Policy and Voting Preferences of Romanian Migrants 2000-2016



Abstract

In most studies of voting behavior, political preferences are explained at the level of the “country, election, electoral cohort or individual voter” (Franklin 2004). Notably absent from these studies is the impact of voters living abroad. Their importance is not to be neglected, especially in democratizing states.

This research targets the predictions that lie behind the turnout and preferences of Romanian emigrants. Romanian Diaspora consistently votes for parties and candidates that promise reforms. This vote is associated with liberal economic policy preferences and support for minority groups. I test these hypotheses with elections results data from 2000 to 2016 coupled with data collected from Votulmeu.com an online Voting Advice Application from the 2012 parliamentary and 2014 presidential elections in Romania.

 

Key words:

emigrants, voting, policy preferences, Romania, Voting Advice Applications


Adevarul.ro (2009). Three Million Romanians at Work Abroad [Trei milioane de romani la munca in strainatate]. http://www.rombel.com/stiri-romania/2867-3-milioane-de-romani-la-munc-in-strintate.html (20/09/2015).

Adevarul.ro (2010). The Nicolae Ceausescu Regime received around 1 billion of German Marks from Selling Ethnic Germans. http://adevarul.ro/news/societate/regimul-nicolae-ceausescu-incasat-circa-miliard-marci-germane-vanzarea-etnicilor-germani-1_50ad442b7c42d5a66391e07b/index.html (20/09/2015).

Adichie, C. (2014). The president I want. The Scoop. http://www.thescoopng.com/exclusive-chimamanda-adichie-president-want/ (20/09/2015).

Almond, G., & Verba, S. (1989). The civic culture revisited. London: Sage.

Anderson, C., & Tverdova, Y. (2001). Winners, losers and attitudes about government in contemporary democracies. International Political Science Review, 22(4), 321–38.

Andreadis, I. (2014). Data Quality and Data Cleaning. In: D. Garzia & S. Marschall (eds.), Matching Voters with Parties and Candidates. Voting Advice Applications in Comparative Perspective (pp. 79–93). Colchester: ECPR Press.

Audebert, C, & Dorai, M. K. (eds.) (2010). Migration in a globalized world. Recent issues and new paradigms. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Bauböck, R. (2006). Citizenship and migration – concepts and controversies in Migration and Citizenship: Legal Status, Rights and Political Participation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Black, R., Engbersen, G., Okolski, M., & Pantiru, C. (eds.) (2010). A continent moving West. EU enlargement and Labour Migration from Central and Eastern Europe. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Blais, A. (2000). To vote or not to vote. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Burean, T. (2011). Political Participation by the Romanian Diaspora. In: R. King, & P. Sum (eds.), Romania under Basescu. Latham: Lexington Books.

Butler, D, & Stokes, D. (1969). Political Change in Britain. 1st ed. London: Macmillan.

Camp R. (2003). Learning democracy in Mexico and the United States. Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, 19(1), 3–27.

Careja, R., & Emmenegger, P. (2012). Making Democratic Citizens: The Effects of Migration Experience on Political Attitudes in Central and Eastern Europe. Comparative Political Studies, 45(7), 875–902.

Cedroni, L., & Garzia, D. (2010). Voting advice applications in Europe. The State of the Art. Napoli: Scripta Web.

Christie, A. (2004). Suppressing the Overseas Vote. The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/oct/25/uselections2004.usa2 (20/08/2015).

Cohen, R. (1997). Global Diasporas: An Introduction. New York: Routledge.

Dalton, R. J. (1996). Political cleavages, issues, and electoral change. In: L. LeDuc, R. G. Niemi, P. Norris (eds.), Comparing Democracies: Elections and voting in global perspective (pp. 319–42). London: Sage.

De Haas, H. (2005). International migration, remittances and development: Myths and Facts. Third World Quarterly, 26(8), 1243–58.

Diaconescu, D. (2014). 100 de măsuri care salvează România. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1571637056392524&set=pcb.1571637103059186&type=3&theater (27/09/2017).

Dijstelbloem, H., & Meijer, A. (2011). Migration and the New Technological Borders of Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Downs, A. (1957). An economic theory of democracy. New York: Harper and Row.

Doyle, O., & Fidrmuc, J. (2005). Voice of the Diaspora: An Analysis of Migrant Voting Behavior. Working Paper: Center for European Integration Studies, University of Bonn. 2005.

Fieldhouse, E., Trammer, M., & Russell, A. (2007). Something about young people or something about elections? Electoral participation of young people in Europe: evidence from a multilevel analysis of the European Social Survey. European Journal of Political Research, 46(8), 797–822.

Franklin, M. N. (2004). Voter Turnout and the Dynamics of Electoral Competition in established Democracies since 1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Franklin, M. N., Mackie, T. T., & Valen, H. (2009). Electoral change: Responses to evolving social and attitudinal structures in Western countries. Colchester: ECPR Press.

Garzia, D., & Marschall, S. (2012). Voting advice applications under review: the state of research. International Journal of Electronic Governance, 5(3), 203–22.

Gemenis, K., & Rosema, M. (2014). Voting advice applications and electoral turnout. Electoral studies, 36, 281–89.

IDEA (2007). Voting from Abroad: The International IDEA Handbook. http://www.idea.int/publications/voting_from_abroad/ (20/08/2015).

Iohannis, K. (2014). România lucrului bine făcut. http://www.presidency.ro/files/userfiles/Program-prezidential.pdf (26/09/2017).

Kitschelt, H. (1992). The Formation of Party Systems in East Central Europe. Politics and Society, 20(1), 7–50.

Koinova, M. (2009). Diaspora and democratization in the post-communist world. Communist and Post-communist studies, 42(1), 41–64.

Magaisa, A. (2008). The Plight of Zimbabwe’s Disenfranchised Voters. The Standard.

http://www.thestandard.co.zw/opinion/18262-the-plight-of-zimbabwes-disenfranchised-voters.html (20/08/2015).

Marschall, S., & Schultze, M. (2012). Voting advice applications and their effect on voter turnout: the case of the German Wahl-o-mat. International Journal of Electronic Governance, 5(3), 349–66.

Martiniello, M. (2006). Political participation, mobilization and representation of immigrants and their offspring in Europe. In: R. Bauböck (eds.), Migration and Citizenship: Legal Status, Rights and Political Participation (pp. 83–105). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Mendez, F., & Wheatley, J. (2014). Using VAA-generated data for mapping partisan supporters in the ideological space in matching voters to parties and candidates. In: D. Garzia, & S. Marschall (eds.), Matching Voters with Parties and Candidates. Voting Advice Applications in Comparative Perspective (pp. 161–74). Colchester: ECPR Press.

Mishler, W., & Rose, R. (2001). What are the origins of political trust? Testing institutional and cultural theories in post-communist societies. Comparative Political Studies, 34(1), 30–62.

Mycock, A. (2014). “Invisible and Inaudible?” England’s Scottish Diaspora and the Politics of the Union. In: D. Sim, & M. S. Leith (eds.), The Modern Scottish Diaspora: Contemporary Debates and Perspectives (pp. 99-117). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Østergaard-Nielsen, E. (2012). Political liberalization and contestation of transnational relations between Morocco and Moroccan migrants in Spain. In: P. Mandaville, T. Lyon (eds.), Politics from afar: Transnational Diasporas and networks (pp. 69–87). Hurst: Columbia University Press.

Østergaard-Nielsen, E., & Ciornei, I. (2012). Political parties and transnational campaigns towards emigrants. Paper presented at the IPSA Congress. Madrid, 8-12 July.

Perez-Armedaniz, C., & Crow, D. (2010). Do Migrants Remit Democracy? International Migration, Political Beliefs, and Behavior in Mexico. Comparative Political Studies, 43(1), 119–48.

Ponta, V. 2014. Victor Ponta președinte. Marea unire a românilor. http://media.hotnews.ro/media_server1/document-2014-09-23-18165932-0-program-prezidential-victor-ponta.pdf (26/09/2017).

Popescu-Tăriceanu, C. (2014). Program Prezidențial. https://issuu.com/tariceanu/docs/revistaa5 (26/09/2017).

Rubenson, D., Blais, A., Fournier, P., Gidengil, E., & Nevitte, N. (2007). Does low turnout matter? Evidence from the 2000 Canadian federal election. Electoral Studies, 26(3), 589–97.

Ruusuvirta, O. (2010). Much ado about nothing? Online voting advice applications in Finland. In: L. Cedroni, & D. Garzia (eds.), Voting advice applications in Europe. The State of the Art (pp. 47–77). Napoli: Scripta Web.

Sheffer, G. (2003). Diaspora Politics: At Home Abroad. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Shevel, O. (2014). The Post-Communist Diaspora Laws. Beyond the “Good Civic versus Bad Ethnic Nationalism” Dichotomy. East European Politics and Societies, 24(1), 159–87.

Snel, E., Engbersen, G., & Leerkes, A. (2006). Transnational Involvement and Social Integration. Global Networks, 6(3), 285–308.

Turcu, A., & Urbatsch, R. (2015). Diffusion of Diaspora Enfranchisement Norms. A Multinational Study. Comparative Political Studies, 48(4), 407–37.

Udrea, E. (2014). România frumoasă. http://media.hotnews.ro/media_server1/document-2014-10-2-18224682-0-programul-prezidential-romania-frumoasa.pdf (27/09/2017).

Van Meeteren, M., Engbersen, G., & van San, M. (2009). Striving for a better position: Aspirations and the role of cultural, economic, and social capital for irregular migrants in Belgium. International Migration Review, 43(4), 881–907.

Verba, S., & Nie, N. H. (1972). Participation in America: Political democracy and social equality. New York: Harper and Row.

Wagner, M., Johann, D., & Kritzinger, S. (2012). Voting at 16: Turnout and the quality of vote choice. Electoral Studies, 31(2), 372–83.

Wallace, C., & Stola, D. (eds.) (2001). Patterns of Migration in Central Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Williams, A., & Baláž, V. (2006). What human capital, which migrants? Returned skilled migration to Slovakia from the UK. International Migration Review, 39(2), 439–68.

Download

Published : 2018-06-30


BureanT. (2018). Policy and Voting Preferences of Romanian Migrants 2000-2016. Political Preferences, (19). Retrieved from https://www.journals.us.edu.pl/index.php/PP/article/view/7052

Toma Burean  burean@fspac.ro
Babeș-Bolyai University College of Political Science, Public Administration and Communication Political Science Department  Romania



The Copyright Owners of the submitted texts grant the Reader the right to use the pdf documents under the provisions of the Creative Commons 4.0 International License: Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA). The user can copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose.

1. License

The University of Silesia Press provides immediate open access to journal’s content under the Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Authors who publish with this journal retain all copyrights and agree to the terms of the above-mentioned CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

2. Author’s Warranties

The author warrants that the article is original, written by stated author/s, has not been published before, contains no unlawful statements, does not infringe the rights of others, is subject to copyright that is vested exclusively in the author and free of any third party rights, and that any necessary written permissions to quote from other sources have been obtained by the author/s.

If the article contains illustrative material (drawings, photos, graphs, maps), the author declares that the said works are of his authorship, they do not infringe the rights of the third party (including personal rights, i.a. the authorization to reproduce physical likeness) and the author holds exclusive proprietary copyrights. The author publishes the above works as part of the article under the licence "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International".

ATTENTION! When the legal situation of the illustrative material has not been determined and the necessary consent has not been granted by the proprietary copyrights holders, the submitted material will not be accepted for editorial process. At the same time the author takes full responsibility for providing false data (this also regards covering the costs incurred by the University of Silesia Press and financial claims of the third party).

3. User Rights

Under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license, the users are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit the contribution) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material) the article for any purpose, provided they attribute the contribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor.

4. Co-Authorship

If the article was prepared jointly with other authors, the signatory of this form warrants that he/she has been authorized by all co-authors to sign this agreement on their behalf, and agrees to inform his/her co-authors of the terms of this agreement.

I hereby declare that in the event of withdrawal of the text from the publishing process or submitting it to another publisher without agreement from the editorial office, I agree to cover all costs incurred by the University of Silesia in connection with my application.