Defending popular sovereignty: discursive conflict in French and Swedish parliamentary debates on immigrant voting rights (1968-2017)

Abstract

Through a discourse analysis of French and Swedish legislative debates from 1968 to 2017, this article examines how actors challenge and reinforce dominant ideas about the link between nationality and political rights. We argue that the broader political culture influences which discursive strategiesor 'frames'are more likely to structure parliamentary debates in different national contexts. However, our analysis also shows that legislators sometimes develop new discursive frames in which they reinterpret dominant norms to make them consistent with their views. Through this incremental process of reinterpretation and reformulation of dominant ideas, debates over noncitizen voting rights have chipped away at the link between nationality and political rights. Our findings suggest that initiatives to enfranchise non-citizens trigger lower levels of conflict when they can be framed as a policy tool for immigrant integration rather than as a matter of popular sovereignty.

‘When do states give voting rights to non-citizens? The role of population, policy, and politics on the timing of enfranchisement reforms in liberal democracies’

“…We then move to discuss the role of immigration policy regimes and consider the role of political partisanship on non-citizen enfranchisement. Next, while the effect of partisanship on non-citizen enfranchisement has been widely studied, the findings from earlier studies remain mixed which calls for further research attention (Stutzer and Slotwinski 2019;Toral 2015;Goenaga 2019). Distinct from existing work, we argue and empirically test whether partisanship and policy regime effects are mitigated by the actual share of the foreign-born population in the country.…”

“…Third, although there has been a great deal of research on the relevance of political partisanship on non-citizen enfranchisement (Goenaga 2019;Jacobs 1998;Pedroza 2019;Toral 2015), there is little theoretical discussion of how such partisanship effects may be different in the short vs. long run and may be distinct in different demographic conditions. In line with a dynamic approach to the study of politics of non-citizen enfranchisement (Pedroza 2019), we add to existing work by revealing that partisanship effects develop over time in advancing or obstructing the timing of enfranchisement.…”

“…Thus, if foreign-born residents make up a large share of the host population, civil society organisations and immigrant groups promoting political rights for non-citizens may have stronger influence on political actors given higher stakes and more support they can mobilise (Jacobs 1999). For instance, such dynamics have played a great deal of role in advancement of enfranchisement reforms in the Netherlands and Sweden (Seidle 2015;Goenaga 2019;Jacobs 1998).…”

“…Still, it is well-documented that left-wing parties adopt more inclusive positions on immigration policies and immigrant rights. They approach legislative debates on non-citizen enfranchisement through positive frames of integration, inclusiveness, fairness, and equality (Goenaga 2019). In addition, from an electoral gain perspective, enfranchising non-citizens can indeed boost the electoral potential of the left-wing parties since voters with an immigration background tend to vote left-wing (Bergh and Bjorklund 2011).…”

“…Moving to the other end of the political spectrum, evidence from various European cases reveal that in the context of non-citizen enfranchisement right-wing parties obstruct rather than facilitate the debates over these reforms (Goenaga 2019;Jacobs 1999;Jacobs 1998;Howard 2010). Instead of engaging positively to gain foreign-born voters, rightwing political parties often take a tougher stance on immigrant policies signalling nativism targeted to improving their electoral potential within native voters (Downes and Loveless 2018).…”