Preliminary Programme

Changes in the political environment differentially shape the viability of citizen’s organizations and, correspondingly, the claims that groups are able to make against the state. Using the case of national ethnic and racial organizations in the US, this paper will explore the ecology of national claims-making activity since the 1950s. The specific focus will be on the nexus of the politics of race and immigration and the evolution of the movement-organizational field. (Show less)

This paper studies collective transnational political behavior of Turkish and Surinamese immigrants in the Netherlands. Migrants, acting transnationally, are political actors in both host and home country. As a consequence, the existence and strength of transnational political networks of migrants depends strongly on the political opportunity structure (POS) of the country of residence, the country of origin and their historical involved relations. These different POS influence whether transnational claims of migrants are homeland or country of residence directed. Moreover it will have impact on the amount, the frequency, scope, and form of the claims. Some scholars argue that in a POS like the Netherlands, which is relatively open for migrants’ political participation, the degree of transnational politics will below. The question is whether this argument fits the Turkish and Surinamese case. This can be analysed to use ethnic networks as an indicator for host country political participation and claimsmaking as an indicator for transnational political participation. There seems to be a positive relation between host country networks, the degree of political participation and the extent of transnational political participation. Surinamese have weak networks and their host country political participation is low; the amount of claims of Surinamese is five to six times lower than the Turks. First, this Surinamese under representation may imply that dense pre-existing networks are more dominant factor in acting transnationally than the openness of the domestic POS. The second explanation might be that Surinamese are politically assimilated because they have little common ethnic goals or are politically too diverse to claim from one Surinamese identity. Third, it may suggest that the Dutch POS is more open for Surinamese than for Turkish migrants, resulting in low transnational involvement. (Show less)