Federal Structure and Party Politics as Simultaneous Opportunity and Constraint: Transnational Political Engagement of overseas Americans

This chapter examines the differential inclusion of overseas Americans in the American polity; overseas Americans are included, and vote, as individual citizens in all primary and general elections but are recognized as a distinct overseas constituency only in the Democrats Abroad Global Primary. Constitutional, federal and state law shapes this differential American inclusion. The right to vote was extended on the basis of a constitutional right to electoral equality. On the other hand, an overseas constituency in which US citizens voted for dedicated representatives would be possible only with a constitutional amendment. In a state with a strong sense of itself as an immigration country, and not as a state with a diaspora identity, such an amendment is unlikely. The contestation of the profile of the overseas American population feeds into this discussion. Party-led inclusion is the strongest way in which overseas US citizens can be included as a distinct constituency.