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ABSTRACT
When are emigrants really enfranchised? Lengthy lags exist between some reforms that de jure introduced external voting and their application. In the blooming literature on emigrant enfranchisement, these lags remain unexplained. We argue that this hampers our understanding of enfranchisement processes as having different legal and political stages. With data on Latin American and Caribbean states since 1965 until the present, we investigate why some states in this region have delayed the regulation and application of external franchise while others have implemented it right after enactment. We propose hypotheses to understand these reforms as episodes marked by different contexts, engineered by different agent coalitions and embedded into larger processes of political change. In particular, we suggest that enfranchisement processes are composed of three stages: enactment, regulation, and first application. Our findings suggest that the process of adoption of external voting is shaped by the legal mechanism of enactment and the stability of political coalitions.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Caramani and Grotz, “Beyond Citizenship and Residence?” 779.
2 Beckman, “Who Should Vote?”
3 Beckman.
4 Caramani and Grotz, “Beyond Citizenship and Residence?”
5 Rhodes and Harutyunyan, “Extending Citizenship to Emigrants,” 488.
6 We look at the legal completeness of enfranchisement as policy output. This is not to be equated to the typical understanding of implementation, referring to how a policy output/law is applied or the fit of an organizational setting for its application Hjern and Hull, “Implementation Research as Empirical Constitutionalism”; Matland, “Synthesizing the Implementation Literature.”.
7 Turcu, “Reactive Limits to Diaspora Enfranchisement Policies.”
8 Emmerich and Carrera Barroso, “Sufragio Transnacional: Votantes Argnetinos, Ecuatorianos, Peruanos y Venezolanos En México, 2011–2013”; Caramani and Grotz, “Beyond Citizenship and Residence?”
9 Clemens, “Toward a Historicized Sociology.”
10 Sabatier, “Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches to Implementation Research.”
11 Tilly, “Mechanisms in Political Processes,” 26.
12 Beckman 2008.
13 Abbott, “Event Sequence and Event Duration: Colligation and Measurement,” 196.
14 King, Cornwall, and Dahlin, “Winning Woman Suffrage One Step at a Time: Social Movements and the Logic of the Legislative Process.”
15 Pedroza, “Citizenship before Nationality,” 20.
16 Dzehtsiarou, “Prisoner Voting Saga. Reasons for Challenges.”
17 The larger literature on suffrage extensions hypothesized all kinds of causes from structural conditions based on political economy theories Sokoloff and Engerman, “The Evolution of Suffrage Institutions in the New World.”, to power constellations modelled as games Jack and Lagunoff, “Dynamic Enfranchisement.”, or contestation threats in declining legitimacy regimes Acemoglu and Robinson, “Why Did the West Extend the Franchise?”. These standard theories to explain extensions of the franchise have been supplemented by explanations that not necessarily rest on the insurrectionary potential of the disenfranchised population, as this factor makes little sense for small groups that do not pose a great threat to regime viability Lizzeri and Persico, “Why Did the Elites Extend the Suffrage?.”. Still, irrespective of the causal mechanism considered, all these theories assume enfranchisement is a single moment event. Przeworski’s historical analysis of suffrage extensions is an exception, as he distinguished the enactment from the implementation of suffrage, but he did not theorize this gap “Conquered or Granted? A History of Suffrage Extensions,” 319., much like the non-resident enfranchisement literature did away with the issue.
18 Erlingsson and Tuman, “External Voting Rights in Latin America and the Caribbean.”
19 Rhodes and Harutyunyan, “Extending Citizenship to Emigrants.”
20 López-Guerra, “Should Expatriates Vote?”
21 Lafleur, “The Enfranchisement of Citizens Abroad.”
22 Rubio-Marin, “Transnational Politics and the Democratic Nation-State”; Bauböck, “Stakeholder Citizenship and Transnational Political Participation”; López-Guerra, “Should Expatriates Vote?”; Pogonyi, “Four Patterns of Non-Resident Voting Rights.”
23 Nohlen and Grotz, “External Voting: Legal Framework and Overview of Electoral Legislation,” 1123.
24 Calderón Chelius, “Votar En La Distancia, Experiencia de Una Ciudadanía En Movimiento,” 41–3.
25 “Extraterritorial Political Rights and Dual Citizenship in Latin America,” 58.
26 “The Enfranchisement of Citizens Abroad,” 850.
27 Hartmann, “Expatriates as Voters?”
28 “Event Sequence and Event Duration: Colligation and Measurement,” 196.
29 For example, Rhodes and Harutyunyan, “Extending Citizenship to Emigrants.”
30 Hutcheson and Arrighi, “‘Keeping Pandora’s (Ballot) Box Half-Shut’”; see Turcu, “Reactive Limits to Diaspora Enfranchisement Policies” for re-regulation.
31 Hinojosa et al., “Surgimiento y desarrollo del voto en el exterior" en el proceso de cambio boliviano.”
32 Schmitter and Karl, “What Democracy Is. . . and Is Not.”
33 This venue of research could be related to Lizzeri and Persico (2004)’s exploration of two mechanisms: 1. via referendum or 2. via parties who propose reform. As those mechanisms are not exactly of the same kind, we propose to sharpen the lens on the legal procedure.
34 Breuer, “Policymaking by Referendum in Presidential Systems”; Breuer, “Institutions of Direct Democracy and Accountability in Latin America’s Presidential Democracies”; Altman, Direct Democracy Worldwide.
35 There are different types of referendums see for instance Hug, “Occurrence and Policy Consequences of Referendums.” For hypothesis H2a we refer only to those that are mandatory for adopting external voting and the result of which is binding.
36 Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation; Elkins, Ginsburg, and Melton, The Endurance of National Constitutions.
37 Thornhill, A Sociology of Constitutions.
38 Parisi et al., “The Value of Waiting in Lawmaking.”
39 Lafleur, “Why Do States Enfranchise Citizens Abroad?”; Collyer, “A Geography of Extra-Territorial Citizenship”; Hutcheson and Arrighi, “‘Keeping Pandora’s (Ballot) Box Half-Shut.’”
40 Gerring, “Case Selection for Case-Study Analysis.”
41 Marshall and Gurr, “Polity IV Regime Trends: Argentina, 1946–2013.”
42 Calderón Chelius, “Votar En La Distancia, Experiencia de Una Ciudadanía En Movimiento,” 57–9.
43 Chávez Ramos, “La Experiencia Argentina Del Voto En El Exterior: Los Ciudadanos Migrantes,” 72.
44 Texidó, “Perfil Migratorio de Argentina - Informe Final,” 8.
45 World Bank data for this period confirms this, revealing a tepid descent of net migration of 139,999 in 1982 to 29,999 in 1992 Banco Mundial, “Migración Neta | Data.”.
46 Banco Mundial.
47 Emmerich, “El Sufragio Transnacional En Argentina: Problemas y Posibilidades.”
48 Torrico, “Bolivia”; Mayorga, “La Crisis Del Sistema de Partidos Políticos: Causas y Consecuencias. Caso Bolivia.”
49 In 2005, the Corte Superior de Justicia de La Paz accepted an appeal of Bolivians residents in Argentina and mandated the national legislature to enact a law to regulate external voting. This intent of regulating the external voting provisions contained in the electoral code did not succeed Hinojosa, Domenech, and Lafleur, “Surgimiento y Desarrollo Del" Voto En El Exterior" En El" Proceso de Cambio" Boliviano.”.
50 Hinojosa, Domenech, and Lafleur, 49.
51 Hinojosa, Domenech, and Lafleur, “Surgimiento y Desarrollo Del" Voto En El Exterior" En El" Proceso de Cambio" Boliviano.”
52 Secretaría General de la Comunidad Andina, “Informe Anual 2012: Estadísticas de Remesas En La Comunidad Andina.”
53 This represents a significant increase in comparison with the early 2000 when remittances represented less than 2 points of Bolivian GDP.
54 Art. 47 Law N° 4021.
55 González Martín, “Comentarios Al Artículo 36 Constitucional: Especial Referencia Al Derecho Al Voto Del Mexicano En El Extranjero,” 36.
56 Merino, “México: La Transición Votada.”
57 Adida and Girod, “Do Migrants Improve Their Hometowns?”; Durand et al., “Migradollars and Development.”
58 “A Brincos y Sombrerazos: La Gestión Política Del Voto Mexicano En El Extranjero En La Cámara de Diputados,” 153.
59 Though it might be tempting to assume that given a relatively poor diaspora with a lower-skill composition the PRD was simply gauging electoral gains, the work of several researchers shows that the political preferences of the Mexican emigrants are not that easily explained, though there is clearly an anti-PRI drive Paarlberg, “Diaspora Outreach by Latin American Parties”; Meseguer and Burgess, “International Migration and Home Country Politics.”. In general, the rates of electoral participation by Mexican emigrants have been extremely low due to technical hurdles to exercise the vote.
60 Schedler, “Distrust Breeds Bureaucracy.”
61 “Taming the Diaspora: Migrants and the State, 1986–2006.”
62 Lafleur, “Why Do States Enfranchise Citizens Abroad?”
63 The breadth of the originally approved provisions is stunning. Some of these would only be paralleled by the recent reform of 2014 (for example, the possibility of getting a voter ID- necessary for voting--issued abroad) and others remain controversial until today (for example, the possibility of campaigning abroad).
64 Becerril, “Deber de Los Senadores, Garantizar Voto Libre y Secreto En El Exterior: Bartlett.”
65 IFE, “Informe Voto de Los Mexicanos En El Exterior 2006 Tomo I Capítulo 1.”
66 Cerna Villagra, “La Senda Del Outsider: Factores Que Explican La Emergencia de Candidatos Exógenos Al Sistema de Partidos En Perú y Paraguay.”
67 We could not find comparable data on remittances in Peru during the adoption period, 1979–1980.
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Pau Palop-García
Pau Palop-García is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Latin American Studies at the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies. His research focuses on the comparative study of migration policies and on the political representation of non-resident citizens in states of origin. Among others, he has published in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies and Citizenship Studies.
Luicy Pedroza
Luicy Pedroza is a Research Fellow at the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Institute of Latin American Studies. At GIGA, Pedroza is speaker of the Research Team “Democratic Institutions” and leads a research project entitled “Every Immigrant is an Emigrant: How Migration Policies Shape the Paths to Integration”, financed by the Leibniz Gemeinschaft Competition, which will gather data on policies regarding immigration, emigration; immigrant and emigrant policies; and policies of access to/retention of citizenship across 30 countries in three regions of the world. Pedroza received her PhD in Political Science from the University of Bremen in 2012. Her research focuses on the dilemmas of liberal democracies regarding the political participation rights of migrants (both immigrants and emigrants) with a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective – at the crossroads of political sociology, political theory and political science. She serves as coordinator of the IMISCOE Standing Committee on Migration, Citizenship and Political Participation (MIGCITPOL).