Contextual reasons for emigrants’ electoral participation in home country elections: The Portuguese case

Abstract

Although emigrants represent an increasing share of the electoral population in many democracies not much is known about their participation in home country elections. Aiming at contributing to fulfil this gap, this article longitudinally and exploratory analyses the contextual factors of Portuguese emigrants’ participation in national elections (1976-2015), a country with one of the highest emigration rates of EU today. First, it presents a longitudinal analysis of the electoral participation of Portuguese emigrants, and then analyses the conditions underlying levels of participation. By using aggregate data covering the main fifteen destination countries, this study compares institutional, socio-economic and political contextual factors for voting. Findings indicate that the lack of political participation of emigrants is first demonstrated by the very low registration rates, although it varies according to the country, and that voting methods and socio-economic factors in the destination country are the most relevant to explain voting in home country elections.