Jean-Michel Lafleur

Towards a transatlantic dialogue in the study of immigrant political transnationalism

Abstract The purpose of this special issue is to establish to what extent the place in which immigrants settle (namely the region or country) might determine the types of political activity in which they engage. More precisely, we aim to ascertain whether and for what reasons different forms of transnational political activity develop in the United States and Europe. To achieve this rather ambitious goal, through looking at a series of case studies from Europe and the USA we try to identify the full range of such activities, while at the same time noting various similarities in the actions undertaken by communities based in the same area.

Ethnic Minorities Cultural Practices as Forms of Political Expression: a review of the literature and a theoretical discussion on Music

Looking at the current state of the literature, political scientists and sociologists have neglected the political relevance of ethnic and migrant minorities’ popular cultural and artistic productions to concentrate on more conventional forms of political participation. In the first section of this paper, we provide a theoretical framework to this special issue by examining the links between music and politics. We underline several elements related to music which potentially have political significance. We discuss how music can provide/ascribe identities and a sense of place. In the second part of the paper, we attempt to explain why ethnic minorities choose music as a means of political expression. To this end, we present and subsequently critique a typology of political action in popular music developed by the American political scientist Mark Mattern. The paper concludes by stressing the urgent need to develop research on the topic and how this special issue makes its own contribution to this agenda.

Transnational Politics as Cultural Circulation: Toward a Conceptual Understanding of Migrant Political Participation on the Move

Abstract This article contributes to the burgeoning literature on transnational politics by bringing tools used by scholars of cultural diffusion and circulation into these debates. We build on research on social remittances and their potential to yield broader and deeper effects or to ‘scale up’ and ‘scale out.’ Based on a variety of empirical examples, we propose that processes such as circulation, portability, and contact, viewed through a transnational optic, help to nuance recent research on political transnationalism and its empirical indicators – including, most notably, external voting.

The enfranchisement of citizens abroad: variations and explanations

Today, a large majority of states allow at least some of their emigrants to take part in home country elections from abroad. This article first looks at the diffusion of external voting laws and shows that over the past 25 years they have become widely-adopted and are no longer limited to specific professional categories of citizens. Second, the article explains the international diffusion of external voting by discussing the “norm-internationalization hypothesis” and the “electoral-competition hypothesis.” Third, the article attempts to demonstrate that these hypotheses cannot explain why, in a democratic context, states continue to implement a series of hurdles that deter emigrants from using their newly gained rights. Looking at recent developments in Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa, it concludes that the diffusion and variations of external voting laws result from transnational negotiation processes in a context of democratic transformation among various actors whose interests are strongly affected by the inclusion or exclusion of these new voters.

Migration policy reforms in the context of economic and political crises: the case of Belgium

ABSTRACT A body of literature has examined the role of ‘crises’ on policy-making. Yet, we observe that endogenous or exogenous events called ‘crisis-events’ are often randomly chosen as sweeping explanations for reforms in migration and integration policy. Thus, we attempt to find answers for the question of how the latest financial and economic crisis affected policy-making in the area of migration and integration. We apply a combination of interest-based and ideas-based theories to the case of Belgium in order to question the role of crises in policy reforms in the field of migration and integration. Multiple political and economic crises have affected the country since 2007. Examining these crises and immigration politics we argue that electoral competition both between and within the Francophone and Flemish party systems continues to be the main driver of migration and integration policy reform. Yet, we also discover a cumulative effect of economic and political crises: while the intention of restricting immigration has remained largely unchanged over the years, the policy instruments employed to reach this objective have changed with the political and economic crises.

South-North Labour Migration Within the Crisis-Affected European Union: New Patterns, New Contexts and New Challenges

Drawing on previous chapters and on available statistical data we identify the main features of the South-North migration. Firstly, we indicate that the intensity of the current South-North is relatively low if we take into account, on the one hand, the scale of the crisis-driven deterioration of the labour markets in southern countries and, on the other, the volume of the previous South-North migration in the post-war period. Secondly we show that new Southern European migrants are predominantly young and highly educated, particularly when compared with their counterparts, who migrated during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. We argue that, while the asymmetric impact of the economic crisis throughout the European Union and the unique features of the deeply fragmented labour markets of its Southern member countries may be considered primordial factors that triggered a renewed South-North intra-European mobility, its volume and composition are determined by the previous long term structural, demographic, social and economic transformations experienced by both Southern and Northern EU countries.

Creating Undocumented EU Migrants through Welfare: A Conceptualization of Undeserving and Precarious Citizenship

Following the financial and economic crisis, welfare policies across the EU are increasingly becoming instruments for limiting the mobility of certain EU migrants. In this article, we focus on EU citizens who see their freedom of movement in the EU being restricted after they have applied for social assistance or unemployment benefits in their country of residence. Doing so, we conceptualize undocumented EU migration by means of the concepts of ‘non-deportability’, ‘deservingness’ and ‘precariousness’. Overall, this article – based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with Italian migrants in Belgium – expands our understanding of undocumented migration by demonstrating how arbitrary and intimidating bureaucratic processes undermine the exercise of EU citizenship.

EU Migration and the Economic Crisis: Concepts and Issues

In this introductory chapter, we discuss the concept of “crisis migration” and its relevance to understanding the transformation of migratory flows within Europe as well as the transformation of migration and integration policies in the European Union. This introduction also presents the main issues discussed in this book and briefly introduces each of the chapters that compose this volume. In this chapter, we also underscore the different economic and political context in which this new Southern European migration is occurring in comparison with previous waves from the same area. In particular, we point out that successive enlargements of the EU and their associated migration waves have eroded the support of political elites for the principle of free movement within Northern EU Member States. This changing socio-political context has triggered different reactions among political elites towards these new flows in both sending and receiving countries.

Where and why can expatriates vote in regional elections? A comparative analysis of regional electoral practices in Europe and North America

ABSTRACT The article constitutes the first systematic attempt to survey and account for the enfranchisement of non-resident citizens in regional elections. Shifting the focus away from the state to the regional demos, it is divided into two parts. First, it examines whether the spectacular horizontal diffusion of external voting legislation widely observed in existing scholarship has also spread vertically to regional elections, through a comparative overview of the conditions of eligibility to the regional franchise in 292 American and European regions. The remarkable diversity of regional electoral arrangements both within and across states calls for a more in-depth explanatory analysis of the ‘micro-foundations of diaspora policy’ in specific regions. The second part thus compares two negative cases, Flanders and Scotland, where expanding the franchise to expatriates has been seriously considered and yet ultimately failed. It goes on to examine the frustrated outcome in the light of three dimensions of the political opportunity structure: whether the region has the power to alter the composition of the demos (self-determination powers), the expected electoral gains and losses among political parties within the regional party system (electoral interests), and the (in)compatibility of extending the suffrage to expatriates with the pursuit of autonomy goals (self-determination aims).

Restrictions on Access to Social Protection by New Southern European Migrants in Belgium

Despite the fact that the global financial crisis has affected Belgium’s economic performance, the country has continued to be an attractive destination for migrants. Recently, however, there has been a dramatic change in migrant flows to Belgium, as a result of two phenomena. First and foremost, the country has experienced large inflows of post-accession migration from Central and Eastern European citizens. Second, 40 years after the end of the guest worker programmes, the economic crisis reactivated migration from Southern Europe. One important consequence of the economic crisis and the arrival of Central and Eastern European migrants has been the growing scepticism that has developed in Belgium towards the freedom of circulation. This has led the authorities to implement specific policies aimed at discouraging further migration of low-skilled EU migrants, who are deemed undesirable. In this chapter, we analyse a specific policy consisting of the removal of residence permits from EU jobseekers who claim social security benefits in Belgium. This policy has affected both Central and Eastern European as well as new Southern European EU migrants.Examining the mobilization of different organizations, we then show that—while they are numerically fewer—new Southern European immigrants are in a better position than other new immigrants in Belgium to challenge receiving country policies that target them.