nd Briefing Day (Jornada Informativa), a 4-day program for Journalists and

Spanish-speaking Media Professionals in the US and Canada, Institute of

Mexicans in the Exterior (IME), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mexico City.

10/27-28 Consejo de Federaciones Mexicanas en Norteamérica (COFEM), 1st National

Convention: Dialogue Without Borders, Los Angeles Convention Center, 2006.

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References -- Interviews

Date Interviewee – Dominican Republic -- 2007

5/8 Former Dominican Republic Sr. Country Officer (2000-2005), World Bank DR

and Haiti unit.

5/17 Auxiliary Consul, Dominican Consulate in Boston. Local activist, PLD New

England.

5/23 Research Director and Professor of Education and Public Policy, INTEC.

5/24 Director, Global Foundation for Development and Democracy.

5/25 Research Director and Advisor to the President's Consultative Councils for the

Dominican Diaspora, Fundación Global.

6/1 Director of the Office of the Overseas Vote, Central Electoral Board.

6/1 Legal Clerk for Senior Magistrate, Administrative Panel, Central Electoral Board.

6/1 Titular Judge, Administrative Panel, Central Electoral Board

6/4 Prominent investigative journalist, author, and co-founder of Participación

Ciudadana.

6/6 Executive Director, Participación Ciudadana.

6/13 Senior Program Officer for Human Development, World Bank DR.

6/23 Representative and New England Region Director, Central Electoral Board.

6/27 Political scientist, SUNY-Albany.

7/1 Senator, Senate of the Dominican Republic, Montecristi province.

7/10 Political scientist and investigator, Directorate of Investigation and Analysis,

Executive office of the Presidency

7/13 Political scientist, expert in Dominican politics, Temple Univ.; Columnist,

Periódico Hoy

7/13 Fulbright anthropologist investigating environmental initiatives in cacao industry

7/18 Urban planner and director of environmental analysis, Planning Office of the City

Government of La Vega, Dominican Republic.

7/24 General Secretary of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD)

7/25 Policy analyst, Migration Policy Institute.

7/26 Ambassador of the Dominican Republic to the United States.

7/27 Historian of Dominican foreign relations, former Dominican Central Bank

Governor and former Dominican Ambassador to the U.S.

7/30 Local political director, La Vega, PRD.

7/30 La Vega City Councilman and PRD Sec. for Organization

7/30 Secretary General and Campaign Director, La Vega PRD Municipal Committee.

8/1 Associated Press Correspondent for the DR

8/2 Congresswoman (Deputy), Chamber of Deputies, National Congress

8/2 Congresswoman (Deputy), PLD-Santo Domingo, Chamber of Deputies, National

Congress

8/2 Congressman (Deputy, PRD-HOMETOWN???) and Chair, Commission for

Overseas Dominicans, Chamber of Deputies, National Congress

8/2 Analyst, Central Bank, International Division

8/6 City Councilman (PRSC), City of La Vega

8/6 City Councilman (PRSC), City of La Vega

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8/6 Union representative and political director (PRSC), City of La Vega

8/7 CEO, Quisqeyana Inc. (leading remittances agency)

8/13 Journalist (political parties), newspaper Hoy

8/14 Chief Compliance Officer, Vimenca (top remittances agency)

8/14 Country Operations Officer, Vimenca (top remittances agency)

8/15 Political sociologist, Director General, Center for Research and Social Studies,

UNIBE

8/22 Senator and PLD Secretary General for the Province of La Vega

8/23 Head of Chancellery, Mexican Embassy in the Dominican Republic

8/23 Deputy, Parliament for Central America and Secretary General, PLD Committee

for City of La Vega

8/23 City Councilman (PLD), La Vega

8/24 Sociologist, Consultant to FLACSO-DR, Director of Survey Research Firm

9/21 former Vice President and Executive Director, Dominican American National

Roundtable

Selected Conferences & Workshops – DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Date Event

2007

6/3 Estudios Políticos Contemporáneos, Curso V: Partidos y Sistemas de partidos:

Europa y América Latina, mini-course co-sponsored by Fundación Global de

Democracía y Desarrollo (FUNGLODE) and Sciences-Po, Santo Domingo

7/29 Meetings of the Commission on Dominicans in the Exterior, Cámara de

Diputados, Special invitee of the Chairman, Dip. Rafael Francisco Vasquez, Santo

Domingo, National Congress

8/9 Closing of the Summer Program of International Student Exchange, InteRDom,

sponsored by the Funglode and Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE), Santo

Domingo

9/18-20 Fifteenth annual Semana Dominicana, New York and Washington, DC

9/18 Panel on Constitutional Reform, Sponsored by the Fundación Global de

Democracía y Desarrollo and the Inter-American Dialogue, and the Center for

Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), at CSIS, Washington, DC

2008

10/11/2008 11th

Annual Meeting: Communities at Work, Dominican-American

National Roundtable (DANR), The Westin Hotel, Providence, RI

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Adler, Emanuel and Michael Barnett, eds. Security communities. Cambridge: Cambridge

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Africa Confidential. 2008. Ghana: The departed return. Volume 49, 10 (9 May), London.

Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Cultural and Social Series. 2006. Constitutional

Changes: Ghana, Overseas Vote. Volume 43, 3 (March 1st-31st): 16569A-16569B.

Aguilar, Filomeno. 2007. Political transnationalism and the state's reincorporation of

overseas Filipinos. In Miraloa and Makil, eds., 157-163

Ai Camp, Roderic. 1993. Politics in Mexico. New York: Oxford University Press.

Akokpari, John. 1998. Globalization and the Ghanaian Foreign Ministry. In Robertson,

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Alarcón, Rafael. 2006. Hacia la construcción de una política de emigración en México. In

González Gutiérrez, ed. (2006b, vol. II), 157-179.

Alcid, Mary Lou L. 2003. Overseas Filipino workers: Sacrificial lambs at the altar of

desegregation. In Østergaard-Nielsen, ed., 99-120.

Alcocer, Jorge V., ed. 2005. El voto de los mexicanos en el extranjero. México, DF:

Nuevo Horizonte Editores.

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online at:

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