Populism, Pluralism, Patriotism: Migration Management & Political Change

Session Submission Type: Virtual Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel examines the political impact of migrant presence and diaspora engagement in sending and receiving countries. It brings together contributions that study the different levels of this transformation: micro (individual patterns of political socialization and resocialization as a result of cross-border mobilities, migrant agency and political entrepreneurship, and non-migrant adaptation to migratory contexts), meso (subnational variation in political profiles, electoral behavior, and policy decisions), and macro (national and supranational changes in migration management and diaspora engagement strategies). Our projects shed light on a wide range of migration flows, from circular labor migration to emigration, and from the repatriation of migrant remains during the COVID-19 pandemic to the regulation of reception camps for irregular migrants in the Mediterranean. We reveal the ways in which migration shapes political attitudes and behaviors, electoral campaign strategies, government institutions and outreach programs, ideas about belonging and representation, and how migrants and authorities position themselves vis-à-vis the notions of populism, pluralism, and patriotism. Empirically, the session draws insights from country cases in the Americas (Mexico, Honduras), Europe (Italy, Romania, Poland, Turkey), the Middle East (Tunisia, Morocco), and Asia (Nepal, the Philippines, India). The findings question conventional wisdom about political remittances (showing, for instance, that diaspora politics may both acclimate migrants into receiving country democratic processes, and reinforce authoritarian processes in sending countries), securitization and marketization (migrant reception involves privatization and externalization rather than government-led conversations about inclusion and exclusion), and the relationship between performing patriotism and necropatriotism by managing migrations of the living and the dead.

Sub Unit

• Division 11: Comparative Politics

Individual Presentations

• A Matter of Life & Death: Necropatriotism & Diaspora Engagement During COVID-19 - Ruxandra Paul, Amherst College; Osman Balkan, Swarthmore College

• Cross-Party Transnational Voting in the Turkish Diaspora - Gulcan Saglam, University of Georgia; Michael Ahn Paarlberg, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Securitization, Emergency and Externalization of Migrant Receptions in Sicily - Marie Bassi

• Nationals versus Foreigners: Political Attitudes and Electoral Mobilization - Sebastián A. Umpierrez de Reguero, Leiden University

Chair

• Myra A. Waterbury Ohio University

Discussant

• Noelle K. Brigden Marquette University