Voice after Exit: Why and How do Emigrants Vote from Abroad?

Migrant influence on politics back home has arguably become broader and deeper in the wake of a widespread convergence between emigration and democratization. Such influence can be exercised indirectly through the transfer of monies or ideas that reshape the political attitudes and behaviors of non-migrants or directly through “voice after exit” by emigrants in the form of electoral participation and/or issue advocacy. This paper uses paired case studies to explore patterns identified in a previous paper on expatriate turnout in 85 elections in 23 post-1980 democracies. Specifically, I compare three pairs of countries with comparable levels of expatriate turnout relative to the full sample: (1) Peru and Turkey (high); (2) Dominican Republic and Romania (medium); and (3) Mexico and the Philippines (low). Through qualitative comparisons both within and across pairs, I tease out the finding in the quantitative study that overseas electoral participation is shaped more by the institutional and political context than by the demographic or socio-economic profiles of the emigrant community. I also examine the partisan preferences of these voters and the degree to which (and how) they differ from those of non-migrant voters, with a concluding discussion of the implications for democracy back home.