Diaspora voting incentives for origin-country elections: the case of Turkey-originating faith-based organisations in Germany

A unique form of political mobilisation by and/or for the Turkish political parties within the Turkish diasporas followed the remote enfranchisement enacted in 2012. Although existing literature has paid attention to the impact of state actors’ motivations on external voting rights and hometown associations’ role in electoral campaigns, faith-based diaspora organisations and their interests in providing support to origin-country political parties during homeland electoral cycles are still understudied. This article, firstly, aims to show how religion is a significant component of remote enfranchisement in the political mobilisation of diasporas by focusing on Turkey-originating Sunni and Alevi faith-based diaspora organisations in Germany (Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs Germany and Alevi Federation Germany). Secondly, it seeks to analyse the ways in which these religious organisations promote the exercise of voting during Turkish electoral cycles in the country cases. Lastly, it offers a gender-sensitive approach by including the gender dimension in the extraterritorial voting (EV) studies, which is to this day neglected. This paper will evaluate the role and status of women within FBOs in relation to EV. This framework aims to guide future empirical work on (1) how religion is a significant component of remote enfranchisement in the political mobilisation of diasporas by providing insights into the systematic engagement strategies these organisations use to mobilise eligible non-resident voters (2) Furthermore, the studies tackling the political 'integration' of immigrants into their residence countries underline the lack providing strategies for increasing electoral and non-electoral political participation of the immigrants.