Political incorporation and transnationalism: A study of South Asian immigrants in the United States

This dissertation studies the political incorporation process of South Asian immigrants. The dominant paradigms of immigrant and minority political incorporation have been shaped by the experiences of European immigrants and African Americans at different points of U.S. history. The extensive study of these groups led to the development of two contrasting models of political incorporation: the pluralist model and the minority group model. These two models have greatly influenced the subsequent studies of immigrant and minority political incorporation.;This study questions both models of political incorporation and argues that the centrality accorded to ethnic and/or racial mobilization by these two models fail to explain the political incorporation trajectory of groups such as South Asians. Neither the ethnic mobilization of the kind experienced by European immigrants nor the grassroots mobilization undertaken by African Americans on the basis of a common racial identity explains the political incorporation experiences of South Asian immigrants. This study argues that internal distinctions such as class, religion, and country of origin play significant roles in shaping the political participation and mobilization patterns among South Asians. The new model of political incorporation requires going beyond the frameworks which exclusively emphasize ethnic and /or racial mobilization at the cost of including internal distinctions into the analysis. This dissertation further argues that political incorporation of South Asians relies primarily on a selective elite mobilization which is largely bereft of racial and ethnic identities based mass mobilizations prescribed by both the dominant models.;Finally, the study moves beyond existing models of political incorporation by giving centrality to transnational attachments in analyzing the political incorporation patterns and points to the possible transnational dimensions of citizenship among immigrant communities.