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The Transnational Political Effects of Diasporic Citizenship in Countries of Destination: Overseas Citizenship of India and Political Participation in the United States

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Diaspora as Cultures of Cooperation

Part of the book series: Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship ((MDC))

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Abstract

The chapter provides an empirically grounded theory of how citizenship policies in migrants’ country of origin influence immigrants’ political activities, ethnic interest groups, and ethnic lobbying. Based on the study of India’s citizenship-like diaspora membership status, the Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI), this chapter shows that the existence of OCI and the status passages toward OCI affect the political influence of the Indian-American community, as well as the political activities by community actors, especially the degree of community organisation, number of voters and individuals working for political parties, community involvement, and financial contributions. The citizenship-like status accomplishes these effects by increasing naturalisation of ethnic Indians in the USA, by affecting categories of identification with India, as well as by fostering the good-will of individuals and community organisations.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Or 53 and 19 percent respectively, see United Nations (2013). According to Vink et al.’s (2013) global dual citizenship database, in 2013, 70 percent of all countries allowed dual citizenship once their nationals naturalised elsewhere.

  2. 2.

    Itzigsohn and Saucedo (2002), Levitt (2003), Portes et al. (2008), Spiro (2006), Lafleur (2012), Koinova (2013), and Burgess (2014).

  3. 3.

    Guarnizo et al. (2003), Levitt and Jaworsky (2007).

  4. 4.

    Shain and Barth (2003), Varadarajan (2010), and Ragazzi et al. (2012).

  5. 5.

    Calvo and Rosenstone (1989), Shain (1994/95), R. Smith (1995), Haney and Vanderbush (1999), De la Garza and Pachon (2000), T. Smith (2000), Ambrosio (2002), Lindsay (2002), Mearsheimer and Walt (2007), Rubenzer (2008), Baumgartner et al. (2009), Lieberman (2009), Paul and Paul (2009), and DeWind and Segura (2014).

  6. 6.

    Diasporic actors are all persons who originate from a certain country, self-identify with that country, and who maintain a meaningful cultural and social relationship with the country (Sheffer 2003; Naujoks 2013a: 12). This includes both citizens and non-citizens of the home country, as well as first and second-plus generation emigrants.

  7. 7.

    For an overview, see Haglund (2015) and note 5.

  8. 8.

    On the latter, see Gamlen (2014).

  9. 9.

    Another, slightly more limited membership status was the Person of Indian Origin card (PIO card), which was available from 1999 until January 2015. For more details on the privileges and limitations of OCI and the PIO card, see Naujoks (2013a: Chaps. 1, 3), Xavier (2011).

  10. 10.

    For more details, see Naujoks (2013a: Introduction and Annex).

  11. 11.

    This refers to people who self-identify as ‘Asian Indians alone’ in the American Community Survey. In 2014, 300,000 more people identified as ‘Asian Indians’ and another ethnic group, which can be explained by children of mixed marriages or by ethnic Indians, who were born in Suriname, Uganda, and other places where their ancestors had emigrated from India.

  12. 12.

    The Indian diaspora in the USA is highly organised, with countless regional and pan-Indian cultural, professional, and charity organisations. A mapping of Indian-American community organisations revealed 346 associations, of which the larger ones had dozens of chapters across the USA, sometimes even in India (Naujoks 2013a, Chap. 1). For an analysis of transnational organisations among Indian immigrants in the USA, see Agarwala (2015).

  13. 13.

    Parekh (2000) provides examples and numbers for Indian-American political fundraising.

  14. 14.

    These bills ban State contract work from being shifted outside the USA, and limit the use of offshore call centres; these affect less than 2 percent of the total IT work that is outsourced to Indian companies from the USA (NFAP 2007).

  15. 15.

    As reported by The Hindu Businessline, 13 May 2005.

  16. 16.

    This review draws on references listed in note 5. Focusing on factors with regard to ethnic interest groups, I disregard contextual factors affecting the political influence, such as convergence of policy goals with the government or the general public (‘push an open door’).

  17. 17.

    Calvo and Rosenstone (1989) point to other factors with regard to political participation that affect a community’s political influence, such as community members’ attendance of public meetings and political rallies, attempts to influence voting behaviour of others, as well as non-electoral activities, such as writing to a congressman and signing a petition.

  18. 18.

    For other studies, see Jones-Correa 2001; Woodrow-Lafield et al. 2004; Mazzolari 2009; Thränhardt 2008; Faist and Gerdes 2008.

  19. 19.

    In Naujoks (2012), I have analysed three distinct rates based on different data sets, namely: (1) annual admissions of legal permanent residents and naturalisations seven years later; (2) naturalisations of the resident population eligible for naturalisation; and (3) naturalisation of specific immigrant cohorts. In order to isolate effects specific to the country of origin from general factors in the USA, I juxtaposed the development of naturalisation rates for Indian, or India-born, immigrants with the respective rates for all Asian immigrants and for all immigrants as comparison groups.

  20. 20.

    Although other factors related to India or to the Indian-American community—such as India’s economic development, the changing rhetoric toward the diaspora, and political aspirations of the community—might have contributed to the increase in the naturalisation rate, the observed increase is likely to be influenced predominantly by the availability of OCI, and before that, by the availability of the PIO card.

  21. 21.

    Based on panel data from Germany, Street (2015) confirms that naturalisation can promote political integration, especially if new citizens can pick up habits of political engagement during the formative years of early adulthood.

  22. 22.

    Singh (2012) examines Indian ethnic lobbying in Canada.

  23. 23.

    For a discussion on OCI as a citizenship status, see Naujoks (2013b).

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    Daniel Naujoks

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  1. Norman Paterson School, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    David Carment

  2. European Ethnology, University of Vienna, Wien, Austria

    Ariane Sadjed

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I thank Dietrich Thränhardt, Uwe Hunger, Stefan Rother, Nicola Piper, as well as the editors of this volume, Ariane Sadjed and David Carment, for insightful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. I also acknowledge valuable feedback from participants at the annual meetings of the Southwestern Political Science Association and German Political Science Association, as well as at the Workshop on Diaspora as Agents of Global Cooperation in April 2015.

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Naujoks, D. (2017). The Transnational Political Effects of Diasporic Citizenship in Countries of Destination: Overseas Citizenship of India and Political Participation in the United States. In: Carment, D., Sadjed, A. (eds) Diaspora as Cultures of Cooperation. Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32892-8_10

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