Transnational Candidate Selection among Emigrants for Homeland Parliamentary Elections: the Cases of France and Italy

The majority of states worldwide have granted their citizens abroad the right to vote in homeland elections. A small but growing subset of these states also allows emigrants to elect their own representatives in national homeland parliaments. These candidates form a crucial part of the transnational democratic linkage between parties and their electorate abroad. Yet little is known regarding the politics of their incorporation into homeland politics. Wider studies of political incorporation have shown that processes of nomination and election of immigrant candidates are influenced by a broad set of factors including the profile and resources of the candidates and the party recruitment opportunities and strategies. It is therefore timely to question to what extent also transnational processes of incorporation of emigrant candidates in homeland political elections relate to these understandings. To that end, this paper analyses the selection of emigrant political candidates for the seats reserved for emigrant representatives in the most recent parliamentary elections in France (2012/11 seats in National Assembly) and Italy (2013/18 seats across the two chambers). The data includes a survey of the more than 300 candidates worldwide and in-depth interviews with the candidates in the districts in North America and the main political parties in the homeland. The analysis explores the extent to which the selection of emigrant political candidates is determined by the profile of the emigrant candidates (their socio-economic resources, migration trajectory, previous party militancy and civic visibility) and strategic partisan interests such as the level of competition in the particular district.