This study has investigated the transnational political participation of Surinamese, Turkish and Kurdish migrants and their descendents in the Netherlands over a period of roughly 50 years. Drawing on a variety of methods and both primary qualitative and secondary quantitative data, it has analysed transnational politics in the homelands as well as in the country of residence. By focusing on transnational activities and especially ties, it has sought to provide an in-depth view of the mechanisms and larger structures of migrant transnational politics on the individual, collective and state levels.

Three lines of inquiry guided the study. First, what explains the emergence and development of transnational migrant politics? Second, how has transnational political participation evolved over time, particularly in light of globalised communications and the coming of age of a second generation in countries of settlement? Third, how does migrants’ political integration in receiving societies impact on political transnationalism and vice versa?

The introduction distinguished between five types and one sub-type of transnational politics: homeland-directed, diaspora, transplanted homeland, transplanted immigrant, country of residence-directed and locally specific transnational politics. I expected these activities to be channelled through ties between actors in the country of origin and the country of residence, between migrants from the same country settled in different countries and ties based on ethnicity independent of the country of origin.

The introduction further introduced three phases of the immigrant settlement process as formulated by Vermeulen (2006). The first phase is a period of adjustment; the second is a time of increased adaptation. In the third phase, migrants become permanent residents. Of course migrant groups cannot be so neatly placed; individual migration continues, while political refugees arrived later than colonial, post-colonial and labour migrants. Nevertheless, these later arrivals could draw on the organisational networks created by earlier immigrants. As heuristic shorthand, then, these phases can be applied to the large-scale settlement process of migrants from Surinam and Turkey to the Netherlands.

As Surinamese arrived a little earlier than Turks and Kurds, phase one roughly stretches from the 1950s to 1975. This period covers both the arrival of colonial students from Surinam and the recruitment of labour from Turkey.