1) Bibliographic Data
Levitt, Peggy and Rafael de la Dehesa (2003) "Transnational Migration and the Redefinition of the State: Variations and Explanations”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, V.26- 4, July:587-611

2) Question(s) addressed by the author and working arguments
The authors seek to examine the shifting policies of sending country states towards communities living abroad, demonstrate the ways in which these are redefining the relationship between the state and its territorial boundaries, and highlights how these reconfigure conventional understandings of sovereignty, citizenship and membership. More and more states are creating economic, political, and social mechanisms that enable migrants to participate in the national development process over the long term and from afar.
The authors categorize a set of possible policies:(1)Ministerial or consular reforms, (2) investment policies which seek to attract or channel migrant remittances , (3) extension of political rights in the form of dual citizenship, dual nationality, the right to vote abroad, or to run to public office, (4) Extension of state protection or services abroad that go beyond traditional consular services (5) Implementation of symbolic policies deigned to reinforce immigrants’ sense of enduring membership

Some of the policies of sending states converge while others diverge Why?

i) Explanations for Convergence: Structural imperatives facing developing nations and the emergence of international norms
Developing nations need foreign exchange, so they implement policies seeking to attract and channel remittances. To keep emigrants in their court, as a way to ensure the continuance of these money flows, sending states implement policies such as burocratic reforms or the extension of voting rights
Developing nations also needs to bring relations with trade partners closer, and emigrant communities are potential ambassadors who can foster political and economic relations
New International norms have incorporated the idea of incorporation of emigrant communities as citizenships with rights and duties as a trend toward deeper democratization and as a natural outgrowth of globalization.

ii) Explanations for divergence: These factors are found in the national level
Economical costs of particular policies.
The political cost-benefit calculations for different kinds of political actors, such as Political Parties.
Ideological Profile of Political Parties.

3) Conceptual references to transnational-transnationalism
Transnational Public Sphere: The one which enables some emigrants to participate politically, socially and culturally in two polities

4) Conclusions or Final Remarks
The authors suggested that the different sort of policies that states implement might be attributed to the costliness of such policies and the capacity of states to cover such costs and to the intervening role of Political Parties, which also extend national political arenas to emigrant communities and can channel demands back home.
They also try to explore the ways in which institutional structures-specifically the state and the Political Parties- might encourage or perhaps impede the construction of a transnational public sphere which enables some emigrants to participate politically, socially and culturally in two polities. They conclude suggesting that emigrants respond to their institutional settings. In all cases studied, opportunities have given rise to, at least, an immigrant elite interested in participating in home countries politics. In cases where political parties are more active, participation seems to spread to the border community.