Populist radical right parties abroad? Analysing how they engage with non-resident citizens

With an increasing number of citizens living abroad and a growing number of countries granting political rights to non-resident citizens, political parties are supposedly more inclined to look beyond national borders for electoral support and political representation. However, research on the transnational connection between national political parties and emigrants has overlooked the relation of populism with non-resident citizens. While the family of populist parties receives generally less votes from abroad than domestically, many of them are nevertheless inclined to build mass party organisations to foster an activist membership. Based on an analysis and classification of party programmes, statutes and social media accounts of 13 right- and left-wing populist parties in five countries, I show that the organisational expression of ‘transnational populism’ is complex. Outreach strategies are not determined by left-right ideology, party size, or legal constraints. Instead, the results point towards a demand-side (citizens abroad) appeal that needs to be met with organisational preparedness by the supply side (political parties) to manifest in transnational populist party structures.