Should Parties Go Abroad? Analysing Their Internal Decision-Making Process to Reach Non-Resident Citizens

National political parties are instrumental for the functioning of democracy by connecting citizens with domestic politics, but not all of them pay equal attention to citizens living abroad. As the democratic sphere extends across borders in Europe, national parties need to decide how to engage in decentralised representation. Their strategies differ greatly across parties and countries, ranging from extensive transnational organisations to complete neglect. In the last years, several studies have analysed how parties engage with non-resident citizens and which party-specific and country-related factors influence their transnational organisational models. These studies found that depending on parties' size and institutionalisation, their transnational physical models range in extent, scope, the degree of formalisation (official status of the party abroad) and incorporation (link to the national party). To date, however, there has been no detailed examination of the decision-making process behind the parties' transnational organisations. Little is known about why parties ultimately decide to engage with diasporas (or not), what model they prefer, and who is involved in making such decisions. Existing studies vaguely argue that parties go abroad if “the benefits outweigh the costs”, but the specific drivers and actors involved have not been identified. Given the increasing relevance of transnational representation, this project evaluates the parties’ reasons to engage with diasporas and the underlying internal decision-making process. This study aims to determine the constraints and incentives for political parties to establish specific transnational party organisations and to uncover who is responsible for decisions made in connection with cross-border outreach. To examine this internal decision process, this study compares all Dutch and Swiss parties represented in the lower houses of their national parliament in 2025. With similar party landscapes and diaspora communities, and dissimilar legal and institutional national contexts for political participation from abroad, parties in the Netherlands (NL) and Switzerland (CH) provide illuminating cases. Semi-structured interviews are conducted to identify potential legal, political, party-specific, and diaspora-related factors that influence why parties in NL and CH engage (or not) with non-resident citizens in a specific way and who decides to do so. With the increasing relevance of transnational representation and cross-border democracy in Europe, the study provides new insights into why parties decide to engage abroad and who is in command of such a decision. This innovative two-step (why -> who) approach creates a framework for a better understanding of party-driven transnational representation. It links party behaviour with internal decision-making structures and provides a systematic analysis of post-territorial democracy and the political representation of the fast-growing group of non-resident citizens.