Linking Remittances and Microfinance for Financial Inclusion? Transnational Governance-Initiatives of State and Non-State Actors in the US-Mexican Context

Ursula Stiegler

Abstract:

The presentation gives an insight in the PhD-Project with the working title “Linking Remittances and Microfinance for Financial Inclusion? Transnational Governance-Initiatives of State and Non-State Actors in the US-Mexican Context” realized in Political Science in the International Research Training Group “Between Spaces”. Next to the methodological and theoretical approaches, especially the empirical part of the project will be addressed. The dissertation analyzes governance initiatives linking remittances with microfinance that may potentially contribute to financial inclusion and that are undertaken by different types of actors – both state and non-state actors – in a variety of transnational actor constellations. All of the selected cases are (networks of) microfinance institutions located in Mexico cooperating with money transfer operators (MTOs) and financial institutions in the United States in order to channel remittances. The talk focuses on the presentation of the empirical cases and their comparison, as a first step towards the analysis of the role of their different main actors, especially the role of the state.