1 UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM
Department of Sociology August 2016
POLITICA L TRANSNATIO NALI SM
AND GREEK IMM IGRANTS IN
THE NETH ERLANDS:
A COMPARATIVE STUDY BE TWEEN
IMMIGRA NTS WHO SETTL ED IN
THE NETH ERLANDS BEFORE THE
FINANCIAL CRISIS OF 2008 A ND
NEWCOMERS
Supervisors: Andrikopoulos Apostolos/Rozakou Katerina Student: Sklia Evangelia
Student number: 11138009
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ΠΊΝΑΚΑΣ ΠΕΡΙΕΧΟΜΈΝΩΝ
INTRODUCTION ... 4
1) THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ... 5
1.1Transnationalism as an Analytical Framewor………...5
1.2Political Transnationalism and the Nation-State ... 7
1.3Political transnationalism: The Persistence of the Nation-State ... 9
1.4Political Transnationalism and Citizenship ... 13
1.5Political Transnationalism and the Persistence of Traditional Citizenship ... 15
2) GREEK IMMIGRANTS IN THE NETHERLANDS ... 17
2.1 Introduction ... 17
2.2 Greek Immigrants in the Netherlands ... 18
2.3 The Dutch Context ... 20
2.4 The Greek Context ... 24
2.5 Research questions ... 30
3) DATA, METHODS, LIMITATIONS ... 33
3.1 Data and Methods... 33
3.2 Strengths and limitations ... 36
4) FINDINGS ... 38
4.1 Home-town associations ... 38
4.2 SENDING CONTEXT ... 46
4.2a. Determinants, emotions and political behavior – Newcomers ... 46
4.2b. Determinants, emotions and political behavior – Immigrants who settled in the Netherlands before the financial crisis of 2008. ... 55
4.3 RECEIVING CONTEXT ... 58
4.3a. Emotions about the host-society and political behavior – Newcomers ... 58
4.3b. Emotions about the host-society and political behavior – Immigrants, who settled in the Netherlands before the financial crisis of 2008 ... 65
4.4 POLITICAL TRANSNATIONALISM ... 67
4.4a. Newcomers ... 67
4.4b. Immigrants, who settled in the Netherlands before the financial crisis of 2008. ... 70
5. DISCUSSION ... 72
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REFERENCES ... 76
Abstract:
This thesis aims to examine the potential of Greek expatriates in the Netherlands to develop and maintain regular transnational political linkages with their country of origin. Two main sub-groups of immigrants were taken as a point of reference; those, who settled in the Netherlands before the financial crisis of 2008 and newcomers. We expect that differentiation between them –in terms of
socio-economic status, determinants of emigration and position in the host-country- will affect their motivations to engage with transnational politics. The findings suggest that newcomers are more likely to sustain recurrent and ongoing political ties with their home-country. Yet, the majority of them are reluctant to engage with Greek political affairs mainly due to lack of resources and disappointment with the current political regime. On the other hand, “old” immigrants either do not
participate in the transnational public sphere, or get involved only with occasional, intermittent political activities. According to Waldinger, “moving to a territory of a different state yields political detachment, diminishing awareness and suppressing interest.
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INTRODUCTI ON
The classical theory of transnationalism suggests that the core-periphery structure of the international system of the nation-states has resulted in the emergence of a specific category of migrants, i.e. the “trans-migrants”. Until recently, immigrants were either “sojourners”, or permanent residents of the host-country. Precarious working and living conditions in the modern economies lead to the development of transnational social spaces, where marginalized migrating populations resort, in order to buffer the effects of their exclusion in both sending and destination countries. According to the transnational approach, orthodox assimilation theories could no longer explain the phenomenon of migration, since they took a container model of society as a given. Yet, studies have shown that it is not the marginalized, excluded immigrants who engage with transnational political activities, but rather well-educated and longer residents of the host-society. Additionally, the transformational potential of transnationalism is rather limited, since in the post-industrial era the nation-state is more powerful than ever. Domestic politics in the sending country and “political opportunities” in the host country influence a great deal immigrants’ incentives to involve with transnationalism. Will the financial crisis of 2008 affect Greek immigrants’ motivations to engage with transnational politics? By taking as a frame of reference the Greek economic recession, we do not suggest that the creation of transnational political fields depend solely upon nation-states; we rather intend to illustrate the manner, in which the differentiation between “old” and “new”
immigrants results in differentiated objectives, with regard to the development of transnational political ties.
In the first section, we report on the main theoretical approaches on political transnationalism. In the second section, we report on the history of the Greek
migration in the Netherlands. Different determinants of emigration are more likely to result in differentiated perspectives, with respect to transnational engagement. We also explore social and political conditions in both sending and receiving contexts. Position in both home- and host-societies largely influences immigrants’ prospects. Next, following theory and contextual factors, we form our research questions. In the third section, we mention the methodology we used, in order to carry out this
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research. In the fourth section, we present the findings. Discussion and conclusion are included in the fifth and sixth section accordingly.
1) THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1 Transnationalism as an Analytical Framework
The concept of immigrant transnationalism entered the literature in 1992 by Nina Glick Schiller, Linda Basch and Cristina Blanc-Szanton, who contended that the emergence of transnational social fields, transcending the nation-states’ boundaries, represented a break with the past. Until then, immigrants were supposed to belong either to the country of origin or to the country of settlement. Orthodox theoretical schemas of immigration, such as push-pull and assimilation theories, were based on the assumption that the world is divided into externally bounded and internally
homogeneous sovereign national polities, wherein immigrants are eventually expected to assimilate or acculturate, severing ties with their country of origin. In other words, they were either to preserve their own cultural traits and political loyalties - but prepare their return to the country of origin - or settle for good, by adopting a new national identity. Integration thus into the dominant socio-cultural and economic systems of the receiving society, was considered to be incompatible with migrants’ transnational engagement.
Schiller, Basch and Blanc-Szanton argued that conceptualizations, such as
assimilation, were dominated by the notion of “methodological nationalism”, i.e. a nationalist framework that equates the study of society with the analysis of nation-states. Social science has taken for granted that “nation-states constitute the container of society and the boundary of sociology…,research has come to focus on ‘national communities’ as the natural unit of social analysis” (Fanning 2013:4). Analyses of migration phenomena were inevitably constrained by such static models, which is why mobility between nation-states - let alone immigrants’ attachments - was viewed as anomalous. There were certain forms of border-crossing movement that could not
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be described by theoretically established terms, such as “permanent migrants” or “sojourners”. A new kind of migrating population was emerging, whose lives cut across national boundaries and bring two societies into a single social field. These immigrants “forge and sustain multi-stranded social relations than link together their societies of origin and settlement” (Basch et al 1992: 7). This phenomenon is called “transnationalism” and denotes the rise of an encompassing social space that extends beyond geographic, political and cultural borders. “Immigrants who develop and maintain multiple relationships – familial, economic, social, organizational, religious and political - that span borders we call “transmigrants” (Basch et al 1992:7).
Although several scholars in the past had attempted to posit a global social field or world society as a unit of analysis, they tended to ignore the remarkable resilience of nation-states and their unequal power in the global capitalist processes. Growing internationalization of capital and the advance of technology resulted in a global flow of ideas, goods and information, but also labor force. The lack of transnational lens prevented these scholars from depicting migrants, not merely as units of labor, but rather as people with experiences, concerns, aspirations, beliefs and identities. As a consequence, most theoretical frameworks failed to distinguish powerful non-state agents, such as transnational companies, from international immigrants. From the transnational perspective, global economic processes, as well as the continuing significance of the nation-state, need to be related to migrants’ social relationships, because the formation of transnational social spaces supplements the international space of sovereign nation-states, and border-crossing sustained ties can significantly impact political communities. By contrast powerful non-state actors remain attached to specific nation-states and focus on “nested processes” (Faist 2004: 339). They do not challenge the functions of the national states.
The internationalization of capital resulted in broad changes in employment pattern and a new international division of labor, in which less developed countries
specialized in basic manufacturing activities and wealthy countries in high-skilled economic activities. It was this “deindustrialization” that led to the contraction of the manufacturing sector and a massive reallocation of labor to Third World countries. Widespread unemployment became a common feature of economic life, since the service sector could not absorb all of the displaced blue-collar workers. This core-periphery structure of the international economic system and the creation of a “new”
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employment, which was characterized by precarious working and living conditions, conduced to increasing migration from developing to developed countries. Yet, once within their new settings, these immigrants usually ended up with low-skilled, poorly paid job positions at the margins of the host society and the labor market. Due to these predicaments, along with social segregation and discrimination, immigrants establish and maintain recurrent and intense exchange political, social, cultural and economic relations that give rise to a “deterritorialized nation-state”, that is a new transnational public sphere.
In both sending and receiving national states, transmigrants are subject to “hegemonic constructions”, socially constructed conceptions, categories and practices that
dominant classes use in order to establish control over their populations. They attempt to manipulate migrants’ loyalty and sense of self, and to perpetuate the social order by fostering ideologies of bounded identity, such as ethnicity, nationality and race. These artificial categories, in turn, are internalized by the dominated and create legitimacy for the dominant. “The hegemonic context imposes a discipline on newcomers who develop self-identifications in accordance with categories and related behaviors that are not of their own making” (Schiller et al 1992:14) . Transmigrants however perceive the nature of ethnicity and nationalism not as bounded, but rather as fluid and manipulated. By living “both here and there”, they create transnational fields of action, within which hegemonic constructions dwindle and a new consciousness eventually prevails. The transformational potential of their transnational engagement clearly challenges the status quo of state politics, since they are no longer subjected to social control of the states’ apparatus.
1.1 Political Transnationalism and the Nation-State
As already mentioned, transmigrants create and sustain multiple cultural, economic, social and political linkages that extend beyond national borders. They travel back and forth, they command important economic resources, such as financial
remittances, they engage in transnational economic activities, they maintain regular social relations between families or villages, they found hometown civic associations, they organize demonstrations either in support of or in opposition to the current homeland political regime, they participate in political parties and they vote. Steven
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Vertovec suggests that current transnational practices involve modes of
transformation in three basic domains: “1) perceptual transformation affecting what can be described as migrants’ orientational ‘bifocality’ in the socio-cultural domain, 2) conceptual transformation of meanings within a notional triad of ‘identities-borders-orders’ in the political domain and 3) institutional transformation affecting forms of financial transfer, public-private relationships and local development in the economic domain” (Vertovec 2004:971). Immigrant transnational politics is a particularly interesting phenomenon, insofar as it is related to simultaneous political behavior, which challenges a mono-territorial concept of political community and constitutes a direct intrusion on the congruence between the “nation” (state population) and the territorial boundaries of the state.
According to Brubaker, the idealized conceptual model of the nation state is characterized by a bundle of congruencies linking state territory, national territory, national culture and demos. In a hypothetical world of ideal nation-states, the territorial boundaries of the state should match the boundaries of the nation, as an “imagined community”. Culture should also be coterminous with the frontiers of the state. There should be cultural homogeneity throughout the territory of the states but heterogeneity between them. Third, state territory should be in alignment with state population/demos. “Ideally, all permanent residents of the state should be citizens, and all citizens should be residents” (Brubaker 2010:63). Last, legal citizenship and cultural nationality should converge. “All ethno-cultural nationals should be citizens, and all citizens should be nationals” (Brubaker 2010: 63).
The new forms of political action, which are related to the emergence of a new, transnational public sphere, challenge the traditional definition of the state, insofar as they transcend and do not depend on the political borders of the states. Within this traditional framework, states function as membership organizations, which is why migrants seem to disrupt the abovementioned congruencies. Dominant perceptions, that significant cultural differences persist between nation-states - and, subsequently, immigrants should have representation in only one national polity – find ongoing expression in political responses to immigration. As a consequence, cultural identity, national allegiance and political membership are viewed as well-bounded
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However, immigrants develop several strategies, by which imposed categories are countered and the hegemonic power of dominant modes of ethnic boundary making declines. “While powerful actors can make their vision of the social world publicly known and consequential for the lives of all, subordinates may develop counter-discourses and other modes of dividing the social world into groups than those propagated by the dominant actors” (Wimmer 2008:995). Transnational political participation constitutes one of these counter-strategies, precisely because it brings about a “disjuncture between one’s legal identity as citizen of a territorial state and one’s political identity as an actor in the public sphere” (Mandaville 1999: 657). To the extent that new boundaries of political action are created, territorial boundaries prove to be leaky and states’ power of coercion diminishes.
1.2 Political transnationalism: The Persistence of the Nation-State
Itzigsohn defines immigrants’ political transnational field as “a realm of recurrent and institutionalized interactions and exchanges between, on the one hand, immigrants and their social and political organizations and, on the other hand, the political institutions and the state apparatus of the country of origin” (Itzigsohn 2000: 1130). By focusing on the institutional structures of the political transnationalism, Itzigsohn seeks to highlight, not the declining significance of the nation –state, but rather the manner in which it extends to encompass the transnational political space.
There is no doubt that the emergence of a transnational public sphere engenders a disjuncture between the nation and the state. Immigrants seek to resist their
marginalization in the host society - by demanding the extension of the boundaries of citizenship rights - while sending states seek to guarantee the continuing flow of remittances. This interaction institutionalizes the transnational sphere of politics and leads to a realignment of political power. However, migrants’ and states’ interests may not always coincide, which means that migrants are not entirely independent of states and their policies, and states still remain the main site for the exercise of citizenship rights. What is more, the trans-border political field creates opportunities for previously excluded groups of people, but it also creates “new elites of people”; those who have the time and resources to engage in transnational politics.
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Many scholars argue that the process of transnationalization of immigrant politics is still in its early stages. It is not the occasional, intermittent activities that we should account for, but rather regular trans-border political engagement that justifies the coining of a new term (Guarnizo et al 2003:1211-1213, emphasis in the original). Although the proliferation of transnational ties is of essence, we cannot overlook the fact that there are people who do not engage in transnational politics or get in on the act only occasionally. These segments do not constitute an alternative political force, neither do they subvert pre-existing political relations. In order to provide analytical leverage to the transnational approach, we need to study the determinants of
participation. Context of exit and reception, density of social networks, as well as individual characteristics may influence immigrants’ motivations. Guarnizo suggests that the number of immigrants who regularly participate in transnational politics is relatively small. While there is a proportion that becomes active via electoral or non-electoral activities, most of the immigrants mobilize only at special junctures.
Moreover, those who are most involved are better educated and longer residents of the host society, which means that it is not the marginalized that resort to trans-border activities, but rather immigrants, who have integrated and are endowed with several forms of capital. Transnational actions therefore are “socially bounded across national borders and occur in quite specific territorial jurisdictions” (Guarnizo et al 2003: 1239). Within this framework, it would be premature to celebrate the emergence of a “deterritorialized nation-state”.
Apart from creating opportunities, the transnational public sphere also constrains independence for immigrants. This argument is in line with Itzigsohn’s assertion, i.e. the sending state’s ability to renegotiate its relations with its migrants abroad. The erroneous assumption that states do not affect transnational political membership is related to the fact that literature emphasizes causality between the disruption of the nation-state and the creation of transnational political space. If we take as a frame of reference this disjuncture, we deduce that states no longer matter. However, if we do not account for their position in the global context, we will not be able to comprehend their vital role. Their insertion in the current international economic system entails fundamental changes in domestic politics and affects their stance towards their emigrants. If we ignore their motivations and interests in determining the potentials for transnational membership, we cannot realize their continuing significance.
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Waldinger argues that the bounded nature of the national political unit prevents migrants from engaging in regular and sustained transnational political linkages. “As polities are bounded, moving to the territory of a different state yields political detachment, diminishing awareness of home country political matters and weakening the ties to home state electoral institutions needed for voting” (Waldinger 2013: 1240). While most immigrants stay connected to kin and family on a regular basis, it is less likely that they will maintain enduring political ties. Sending state’s
incompetence to mobilize its emigrants abroad, as well as receiving country’s policies, affects migrants’ motivations.
The fact that more and more states nowadays extend the franchise beyond territorial borders may result in increasing political engagement but does not guarantee a high voter turnout among expatriates. Sending states seek to establish formal linkages- so as to attract remittances and economic investment- and to secure expatriates’ political loyalty. Embassies, consular services and documentary regimes constitute institutional responses to transnational practices and enable migrants to claim membership in several polities. Nevertheless, bureaucratic obstacles and cumbersome registration procedures, alongside considerable costs for both voters and governments, impede homeland political involvement. Moreover, a series of individual characteristics, as well as country-level factors may influence their motivations. On the one hand, settlement in the host society makes them more susceptible to the latter’s political messages and enables more extensive political engagement, depressing thus their interest in keeping political ties with their country of origin. On the other hand, lack of political involvement prior to migration, and/or the fact that the extra-territorial nature of expatriate voting entails significant financial demands, reduce participation rate.
In the end, “international migrants do repeatedly engage in concerted action across state boundaries, but the use, form and mobilization of the connections linking ‘here’ and ‘there’ are contingent outcomes subject to multiple political constraints”
(Waldinger and Fitzgerald 2004:1177). By ignoring the fact that states seek to control movement, as well as their indisputable power to police territorial boundaries, we fail to acknowledge that the world is still divided into mutually exclusive nation-states and that a container model of society is still the case. Due to this dominant pattern, population movement is inevitably considered to undermine states’ ability to bound
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the societies they seek to enfold, while hybrid identities raise questions of belonging in both home and host contexts. Since states operate at both internal and external levels, by distinguishing between members and foreigners, the latter’s arrival and their attachments generate persistent state efforts to suppress autonomous action and to extend surveillance. Cross-border linkages, loyalties and identities cannot escape the uncontested, prevailing ideology that the nation-state constitutes the most fundamental category of social and political organization. As migrants come from nationalized societies, where identity is defined by contrast to alien peoples and lands, their home-country attachments and loyalties are inherently particularistic and
“antithetical to those by-products of globalization denoted by the concept ‘transnational civil society” (Waldinger and Fitzgerald 2004: 1177,).
Eventually, the novelty lies, not in states’ declining ability to embrace and penetrate their populations, but rather in their ever-increasing power to control mobility. They are able to do so, because they have successfully expropriated the legitimate means of movement, i.e. elaborate bureaucracies and technologies, which only gradually came into existence. Once international passports and identity cards became available to anyone, they became a requirement for legitimate movement across territorial jurisdictions, while “the authority to regulate movement came to be primarily a property of the international system as a whole – that is, of nation-states acting in concert to enforce their interests in controlling who comes and goes” (Torpey 1998: 243). States were henceforth able to define who belongs and who does not and to institutionalize the exclusion of undesirable nonmembers. In order to do so, they had to erect boundaries, to enclose their societies, to define their “nationals”, to deprive people from the freedom of movement, to impose identities, to codify laws and develop techniques for verifying identities, and to situate individuals in a field of surveillance. By and large, they had to build their nation, they sought to embrace. It was the very realization of the nation-state system in the modern era that strengthened their capacity to regulate population movement on a systematic basis and to determine who is entitled to gain access to wealthy countries’ privileges and who is not.
By heralding the emergence of a “deterritorialized nation-state” and “post-national citizenship”, scholars of transnationalism tend to ignore the continuing, central role of states and the ways in which regulation of movement “contributes to constituting the very ‘state-ness’ of states” (Torpey, 1998: 240). The presence of millions of “illegal”
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migrants, refugees and stateless people, the proliferation of border fences, as well as the rise of right-wing parties, prove what is largely taken for granted; that this world is still comprised of mutually exclusive nation states, more powerful than ever before.
1.3 Political Transnationalism and Citizenship
In 1994 Yasemin Soysal argued that an era of post-national citizenship had arrived. This new perspective emphasized international discourses of universal human rights and their influence on the traditional notions of citizenship. In the framework of a newly emerging global civil society, political rights, as well as membership and national identities, no longer depend on physical, geopolitical boundaries, but rather on international political structures, within which nation-states are embedded. The dominant trend has seen citizenship restricted to the territorialized state. In its ideal terms, national citizenship provides equality and protection under the law, through the establishment of enforceable rights for all citizens residing within a national territory. The formal requirement of citizenship is the fulfillment of certain obligations and exclusive allegiance to the political community of the nation-state. This liberal democratic conception assumes membership in a single national polity and locates the citizen within the territory, which is relevant to their citizenship or exclusion from citizenship. By definition, thus, it distinguishes citizens from non-citizens, by excluding particular groups of people.
Migrant populations constitute the most common group of these excluded people. As already mentioned (see Brubaker, pg 4), migration engenders a set of incongruencies, one of which is related to formal citizenship. When part of the resident population of a country has no formal political rights terrain, there is a certain degree of discrepancy between demos and state authority. As Painter and Philo argue, “the linkage between citizenship and space may be seen in the opposition between ‘us, here’ who define themselves against a physically separate ‘us, there’. International migration inevitably produces individuals who are present in the spaces of citizenship, but who remain ‘spatially invisible non-citizens’; ‘them, here” (Collyer 2014: 58). Since all
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international migration also produces non-resident citizens – the “us, there” category – who, due to their membership status, challenge the ideas of bounded citizenship. Non-resident citizens alongside non-citizen residents generate the “politics of belonging”, the external and internal dimensions of which, can be “reciprocally connected between states”. That is, “a population subject to an internal politics of membership in one state may be subject to an external politics of membership in another state” (Brubaker 2010: 66).
By undermining the traditional conception of citizenship, migrant populations, as well as transnationalization of their ties, lead to a progressive decoupling of rights from membership in the national polity, i.e. formal citizenship. The emergence of new forms of citizenship – the post-national citizenship – needs to be attributed to the rise of global human rights and their institutionalization. Soysal argues that, under the auspices of international legal and moral norms, social and civil rights are
increasingly conferred on individuals, rather than through membership in a nation-state. The recasting of citizenship rights as universal human rights enforces states to extend the denizenship status1 to non-citizen immigrants residing within their territory, and allows immigrants to enjoy the advantages of citizenship in more than one nation-state. From this point of view, multiple membership statuses, such as dual citizenship, derive legitimacy by membership in the international community, while individuals are able to make claims as actors themselves, rather than as merely representatives of a state.
From the “strict” post-national perspective, immigrants are aware of the fact that, their rights – those related to the person – are guaranteed and that membership no longer depends on bounded polities. Since rights, traditionally associated with legal
citizenship, are vested in all immigrants, they face no need to naturalize and they are less likely to claim dual citizenship for socio-economic benefits. Moreover, receiving societies influence their motivations. Ties to international or supranational
organizations are an indication of states’ likelihood to conform to the dictates of human rights discourses. As a consequence, immigrants, from established liberal democracies in particular, become more post-national, i.e. reluctant to naturalize.
1 A discrepancy between long-term residence and citizenship; integrated resident non-members,
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By contrary, the “weak” version of post-nationalism assumes that, since states continue to be the grantors of citizenship, immigrants are more likely to claim dual nationality, despite the global spread of the human rights. Advocates of this approach argue that, instead of challenging exclusive loyalties and belonging, dual citizenship enhances the centrality of the nation-states. The fact that there is a significant portion of immigrants, even in the liberal democratic regimes of the European Union, who are persistently denied access to basic rights denotes that dual citizenship in
contemporary politics is not as institutionalized as other facets of the modern state. At this juncture, human rights regimes have yet to take root and globalization is still at its early stages. Therefore, immigrants are more likely to embrace a membership status of a dualistic type, rather than rely upon contested discourses. 2
Likewise, advocates of transnationalism assume that, immigrants’ transnational experiences reflect their tendency to identify with multiple political communities, increasing thus their propensity to adopt dual citizenship. From this standpoint, their interest in holding multiple statuses across borders suggests their desire to maintain multiple affiliations and to keep political options flexible. Since transmigrants inhabit “deterritorialized” social and political fields, bounded citizenship becomes less salient over time, while the power of national governments diminishes. The loosening of rules and the global rise in tolerance towards dual citizenship indicates the major role migrant transnationalism plays at this growth. Although cross-border political
engagement is not always welcome, the upward trend towards policy shifts suggests otherwise.
1.4 Political Transnationalism and the Persistence of Traditional Citizenship
The fact that a growing number of states extend citizenship rights beyond borders may not only suggest responses to migrants’ political transnationalism, but also the resilience of the nation-state and the flexibility of its sovereignty. Scholars of this viewpoint argue, that it is not transnational politics per se that determines states’ motivations towards acceptance or rejection of dual nationality, but rather non-migrant political actors and their interests.
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On the one hand, political conditions or regime change in the countries of origin affect to a large extent the latter’s stance towards expatriates abroad, as well as their homeland political engagement. Sending states may seek to channel this engagement to their own advantage – in order to secure economic or political support – or attempt to curtail cross-border political activities, when their emigrants maintain multiple loyalties that seem mutually exclusive. When their goals overlap with those of their citizens abroad, they may grant extended political rights, even when they do not allow dual citizenship for their immigrants, or attempt to reinforce national loyalty, by providing funding for rallies or campaigns. Since more and more migrant-sending states have now accepted that their expatriates abroad have settled and they will not return, they seek to strengthen economic and political links with these groups, by encouraging them to actively participate. However, when emigrants’ dual orientations raise concerns and are more likely to undermine the homeland political regime, sending states’ attitude towards them may become neutral or even negative. They might constrain their accessibility or become less eager to enfranchise them. The most popular argument against the granting of voting rights beyond borders is “the
principle of territorial inclusion, i.e. because they are not subject to the laws and binding decisions of the state, permanent non-residents can rightfully be excluded from the citizen body of a democratic polity ” (Baubock: 2418).
On the other hand, contextual factors in the receiving country matter as well. “Political opportunity” structures may influence transnational political orientations and practices. A political environment supportive of immigrant cross-border politics may tolerate multiple loyalties and boost transnational engagement. Moreover, host-states may view dual citizenship as means to achieve the congruence between the citizens and the resident populations and to guarantee equal access to rights for all residents. However, if nations are defined as imagined communities of common descent, language, culture and history, states implement more assimilationist policies, discouraging their immigrants from holding multiple identities and emphasizing their responsibility to integrate. As to formal membership, lacking tolerance may decrease immigrants’ propensity to apply for the nationality of their country of settlement. To sum up, although we have witnessed a growing tolerance towards multiple loyalties and dual citizenship, immigrants’ willingness and desire to adopt dual membership statuses largely depend on sending and receiving contexts. In other
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words, it is states that decide whether migrants will be included in the citizenry, not the rise of transnational public fields. The fact that transmigrants’ activities and identities are multiple and extend beyond territorial boundaries does not imply that identification with territorially defined national polities and locales are disappearing. Since cross-border political activism is inherently particularistic (see Waldinger and Fitzgerald, pg 8), the relative identities and practices do not by-pass the nation-state but rather represent an extension and adaptation of the nation-state model. Moreover, dual citizenship appears to be a formal recognition of migrants’ simultaneous
belonging to two different political communities. However, the political engagement that it entails is inevitably passive. While most civil and social rights have been gradually extended to all residents, voting rights have generally remained attached to the traditional notion of citizenship; bounded to a single territorial jurisdiction. Thus, the nation state remains fundamentally a territorial organization, one that “extends the reach of the polity to embrace trans-border members who do not reside within the territory of the state”. In this perspective, arguments about the post-national or
transnational nature of citizenship are overstated; extra-territorial citizenship is simply “citizenship in a territorially bounded political community without residence in the community” (Collyer 2014: 61).
2) GREEK IMMIGRANTS IN THE NETHERLANDS 2.1 INTRODUCTION
In order to examine if and how Greek immigrants in the Netherlands develop and sustain transnational political linkages with their country of origin, we need to account for both sending and receiving contexts, as well as their individual characteristics that might determine the potentials for transnational political engagement. We might then be able to look into the specifics of the Greek immigration stream and to explore the manners, in which their motivations are affected. Our interest lies in two distinct categories of the Greek immigration flow, i.e. “old” immigrants who settled in the Netherlands before the financial crisis of 2008, and newcomers who were largely affected by the political and economic conditions in Greece. In taking as a point of reference the Greek economic crisis, we
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do not imply that the options for engagement in transnational politics are shaped one-sidedly. We rather hope to reveal the different characteristics of the two sub-groups and examine whether and how these influence their potentials. First, we will report a brief history of the Greek immigration in the Netherlands. Since we are interested in immigrants’ particular traits, we need to explore the determinants of their choices and the ways in which those reflect differences in interests and motivations. Second, we need to look into the particularities of the sending country. As theory suggests, the governments’ stance towards their emigrants matters a great deal to shaping their incentives. Third, we are going to analyze contextual factors in the receiving country. Accounting for immigrants’ position in the host-society will provide insight into the latter’s environment and its influential potential. Last, having in mind the joint impact of receiving and sending countries, as well as the particular characteristics of the individuals involved, we will form the research questions that will guide this thesis.
2.2 GREEK IMMIGRANTS IN THE NETHERLANDS Once known for its large-scale emigration, the Netherlands experienced successive waves of immigration since 1945 and transitioned thus to a country of destination for immigrants from the former Dutch East Indies, Surinam and the Antilles. In the 1960’s and early 1970’s “guest workers” were recruited in Southern Europe, Turkey and Morocco. During the long post-war growth, the demand for workers for unskilled jobs increased, while the supply of unskilled Dutch workers was decreasing. The shortage of unskilled labor was compensated by the inflow of Mediterranean workers. The Dutch government regulated the recruitment practices by bilateral agreements with several countries during the 1960’s. Workers were actively recruited or came spontaneously from countries like Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Yugoslavia (Rath 2009: 675 -678).
Following World War II, Greece became one of the main contributors of migrants to the industrialized nations of Northern Europe. The primary determinants behind the emigration flows were economic and political factors – such as extensive
unemployment and political persecution – both connected with the impact of the 1946 -1949 civil war and the 1967 -1974 period of military dictatorship rule. The majority
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of emigrants came from rural areas of Greece and they supplied both national and international labor markets. Of the estimated 638.000 emigrants to European
countries, the largest number – 83% - went to West Germany and the rest to Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom
(Kasimis et al.2012: 6-9).
The bilateral labor recruitment agreement between the Dutch and the Greek
governments was signed in 1966 and a massive immigration flow of Greek workers settled in the Netherlands. Apart from the official labor recruitment, many Greek immigrants, who had already settled in Belgium, decided to reach the Netherlands in search of better living and working conditions. According to official Dutch Statistics, 1556 Greeks were located in the Netherlands in 1963, 525 of whom came from Belgium. By and large, the majority of Greek immigrant workers arrived between 1962 and 1965. In 1966, when the bilateral agreement was put into effect, most recruitment agencies had already closed, and organized inflows ceased.
The average age group of emigrants who left Greece in the period 1955-1977 was 25-32 years. However, the number of children of 0-14 years who migrated rose over time in the context of family reunification. The majority of Greek emigrants worked in the primary sector, as small-scale farmers and farm-laborers. Some 20-25% came from secondary production, mainly construction or small-scale manufacturing, while only 10% worked in the tertiary sector (Kasimis et al. 2012: 9-10).
The first oil crises of 1973 caused economic uncertainty and a sharp decrease in the demand of labor. The Netherlands stopped the labor migrant recruiting and introduced more restrictive immigration policies. However, immigration from the recruitment countries, including Greece, continued as a chain migration, at first in the form of family reunification throughout the 1970’s and later on in the form of family formation in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Between 1982 and1983 the immigration flow stagnated, due to the deep recession of the Dutch economy after the second oil crisis in 1979. While the chain migration from Turkey and Morocco continued, the number of Greek immigrants did not grow much after the end of official recruitment.
The second wave of Greek emigration in the Netherlands was prompted by the financial crisis of 2008. According to official data, over 350.000 Greeks - or 3% of the population - emigrated between 2010 and 2013 (Source: ELSTAT). Almost
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270.000 of them were young people aged between 20 and 39. In the Netherlands, the numbers increased significantly during this period, from 7.343 first generation Greek emigrants in 2005 to 12.917 in 2014.3
In Greece, the intense economic recession and insecurity, which began in 2008, resulted in severe youth unemployment. In 2010 Greece had the highest
unemployment rate among graduates between 25 – 29 years old (15,6%) compared to all other OECD countries whose average was 6,3 %. 4In 2012 youth unemployment increased dramatically to 57%, while it slightly decreased to 48,3% in 2015. The most striking point was that, in the long run, having higher academic qualifications did not protect young Greeks against unemployment. In 2010, for example, 19,2% of
graduates were unemployed compared to 11,3% of those who had an upper secondary and post-secondary, non-tertiary education and 7% of those below upper secondary education.5
In order to pursue a better standard of living, higher wages and more security, leaving their homeland became their only option. Most of those who emigrate are
well-educated, highly-skilled, talented people with the potential of offering their homeland a great deal during a crucial time of unsteadiness. In 2015, the Guardian wrote: “Call them Generation G: young, talented Greek – and part of the biggest brain drain in an advanced Western economy in modern times”. 6
2.3 THE DUTCH CONTEXT
As already mentioned, the post-war economic growth in the Netherlands caused a labor shortage that forced the Dutch government to sign bilateral recruitment
agreements with several countries. The labor demand spurred thus massive inflows of low-skilled workers and – since the late 1980’s- refugees and asylum seekers. As a
3 http://statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?DM=SLEN&PA=37325eng&D1=a&D2=0&D3=0&D4 =0&D5=88&D6=0,4,9,14,17-18&HDR=G2,G1,G3,T&STB=G4,G5&VW=T 4 http://www.enet.gr/?i=news.el.article&id=374111 5 http://www.tovima.gr/finance/article/?aid=442692 6 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/19/young-talented-greek-generation-g-worlds-biggest-brain-drain
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result of these complex and protracted inflows, the Netherlands transited from a quite high level of ethnic homogeneity to a remarkable degree of diversity.
Dutch discourse on immigration and inclusion is historically characterized by three phases: 1) a pluralist phase or pillarization, in which immigrants’ integration was not at the top of the political agenda, 2) a period of “controlled integration”, during which policies applied to certain marginalized groups and 3) a “culturist” phase, in which structural inequalities were related to cultural factors.
Until the mid-1980’s, the main idea in political discourse was that the Netherlands was not and should not become an immigration country. Guest workers were considered to be sojourners, who were to return to their countries of origin, while long-term settlement was precluded. The Dutch authorities supported those who did not intend to stay, by showing tolerance towards different religious beliefs and by allowing them to create their own cultural institutions, as well as their own state-sponsored organizations for education and social welfare. The main objective was a smooth reintegration of labor migrants in their countries of origin. In this regard, “authorities stressed the importance for migrants ‘to sustain warm ties with the home country and keep their aspirations on their future possibilities in the country of origin alive” (Bouras:1224).
In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, the Dutch authorities realized that immigrants were going to stay and the permanent settlement of certain groups was acknowledged. The 1983 “Ethnic Minorities Policy” applied to certain segregated social groups and aimed at their integration. The relative report emphasized the equality of ethnic minorities to native Dutch in three domains. In the legal – political area, participation in the political realm was strengthened and voting rights for non-citizens at the local level were introduced, while naturalization procedures became easier. In the socio-economic domain, the measures were related to the labor market, education, housing and unemployment. Special training programs, voluntary agreements and laws were introduced to create more job positions for immigrants. Last, in the cultural domain, the report stressed that integration had to be a reciprocal process. Immigrants were allowed to create their own cultural, linguistic and religious institutions, but they had – as did the majority group -to acknowledge and respect the natives’ cultural and religious convictions.
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Despite the Dutch government’s efforts to promote immigrants’ successful
integration, by funding their organizations and encouraging them to maintain their own cultural identity, unemployment rates remained way above those of the native Dutch, while levels of educational performance continued to be low among immigrant children. Policy-makers realized that they had to abandon ethnic minorities or
multicultural policies and adopt more assimilationist measures. This ideological shift coincided with a shifted orientation towards self-sufficiency and responsibility, in regard to the welfare state. It was now individual’s duty, rather than state’s obligation, to successfully incorporate into the host society and reap its benefits. Immigrants’ transnational linkages with their country of origin, which had been tolerated and even promoted by the Dutch government, were now “problematized” and presented as a multi-dimensional threat that is, political, economic and cultural. Failed integration was attributed to immigrants’ choice and particularly their unwillingness to break off all ties with their home country. From this perspective, the Dutch government did not hold any responsibility and was thus legitimated to blame the “other”.
This change in the political domain, as well as in the public discourses, resulted in the implementation of the “Integration Policy”, which was introduced in 1994 and was based on the idea of “mainstreaming” – i.e. improving the inclusion of immigrants in mainstream services in order to move away from the ethno-specific provision
popularly associated with a policy of multiculturalism” (Vasta 2002: 717). The
rationale behind the new policy was that the Dutch government had been too generous in providing resources to facilitate integration, while immigrants had not taken the responsibility to discard their “old” cultural practices and identities and embrace thus the Dutch values and norms. Migrant organizations were now believed to hinder social mobility, since they came to be related to deprivation and low socio-economic progress in general. As a consequence, the Dutch state moved away from the
institutionalization of immigrants’ ties with their countries of origin, by cutting down on any additional expenditure, and introduced compulsory language courses,
sanctions and fines, in case newcomers failed to attend the programs.
From now on, immigrants’ integration was viewed as a one-sided procedure, since they were enforced to integrate into a national culture imagined as homogeneous and superior. According to Schinkel, the so-called “culturist” phase of the Dutch
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principle of culturalism - the idea that differences between people and groups are not biological or natural, but rather cultural – on its head that is, different cultures are incompatible and should decline in favor of the dominant ones. This argument
implies that the causes of discrimination and marginalization are rooted, not in crucial contextual factors, but rather in distinct cultural markers7. However, institutional responses and dominant discourses are essential. As long as integration policies do not take into account the differing needs of immigrants ranging from people with limited formal education to professionals, labor market participation and educational attainment remain low, pay differentials are still the case and sanctions deteriorate their situation, rather than improving it. This is where institutional racism lies; the discrepancy between assimilationist policies and their outcomes are ascribed, not to their insufficiency, but rather to immigrants’ ethnicity, cultural background or religion. As Ellie Vasta puts it, “institutional racism occurs when the power of the dominant group is sustained through its structures and institutions, such as laws, policies and program deliveries. If language courses and vocational programs are still failing after so many years then we would have to look at how racist practices and attitudes, usually not perceived as racist, are embedded in a society’s institutions and practices, hidden in everyday common-sense structures” (Vasta 2002: 729-730). Apart from immigration policies and measures, public debate and the media also play a significant role in reproducing negative stereotypes, with respect to ethnic
minorities. In 2000, the Dutch scholar Paul Scheffer implied that immigrants fail to integrate, due to the fact that the Dutch government had been excessively lavish. He stressed the need for a more restrictive institutional framework and he claimed that it was about time for immigrants to take their responsibilities. With his arguments, Scheffer influenced integration debates to a great extent. In 2002, Pim Fortuyn, a populist politician, called Islam a backward religion and he argued that the borders in the Netherlands should close. His murder in the same year resulted in even more inflammatory discourses. Migrants were now depicted as disloyal enemies, who did not respect the principles of liberal democracy. Matters escalated even further, when film-maker Theo van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death in 2004. He had recently completed a film about Muslim women and their experiences of domestic violence. His intention was to stress the incompatibility of the Koran with western democratic
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values. The latter incident resulted in the passage of a new integration bill – the “Bill for a new Integration Act” – which was introduced in 2005, and established the
coercive nature of the policies. Immigrants who did not comply with the relevant rules were now represented as a threat to social cohesion and public order, while their potentials for a successful integration appeared to depend solely on their own choice. In 2006, a new definition of integration was introduced, which juxtaposed the socio-cultural to the structural aspect of the latter. It described the process as “participation, which requires that all migrants learn the Dutch language and adopt the norms, values and forms of social conduct prevailing in our country” (SPC 2006:5). The fact that the content of this vague and abstract definition remained intact in later reports
reveals the legislator’s intention to keep pace with swings in public perceptions, rather that facilitate incorporation.
In conclusion, the very same state, once renowned for its radical, tolerant stance towards immigrants and their communities, has now adopted a tough, exclusionary rhetoric, implemented conservative policies and institutionalized racial
discrimination. The sudden turn from multicultural to assimilation policies in the second half of the 1990’s signaled a substantial ideological shift, i.e. the social
reconstruct of migration-related conceptualizations and, consequently, the reinvention of the social representations, in regard to ostensibly antithetical cultures. A significant aspect of this shift was the prevalence and establishment of individualism. If we do not account for the crisis of the post-war, regulated capitalism, which was related to the Keynesian fiscal and monetary policies, and the subsequent spread of
neo-liberalism during the 1980’s, we cannot comprehend the rationale behind this change. Because of this crisis, the migrant is now depicted as a passive welfare state client, while the government’s incentives, in disclaiming any responsibility, are mainly economic. They are not related to culture or ethnicity per se, but rather to social class.
2.4 THE GREEK CONTEXT
By reading the latter section, one could deduce that assimilation policies and discourses only apply to Muslim immigrants. However, as long as policies’ underlying objectives in the receiving country are primarily economic and public
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opinions are shaped accordingly, any foreigner with a low socio-economic background would be affected. We would expect therefore Greek immigrants,
especially those who settled in the Netherlands after the financial crisis of 2008, to be exposed to the same exclusionary rhetoric and thus more interested in keeping up with Greek politics. As already said though, immigrants’ motivations largely depend on the responses of their home-country as well. It would be quite of an important omission thus not to take into account the Greek government’s stance towards its emigrants. During the post-war period and up to the mid-‘70s most western European states encouraged immigration and regulated recruitment practices, in order to counter the shortage of cheap labor. Greece was amongst the countries that prompted organized emigration and signed bilateral agreements with several states. Increasing
unemployment after the end of the civil war in 1949, limited job opportunities, especially in the rural areas, as well as an ineffective welfare state resulted in shifted governmental policies towards emigrants. Up until then, the Greek authorities had adopted a strictly territorial conception of political community, which considered territorial residence as a prerequisite for participation and regarded expatriates as outsiders. The 1923 population exchange treaty between Greece and Turkey, which brought about the uprooting of millions of refugees after the defeat in Asia Minor, had imposed other priorities on Greek authorities, which undermined their efforts to engage in diaspora-related issues.
After World War II, the Greek government considered the labor demand in Western Europe as an opportunity to relieve pressure on domestic labor market and started encouraging outward migration, believing that this would be of a temporary character. During this period and up to 1977, the number of emigrants was approximately
1.300.000, almost as massive as that of the beginning of the century (Kasimis et al. 2012: 6). This emigration trend had several implications on Greek labor market. Alongside economic growth, an increase of labor wages occurred, especially in the secondary sector, but also labor shortage in agriculture and industry. In particular, “during the period 1963-1973, wages increased annually by 11.26%, which meant, that, considering that the increase in the cost of living was 3,85%, the real increase in wages was 7,41% annually” (Kasimis et al. 2012:12). As to remittances, which were mainly invested in the construction sector, it is estimated that they represented 4,9% of the Gross National Income in 1972 and 3,4% of the GDP in 1974 (Kassimati 1984:
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36). Apart from the reconstruction, especially in remote, rural regions, remittances also provided existing employment schemes with financial resources and influenced consumption patterns as well. Overall, from 1955 to 1982 Greek remittances
amounted to a total of 12.6 billion dollars. After 1982, they stopped playing such a significant role in the Greek economy.8
As long as the number of emigrants increased and the Greek authorities realized that they did not intend to return, they attempted to develop and sustain close ties with them. In order to establish control over their communities and their associations, they introduced several measures, in regard to their activities and organizational structure. 9 They founded a series of organizations, such as “Greek Houses” and Orthodox churches, funded and organized cultural events, regulated posts for labor attaches, appointed teachers and provided language courses for the children of emigrants. In order to secure the continuous flow of remittances, they offered tax reductions and relatively attractive interest rates on long-term currency deposits (Glytsos, Katseli 2005:354). Apart from labor contracts, the Greek government signed bilateral social security agreements, in order to safeguard expatriates’ social rights and to ensure that they would be treated equally with the native labor force.10 The main provisions, with regard to employment and insurance, included pension entitlements, compensation for work illness and work accident, family benefits and healthcare coverage. Yet, the Greek state did not manage to systematize these measures within a consistent institutional framework, while their often contradictory nature could not guarantee effective outcomes.
After the oil crisis of 1973 and the subsequent economic insecurity in the Western European countries, official recruitment practices stopped and many Greek emigrants either settled permanently in the destination countries or returned home. The Greek government attempted to improve their living and working conditions or facilitate their repatriation respectively. The political changeover in 1974, as well as Greece’s accession to EEC – European Economic Committee – in 1981 contributed to a shift in emigration policies. In regard to expatriates, the government was more interested in
8 Papagalani, Kalafatis 2004: 333-336
9 The Greek state sought to monitor its communities abroad, since most of them were opposed to
the then, Greek political regime – the military junta - during the 1967-1973period and constituted a significant political force, that could subvert the existing power relations.
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engaging with their problems due to their successful role in the overthrow of the military coup and the restoration of democracy. From 1981 onwards and up to the mid-‘90’s both PASOK and New Democracy governments focused on Greek language education for the children of emigrants. They founded Greek schools in several Western European countries, financed language classes and organized cultural events. Despite the fact that their objective was to familiarize children with the Greek culture, these initiatives were also criticized, since they were considered to hinder their integration into the host society and the local education system. As to the returnees, all bilateral agreements were replaced by the relevant regulations of the EEC, while special arrangements applied to those who were not eligible for pension in Greece, such as medical care coverage and social insurance. Moreover, special
maximum age limits for employees in the public sector were established and mortgages with favorable terms for the purchase of houses were provided. With respect to education of the returnees’ children, vocational training programs and special seminars were performed, special schools were created and measures were implemented to expedite entry into tertiary education. Nevertheless, these projects did not have the anticipated results. Dearth of information, limited coordination,
cumbersome and complex bureaucratic procedures, ill-equipped classrooms, lack of qualified teachers, as well as uninformed public sector agencies, had all impeded smooth reintegration and led to a rather insufficient support of returnees’ needs11. A decisive moment, with regard to government policy on emigrants and returnees, was the setting up in 1982 of a special official agency – the General Secretariat for Greeks Abroad - which constituted a system of representation for Greek migrants. The main goal was the creation of a government’s coordinating body for the implementation of state policy and the support of interests of the Greeks abroad. According to the official site, some of the primary objectives include “the
preservation of national and cultural identity in conjunction with the fostering of the Greek language, history and culture, the support of initiatives in the field of education and the support of national interests by way of strengthening the networks of Greeks
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abroad which act as bridges of friendship and cooperation between Greece and the countries of residence”12.
Despite the fact that the GSGA managed to register a large number of first- and second-stage organizations and associations13, difficulties arose due to “the existence of many regional or cultural associations which frequently had more members than the communities themselves” (Tziovas 2009: 128). State’s incompetence to develop a strategy towards successfully overcoming these barriers led to the creation of the World Council of Hellenism Abroad in 1989 (SAE), whose main goal was to “bring together the Greeks of the Diaspora creating a global network aimed at planning and materializing programs for the benefit of the Omogeneia14 to be subsequently conveyed to the Greek state thus fulfilling its role as an advisory and consultative body”15. SAE, as opposed to GSGA, put in effect the initial goals, i.e. formalized emigrants’ representation, and enjoyed broad political consent.
However, SAE did not manage to develop a democratic character, despite its strengthening role through the 2001 Greek Constitution. The fact that it entirely depended on the Greek state for funding, as well as the latter’s exclusionary practices, with respect to specific communities, resulted in quite ambiguous and contradictory outcomes. The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989 and the arrival of thousands of immigrants and refugees from the former socialist countries coincided with a period of ideological and political crisis in Greece, which resulted in heightened nationalism and a new perception of inclusion in the nation-state. “Certain political circles and some leaders of diaspora communities, still influenced by the nationalism and insecurity of earlier years, discovered “Greek populations” in the former socialist countries which, according to them, wanted to be linked with Greece. So the SAE was to function as the institutionalized link between these populations and the “national center” (Tziovas 2009:132).
The Greek state’s objectives in invoking “omogeneia”, which literally means
common descent and heritage, was to incorporate diaspora in the national community,
12 http://www.ggae.gr/frontoffice/portal.asp?cpage=NODE&cnode=16&clang=1
13 According to GSGA, first stage is related to national-local associations, second stage refers to
federations of communities and organizations that operate at state or national level of a country, and third stage is associated with confederations that operate internationally.
14 Non-citizen migrants of Greek descent
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develop networks, so as to attract investments, gain international support, enhance its status in the European Union, and mobilize communities abroad in support of the “national interest”. The changing meaning of belonging to the nation-state, the restructuring of the citizenship law, as well as the generous granting of Greek citizenship to certain groups required “re-activating ethnicising processes”16 and represented the desire to control emigrants’ political activities and re-engage those who had been neglected for decades. The re-conceptualization of the nation, which extends beyond the territorial jurisdiction of the state and transcends borders, is reflected in several terms, such as “worldwide Hellenism”, “ecumenical” and “diaspora”17 and is now deeply rooted in the Greek political culture, as well as in public perceptions.
During the 2000’s decade, the Greek right-wing governments of PASOK and New Democracy did not attempt to change the relevant institutional framework, regarding citizenship and migration, while they largely contributed to the reproduction of negative stereotypes and xenophobia. This may seem irrelevant to Greek emigrants and their ties’ potential transnationalization. However, it is not; the Greek state’s reluctance to move towards a more liberal definition of nationality, as well as its tendency to strictly adhere to jus sanguinis law, could also explain the neutral or indifferent stance towards Greek communities, which were not as well-established as their predecessors. To the extent that they sought to extend their political power beyond the territorial ambit, the governments needed to take advantage of the well-integrated “omogeneis” and utilize their lobbying potentials to their benefit. This means that they were more interested in channeling the wealth of the diaspora elites, rather than engaging with emigrants’ real problems. Inefficient, incoherent and short-term policies, as well as lack of active initiatives, such as the granting of external voting rights18, suggests that the Greek state never intended to place expatriates among top priorities.
During the last eight years of continuous recession, the Greek government remains dormant, despite the fact that at least 300.000 Greeks have abandoned the country. In
16 Βεντούρα:7
17 Besides the term “diaspora” is an Ancient Greek work and means dispersion or scattering.
Literally “dia” means “across” and “spora” comes from the verb “speiro”, which means “I sow”.
18 During the previous years, the Greek parties used to charter airplanes, in order to secure
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2015, the left-wing party of Syriza won the elections and replaced the right-wing party of New Democracy in the Greek Parliament. Syriza attempted to implement a new citizenship policy of mixed jus sanguinis and jus soli elements and made considerable efforts towards the reinstatement of the SAE. Nevertheless, these were undermined by the main opposition party, which retained a conservative ideology, in regard to migrants, and was more concerned to keep pace with the European Union’s neoliberal objectives. What is more, the new governments’ priorities were more related to high unemployment rates and poverty, rather than emigrants’ needs, despite the detrimental effects of their departure on the Greek economy. In 2016, the new leader of New Democracy submitted a draft bill regarding the right of expatriate Greek citizens to vote in the national elections of their country from abroad. However, it has still not been implemented.
In conclusion, from the late 1960’s to the early 2010’s Greek migration policies have been characterized by inconsistency and oriented towards fulfilling particular
interests, a fact that explains the Greek governments’ indifferent stance towards Greek expatriates. The Greek state has traditionally defined nation as an imagined
community of shared language, culture and history, in which all ethno-nationals – resident and external citizens – are included. Historically, subsuming even more categories of populations of “Greek descent” into the nation was not related to the improvement of their position in the receiving countries, but rather to
deterritorialising practices of sovereignty and the dominance of nationalist discourses. Insofar as emigrants are treated as outsiders, the state acts, as if it embraced a
territorial definition of citizenship. However, priority to economic objectives, the exclusion of immigrants, as well as the neutral attitude towards non-resident citizens suggest otherwise.
2.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Theory suggests that engagement with transnational politics is related to both exit and reception conditions, as well as migrants’ individual characteristics. Since we are more interested in the distinction between “old” and “new” immigrants in the Netherlands, i.e. those who settled before and during the financial crisis of 2008
