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Homeland Calling? Political And Social Connectivity Across Borders, Roger D. Waldinger, Nelson Lim

Roger D Waldinger

This paper seeks to understand the paradox of large-scale migrant connectivity with the significant others still at home, alongside far more limited engagement with the homeland polity left behind. We argue that, in the expatriate situation, homeland political involvement yields a decidedly unfavourable mix of costs and benefits for most migrants. On the one hand, the costs of expatriate political involvement are higher than the costs that would be entailed when “in country”; on the other hand, the home state can do much less for migrants than the state where they actually live. While the great majority of migrants consequently …