(Post) Colonial Transnational Actors and Homeland Political Development: The Case of Surinam

The political development of many migrants’ homelands is interwoven with (post) colonial history. Typically, colonialism created political structures that saw elites of colonized societies educated in the metropole (see for the Netherlands-Surinam Sedoc-Dahlberg, 1971; Mohogu, 2000 for Belgium-Congo). In response to political and economic instability at home and prospects for socioeconomic progress in the former metropole, migration of groups other than elites continued after independence (see Kagné, 2000; Gowricharn & Schüster, 2001). Although it is widely accepted that such push and pull factors affect emigration and return migration motives, little empirical research has focused on the consequences of postcolonial migration for the political development of the homeland itself.