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Abstract
The introductory article to the special issue discusses how the extension of voting rights beyond citizenship (that is, to non-national immigrants) and residence (that is, to expatriates) can be interpreted in the light of democratization processes in both Western countries and in developing regions. It does so by inserting the globalization-specific extension of voting rights to immigrants and expatriates within the long-term series of historical waves of democratization. Does the current extension enhance democracy by granting de facto disenfranchised immigrants and emigrants political rights or does it jeopardize the very functioning of democracy by undermining its legitimacy through the removal of territorial and national boundaries? The article offers a synthesis of the findings of the volume's contributions in a broad comparative perspective covering both alien and external voting rights in Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. It shows that reforms toward more expansive electorates vary considerably and that their effects on the inclusion of migrants largely depend on the specific regulations and the socio-political context in which they operate.
Acknowledgements
For their inputs to this volume both during and after the workshop we wish to thank Jørgen Elklit (University of Aarhus), Pierre Garrone (European Commission for Democracy through Law, Strasbourg), and Jo Shaw (University of Edinburgh).
Funding
This special issue is the result of a workshop at the University of St Gallen (18–20 September 2013). We are grateful to the research programme “Global Democratic Governance” for funding the event.
Notes on contibutors
Daniele Caramani is Professor of Comparative Politics at the Department of Political Science, University of Zurich.
Florian Grotz is Professor of Comparative Government at the Institute of Political Science, Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg.
Notes
1. Bartolini, “Franchise Expansion.”
2. Grotz, “Age of Voting.”
3. On these broad processes of democratization coupled to the formation of the national state see Dahl, Polyarchy; Rokkan, State Formation, Nation-Building and Mass Democracy; Bendix, Nation-Building and Citizenship.
4. Citizenship implies that the right to vote is linked to rights and duties deriving from official membership in a group. Residence implies that the right to vote is linked to the site of work and taxation.
5. On the distinction between “membership” (ethnic) and “territorial” (civic-political) nations see Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood. Other variations include multinational states such as Spain and the United Kingdom (UK; or the Habsburg Empire until World War I), as well as multi-state arrangements such as the Commonwealth.
6. A similar pattern can be detected in the welfare state and its original focus on working-class men progressively extended to include women (under changing labour market conditions and family structures) and, more recently, to include entitlements for non-national immigrants and expatriates, in particular within the EU (on the changing “space of solidarity” see Ferrera, The Boundaries of Welfare).
7. Hammar, Democracy and the Nation State.
8. In contrast, multiple citizenship and different voting rights provision allow others to vote in more than one country.
9. Among others Bauböck, “Expansive Citizenship”; Bauböck, “Stakeholder Citizenship and Transnational Participation”; Beckmann, “Citizenship and Voting Rights”; López-Guerra, “Should Expatriates Vote?”; Nohlen and Grotz, “External Voting.”
10. See, in particular, Earnest, Old Nations, New Voters; Jacobs, “The Debate over Enfranchisement”; Lafleur, Transnational Politics and the State.
11. Collyer, “A Geography of Extra-Territorial Citizenship”; Collyer and Vathi, Patterns of Extra-territorial Voting.
12. Arrighi et al., Franchise and Electoral Participation of Third Country Citizens; Ellis et al., Voting from Abroad.
13. For a detailed country-by-country description of transnational voting rights see Ellis et al., Voting from Abroad.
14. We use the term “nationality laws” to refer in general to the maintenance and loss of citizenship, while we use the term “naturalization laws” more specifically to indicate the requirement and procedures leading to the acquisition of citizenship.
15. Notable exceptions include the United States (US) and some Latin American cases. See also Escobar, “Immigrant Enfranchisement in Latin America.”
16. For a discussion on the different “quality” of immigration, applied to Hispanic immigration in the US with respect to previous waves of immigration, see Huntington, Who Are We?
17. For an empirical analysis of the channels of nationality and electoral laws for the access to voting rights see Caramani and Strijbis, “Discrepant Electorates,” 7–9.
18. This typology is presented more systematically in Caramani and Strijbis, “Discrepant Electorates,” 6–7, but can be found already in Bauböck, “Expansive Citizenship,” 685.
19. See notes 1 and 3 above.
20. We define the demos as the group of citizens enjoying political rights, most notably excluding minors.
21. On the use of boundary-building and boundary-removal see Rokkan's models in the wave of Hirschman's pioneering volume, Exit, Voice and Loyalty, as well as the further elaborations by Caramani, The Nationalization of Politics in the frame of the nation-state, and Bartolini, Restructuring Europe, as applied to European integration.
22. Bauböck, “Morphing the Demos into the Right Shape.”
23. See the articles by Earnest, “The Enfranchisement of Resident Aliens”, and Escobar, “Immigrant Enfranchisement in Latin America.”
24. Lafleur, “The Enfranchisement of Citizens Abroad.”
25. See Hartmann, “Expatriates as Voters?”
26. Garrone, The Organisation of Elections beyond Territory and Membership.
27. The US phased out the franchise for “declarant aliens” in the 1920s. See Hayduk, Democracy for All.
28. Bauböck, “Stakeholder Citizenship,” 2402.
29. Przeworski and Teune, The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry.
30. Sørensen, “Globalization and the Nation-State.”
31. We do not include a discussion of the slave trade as a form of forced migration.
32. Andean Community (CAN) and MERCOSUR.
33. See Hartmann, “Expatriates as Voters?”
34. Hutcheson and Arrighi, “Keeping Pandora's (Ballot) Box Half-Shut.”
35. For the contrast between civic and ethnic nations in Europe see, as the main example, Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood.
36. Earnest, “The Enfranchisement of Resident Aliens.”
37. On the dimension of “regime support” see Lijphart, Democracies, 137.
38. Nationality and citizenship are also distinct categories in contexts of emigration. Emigrant citizens normally preserve their status as nationals but may lose their citizenship status.
39. By “nature” we mean the more or less permanent or temporary character of migrations, their demographic composition and geographical origin, the socio-economic status of migrants as well as the aims of migration (whether determined by political refuge, labour conditions, or religious persecution).
40. The degree of permanency has in turn an impact on the integration in the receiving countries and/or the maintenance of ties with sending countries, affecting factors such as commitment and attachment towards the political system and the membership group. On nationality law as a factor leading to voting rights see Caramani and Strijbis, “Discrepant Electorates.”
41. Bauböck, “Stakeholder Citizenship.”
42. Collyer and Vathi, Patterns of Extra-territorial Voting.
43. The type of migration also helps explain the absence of transnational voting rights in Central America, which is not only geopolitically more vulnerable as Escobar argues in her article, but also because of the transitional (non-permanent) nature of South–North migration across these countries aiming towards the US.
44. The distinction between citizenship and nationality in Latin America is influenced by the Constitution of Cadiz of 1812 in Spain. The distinction between demos and nation leads more easily to the enfranchisement of foreigners.
45. Huntington, The Third Wave.
46. See Lafleur, “The Enfranchisement of Citizens Abroad.” Cf. Rhodes and Harutyunyan, “Extending Citizenship to Emigrants.”
47. Lafleur, Transnational Politics and the State.
48. See Hartmann, “Expatriates as Voters?”
49. We do not include in this discussion a further dimension of implementation that involves the willingness of countries to accept or tolerate electoral campaigns and voting procedures from a foreign country and thus to be treated as an electoral constituency of that country – especially when such campaigns entail a risk of violent activity.
50. Following Ellis et al., Voting from Abroad, Hartmann does not regard in-country voting as a form of external voting while Hutcheson and Arrighi include it in their typology of external voting forms.
51. To this difficulty one should add the ones related to state infrastructure, and literacy levels and living conditions of emigrants (especially in relation to the legal status of refugees) as mentioned above, or when registration involves a personal risk because of inter-ethnic conflict.
52. Spiro, “Perfecting Political Diaspora.”
53. Cf. Hammar, Democracy and the Nation State.
54. Dahl, On Democracy, 128.
55. The terminology stems again from Dahl, On Democracy, 128.