Political opportunity structures and transnational activism: The case of Iraqi Turkmen

This thesis offers an explanation on how immigrants mobilize in the political field across borders and questions how this mobilization interacts with the structural factors surrounding the immigrant communities with the case of Iraqi Turkmen living in Turkey. Dwelling on the transnationalism literature, the study aims at explaining that migrants engage with political activities at three different levels which are host country, home country and transnational space. Within this analytical framework, the study further addresses the kin state relation between Turkmen and the host country Turkey and questions the explanatory power of kin relations for transnationalism literature. The national and transnational contexts in which mobilization occurs offer opportunities and constraints for political actors. How wide or constrained these opportunity spaces, may determine the form, intensity level and success of the mobilization. Taking the political opportunity structures from social movements literature as the theoretical background, this study seeks an answer to the question of how opportunity spaces change in these three contexts over time and how this reflects over the mobilization patterns of Iraqi Turkmen. It tries to understand how these three opportunity structures interact and countervail each other while guiding the mobilization. It connects this discussion into the kin state relation between Turkey and Turkmen.