Abstract
In this article I criticize, first, democratic inclusion principles that are indeterminate with regard to democratic boundaries and indifferent towards the structural features of polities. I suggest that a democratic stakeholder principle passes these critical tests and can be applied to democratic polities of different kinds. Second, I compare birthright-based and residence-based membership regimes at state and local levels and consider how they can accommodate international migrants. Third, I argue that these two regimes are not freestanding alternatives between which democratic polities have to choose, but are combined in a multilevel architecture of democratic citizenship, in which the inclusion and exclusion dynamics of birthright and residence mutually constrain each other and every individual is included as a citizen in both types of polities.
Acknowledgements
I have received many useful comments on drafts from the editors and reviewers, as well as from Veit Bader, Irene Bloemraad, Raul Magni-Berton, Takeshi Miyai, and David Owen, not all of which I could take into account in the final version.
Notes on contributor
Rainer Bauböck is Professor of Social and Political Theory at the European University Institute, Florence.
Notes
1. Exceptions in the normative literature include Bauböck, “Expansive Citizenship”; and Owen, “Resident Aliens.”
2. An exception is Koenig-Archibugi, “Fuzzy Citizenship,” who proposes allocating legislative seats to representatives of non-citizen non-residents in relation to the resource-based power of states to affect the interests of outsiders.
3. Horizontal recognition between citizens can determine a citizenry in situations such as authoritarian rule or foreign occupation where political authorities do not represent citizens striving for self-government. In such contexts it may be more appropriate to speak of a “democratic people” instead of a “citizenry.”
4. Dahl, Democracy and its Critics, Chapter 9.
5. Jellinek, Allgemeine Staatslehre.
6. For major contributions see Dahl, Democracy and its Critics; Goodin, “Enfranchising All Affected Interests”; Näsström, “Legitimacy”; Abizadeh, “Democratic Theory”; Owen, “Constituting the Polity”; and Song, “Boundary Problem.”
7. Bauböck, “The Rights and Duties.”
8. Shapiro, “Democratic Theory,” 244.
9. Näsström, “Legitimacy,” 664.
10. Goodin, “Enfranchising All Affected Interests.”
11. Abizadeh, “Democratic Theory”; Song, “Democracy and Noncitizen Voting Rights.”
12. Cf. Scharpf, Governing in Europe.
13. Rawls, Theory of Justice, 126–8.
14. Koenig-Archibugi, “Fuzzy Citizenship,” considers also ephemeral aggregations of political actors at global level as demoi if they are formed to bring about a certain decision or global governance regime. Such a functional conception of the demos will be much less concerned about boundary instability than the substantive conception I defend.
15. Goodin, “Enfranchising All Affected Interests,” 55.
16. This argument is indebted to Owen, “Constituting the Polity,” according to whom AAI can be coherently applied to actually rather than potentially affected interests and serves primarily for specifying the scope of a duty of justification.
17. Pettit, Republicanism.
18. For example, Miller, On Nationality; and Kymlicka, Politics in the Vernacular.
19. Some authors defend that every territorial association of citizens has the right to secede, if it gets support from a majority of the residents in the territory that it claims and if it allows any other association inside this territory to secede on the same terms. See for instance Beran, “A Democratic Theory.” Such a plebiscitary principle of self-determination is not circular in the same way as output-based principles are and is, arguably, procedural rather than substantial, which undermines the critique of Song, “Boundary Problem,” that procedural principles cannot resolve the boundary paradox.
20. Cf. Bauböck, “Expansive Citizenship”; Bauböck, “Stakeholder Citizenship”; and Bauböck, “The Rights and Duties.”
21. As explained above, I distinguish political from pre-political principles based on their conception of political community and not as Owen, “Constituting the Polity,” does, as stages in a process of constituting the demos.
22. Discussing emigrants’ claims to voting rights, Honohan (‘Should Irish Emigrants have Votes’) combines ASC with a stakeholder principle when she proposes that “[t]he demos should consist of those whose lives are interdependent in their subjection to a common authority, and [who, sic!] have shared future interests” (558).
23. My emphases on the link between individual and collective self-government and on stability conditions for the latter are republican in origin and spirit. Nevertheless, I believe that republicanism is defensible only if it can be reconciled with liberal principles of moral equality of individuals and universal justice.
24. This broad overlap is an empirical fact about the present world rather than a conceptual necessity. See Bauböck, “Temporary Migrants.”
25. In the EU only Estonia grants full local voting rights to citizens residing abroad and France allows these to vote through a resident proxy citizen. Several other countries have special provisions for certain categories of non-resident citizens (Arrighi et al., Franchise and Electoral Participation, 21).
26. Bauböck, “Reinventing Urban Citizenship.”
27. Eisenberg, Voting Rights.
28. Residence abroad was, however, the main reason for withdrawal of US American citizenship in the early twentieth century (Weil, Sovereign Citizen, Chapter 6).
29. Rubio-Marín, Immigration.
30. Shachar, Birthright Lottery.
31. Kostakopoulou, “Why Naturalisation?”; López-Guerra, “Should Expatriates Vote.”
32. Goodin, “What is So Special?”
33. See also Song, “Boundary Problem,” who emphasizes the need for stability of the demos over time in order to secure substantive rights and freedoms, solidarity and trust, and effective representation.
34. Faist and Kivisto, Dual Citizenship; Spiro, “Dual Citizenship as a Human Right.”
35. For example, Hammar, Democracy; Bauböck, Transnational Citizenship; Bosniak, “Citizenship Denationalized.”
36. Bauböck, “Stakeholder Citizenship,” 2395–6.
37. Song, “Boundary Problem,” 59.
38. Ottonelli and Torresi, “Inclusivist Egalitarian Liberalism.”
39. Dumbrava, “External Citizenship,” lists 14 states in Europe with unconditional ius sanguinis.
40. Aleinikoff and Klusmeyer, “Citizenship Policy,” 10–12.
41. Greece is the only European state with this restricted franchise for expatriate citizens (Arrighi et al., Franchise and Electoral Participation, 22). Turkey has recently abandoned a similar policy and allowed its citizens abroad to vote in embassies and consulates in the August 2014 presidential elections.
42. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, 38.
43. Ibid.
44. Bauböck, “The Three Levels of Citizenship in the European Union.”
45. The FRACIT study has found residence-based voting rights for noncitizens in regional elections in Denmark, Hungary, Slovakia, and Sweden, that is, states without a federal constitution and with weak competencies for regional governments.
46. Song, “Boundary Problem,” 64–5.
47. Ziegler and Shaw, “Independence Referendums.”
48. Bauböck, “Temporary Migrants.”