Transnational political participation of Romanian migrants residing in North-western Europe Comparative case study of Luxembourg, Belgium and France

In a country where the political disengagement been the norm in the past few years, a new phenomenon caught politicians and civil society`s attention: part of the very same disenchanted people that immigrated from Romania, had become increasingly interested in the politics of their country of origin and had shown their commitment for positive change through different actions such as: voting, organising large scale protests or sending money back home on a regular basis. It is in this context, of a little studied, large active diaspora- the fifth largest in the world according to OECD- that the aim of my project is to assess the extent and the determinants of the transnational political participation of Romanian migrants. In order to do that, I want to look at the political attitudes and behaviour of Romanians living in three north-western European countries: Luxembourg, Belgium and France, each of them accommodating significant communities of Romanian migrants. By comparing the political attitudes and behaviour of Romanian migrants living in these three European countries, I expect to see if the context of reception represents one of the determinants of the transnational political participation of the Romanian migrants, along with the socio political context of origin and the their social network. In terms of theoretical background, I will use both assimilationism and transnationalism perspectives in order to see where does the Romanian migrant place himself in the host country and what determinates him( if it is the case) to engage in transnational political activities. I intend using semi structured interviews with most of the questions created in advance, for the purpose of verifying the project hypothesis but I also want to allow participants to add details whenever they feel it is necessary. Romanian diaspora is not homogenous therefore I aim paying attention and analysing the individual trajectory of every single participant to the project, so that I can gather detailed and contextualized information, which in turn is not generalizable. I want to realise at least 20 interviews in each of these three cities: Luxembourg, Brussels and Paris, with migrants chosen through the snowball sampling method. In order to ensure sample diversity I aim gathering perspectives from Romanians having very diverse migrant profiles( for example Romanians who left their country before the fall of the communism, Romanians having acquired the nationality of their host country, Romanians who only left their country of origin for a couple of years, seasonal workers, etc.). Compared to other studies looking especially at the electoral political participation of different groups of migrants, I want to analyse the Romanian migrants` transnational engagement and I also plan looking at their social network and the way this one influences their relations with their host society as well as their country of origin.