Moving Forward and Voting Back? Out-Of-Country Voting, Return and Diasporic Electoral Engagement

Citizen participation in government processes becomes complicated with geographical distance. However, out-of-country voting (OCV) has offered countless millions of citizens around the world the chance to maintain institutional ties to their countries of origin. In an era of migration and dual residence and/or nationality, there are more out-of-country voters than ever before, many of whom will not necessarily “return” in the traditional sense. This paper examines opinions of Lebanese living abroad to ascertain if and how their country of residence influences their decision to participate in Lebanese parliamentary elections.