A multilevel puzzle: Migrants’ voting rights in national and local elections

Abstract

How does international migration impact the composition of the demos? Constitutional doctrines and democratic theories suggest contrasting responses: an insular one excludes both non‐citizen immigrants and citizen‐emigrants; a deterritorialised one includes all citizens wherever they reside; a postnational one includes all residents and only these. This article argues that none of these predicted responses represents the dominant pattern of democratic adaptation, which is instead a level‐specific expansion of the national franchise to include non‐resident citizens and of the local franchise to include non‐citizen residents. This is demonstrated by analysing an original dataset on voting rights in 31 European and 22 American countries, and outlining a level‐sensitive normative theory of citizenship that provides support for this pattern as well as a critical benchmark for current franchise policies. The findings can be summarised in two inductive generalisations: (1) Voting rights today no longer depend on residence at the national level and on citizenship of the respective state at the local level; (2) Voting rights do, however, generally depend on citizenship of the respective state at the national level and on residence at the local level. In the article, these are called the patterns of franchise ‘expansion’ and ‘containment’. The former supports the idea of widespread level‐specific expansion of the franchise and refutes the insular view of the demos. The latter signals corresponding level‐specific restrictions, which defeats over‐generalised versions of deterritorialised or postnational conceptions of the demos. In order to test how robust this finding is, cases are analysed where the dominant patterns of expansion have been resisted and where unexpected expansion has occurred. With regard to the former, the article identifies constitutional and political obstacles to voting rights expansion in particular countries. With regard to the latter, the article shows that even where national voting rights have been extended to non‐citizen residents, containment remains strong through indirect links to citizenship.

Suppressing transnationalism: bringing constraints into the study of transnational political action

“…Origin-country liberalization presents further political opportunities for immigrant TPA, as when states undergo transitions to democracy and extend political rights to the diaspora (Bauböck, 2003;Brand, 2014;Collyer, 2014). Origin-country governments cultivate long-distance ties to project their presence internationally and encourage financial remittances from their diasporas (Gamlen, 2008;Gamlen, Cummings, & Vaaler, 2017), which has led to the recent growth of policies promoting dual citizenship and out-of-country voting (Arrighi & Bauböck, 2016). After decades of autocratic rule in the Dominican Republic, for instance, democratization led to the expansion of political membership to the diaspora and to high rates of electoral participation by emigrants (Itzigsohn & Villacrés, 2008;Lafleur, 2013;Levitt, 2001).…”

Voting here and there: political integration and transnational political engagement among immigrants in Europe

“…Borrowing from the social movements literature (McAdam et al 1996), scholars often see the overall context in which transnational political engagement occurs as constituting a political opportunity structure (Kastoryano and Schader 2014;Morales and Pilati 2014). Political opportunity structures refer here to the relative openness or restrictiveness of national and local policies associated with residency, citizenship, integration policies and access to electoral and civic participation (Arrighi and Bauböck 2016;Bauböck 2003;Morales and Giugni 2011). Thus, the overall inclusive or restrictive nature of the receiving society's political opportunity structure may influence immigrants' propensity to participate in the political activities of the receiving and/or sending country (Boccagni et al 2015;Koopmans et al 2005).…”

European ruling parties’ electoral strategies and overseas enfranchisement policies

“…A fast‐growing literature (Arrighi & Bauböck ; Bekoe & Burchard ; Collyer & Vathi ; Escobar et al. ; Gamlen ) explores the enfranchisement of overseas nationals and what motivates ruling parties to include expatriate citizens in domestic elections.…”