Campaigning Abroad: Transnational Elections and Diaspora Influence Latin America.

Political campaigns are no longer limited by territorial boundaries. Candidates running for office in countries as varied as Guatemala, Turkey, Liberia, and Taiwan regularly travel to other countries to campaign among diaspora communities in migrant-receiving countries such as the United States. While overseas voting rights have recently been adopted by most countries, transnational voting rates by migrants are low. Yet politicians seek the support of citizens residing abroad even when those citizens do not, or cannot, vote. This book project explores the impact that diaspora communities can have on elections in their countries of origin, and the campaign strategies political parties in Latin America adopt to gain the support of migrants in the U.S., based on data from party travel documents, surveys of migrants and home country voters, and interviews with politicians, party officials, and campaign strategists in Mexico, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic. I develop a new theory as to why and how parties in migrant-sending countries seek to build and capitalize on transnational ties among diaspora communities for electoral advantage, determining that diaspora campaign strategy depends on the infrastructure parties build overseas and the partisan skew of the diaspora community, largely formed in the period of migration. I also find that politicians seek the support of migrants not primarily for their votes, but for the influence they believe migrants have over family members in their home countries. My models based on polling data, however, finds this perception to be exaggerated.