The Inclusion Paradox of Enfranchising Expats in Latin America

Abstract

Enfranchising emigrants implicitly involves inviting them to have a voice and increasing engagement in home politics, thus maintaining active membership of their nation of origin. However, in the Latin American Southern Cone (as well as in several other countries in the region), both state policies and expats' responses have fallen short of making that invitation effective. What explains this inclusion paradox? Why, while franchise is expanding has effective political inclusion of citizens living abroad not materialized? This article addresses these questions for the cases of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. Conclusions highlight relatively unexplored explanatory factors and enhance our understanding of the links between migration policy innovation and political inclusion beyond borders in some of the least studied cases in the literature.

Political Regimes and External Voting Rights: A Cross-National Comparison

“…Currently, Venezuela is the biggest sending country in South America (Acosta et al, 2019). Meanwhile, Uruguay has a significant share of its population abroad (Margheritis, 2017;Altman, 2020). Therefore, the four country cases allow us to unpack mechanisms for their counterintuitive behavior (see Table 2)-namely, to explain their deviant outcomes.…”

“…In the second case of liberal democracy withholding external voting rights, proposals to grant such rights to nonresident Uruguayans were debated in Parliament and the public sphere several times (Margheritis, 2017). In 2007, a law project to bestow this franchise was voted in the parliament, led by the then ruling coalition Broad Front (Frente Amplio).…”

“…A new proposal was outlined in 2015 but laid dormant in the Uruguayan Parliament (Margheritis, 2017). Owing to the leadership of the Broad Front, in 2018, Law 19.654 passed, which provided a route for the estimated 10.7% of Uruguayans who reside abroad to vote in homeland elections (Altman, 2020); it also created an electoral commission to lead regulation in the near future (Carreño, 2020).…”

Diaspora Policies, Consular Services and Social Protection for Argentine Citizens Abroad

“…In the context of democratization, it was then seen as a 'reparatory' measure towards those political exiles who left the country during the dictatorship, rather than an engagement policy. It has indeed generated limited engagement as voter registration and voting have remained relatively low (Margheritis 2017a). Standing as candidates is not an option for nationals abroad.…”

Argentinos en el Exterior: desafíos actuales de su inclusión política en el país de origen

“…En particular, la extensión del voto a los ciudadanos en el exterior ha seguido una trayectoria compleja y ha alcanzado diferentes grados de institucionalización en países del cono sur de América Latina como, por ejemplo, Uruguay, Brasil y Argentina (Escobar 2007;Margheritis 2017b). Además, siguiendo otra tendencia generalizada, la participación electoral de los emigrantes continúa siendo relativamente baja en tanto porcentaje del total de emigrantes, lo cual alienta interrogantes acerca de los factores que moldean las prácticas políticas a nivel transnacional.…”