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ABSTRACT
A growing literature deals with the models that states have developed to reach out to their emigrant communities. The literature covers a wide range of initiatives, most notably electoral policies. In this line of research, we present a comparative view of the citizenship policies of Latin American and Caribbean states using a data set that includes information (yearly observations from 1950 to 2015) of the external franchise policies of 22 countries. First, this paper describes the scope of inclusion of non-resident citizens in terms of electoral rights. Second, we study the evolution over time of the external franchise policies of the countries under study. Despite cultural, historical and obvious geographic commonalities across countries, the analyses reveal that the convergence trend in the external franchise policies developed by Latin American and Caribbean countries is limited to a most general level. Below that level many variations in terms of specific electoral rights, types and venues of representation of emigrants are observable. These variations range from exclusion of non-resident citizens in terms of electoral rights, to full inclusion, when emigrants have active and passive electoral rights in all the national elections held in the states of origin (presidential and/or legislative).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. In contrast to overseas voting, external voting applies when citizens do not have residency in their country of origin and they vote outside of it, too. The focus of this paper is external voting.
2. In this work, we elaborate a study of policy convergence by focusing on the effects (adoption of similar external citizenship policies). We do not aim at making an argument on policy diffusion, which would entail describing the processes that lead to the increase of similarity among countries. For such a study, we would need more in depth information on cases.
3. The information has been collected by a centralized research team based in Berlin (Germany). Each country has been coded independently by three different researches trained specifically for this task. If discrepancies where found between coders, these were discussed and corrected.
4. Following the example of Helbling (Citation2013) and Helbling et al. (Citation2016), we define as outputs only the legal foundations of the recognition of an electoral right.
5. For instance, in the case of Ecuador, the constitution of 1998 incorporated a provision that allowed non-residents to vote in presidential elections (first enactment), however, it was not until 2006 when all the legal instruments needed to vote from abroad were introduced in the Ecuadorian electoral framework (what we call in this paper final regulation). At the moment, Mexico also presents example of an extension of external electoral rights for the Senate, which is an organ for the representation of the states of the federation. This right was recognized generally in the latest electoral reform of 2014, but its enactment remains partial, as it requires that the separate states include it in their constitutions, which only applies in 17 of 32 states so far. In Peru, for example, emigrants can vote for the lower house since the reform of 1992. Peruvian emigrant votes are incorporated into the totals of the district of Lima. However, although they could run for a seat of the district of Lima (enacted), no regulation to enable this right has been passed yet. In fact, there is currently a project to reform the Peruvian electoral law to create a special district for the non-resident community.
6. In this paper we do not consider the electoral rights recognised for subnational elections although we are aware that in federal states such as Mexico enfranchisement of emigrants has also occurred at the subnational level (Pedroza Citation2015).
7. SUFFRIGHTS is the aggregate indicator of active electoral rights and passive electoral rights for presidential, legislative (upper and lower house), and referendums. We use different weights for each dimension. Active electoral rights represent 70% of our indicator and passive electoral rights 30%. Scores are also nuanced by the registration method used depending on the degree of difficulty compared with the degree of difficulty (i.e. bureaucratic procedures) of the process to register for the franchise for resident nationals.
8. In this case, regulation is missing for both passive electoral rights for the presidential election and passive electoral rights for the lower house of the legislature.
9. Note that Peru had a bicameral system until the constitutional reform of 1992.
10. For enactment: SDmax = 51.18, CV2015 = 0.87; for regulation: SDmax = 51.18, CV2015 = 1.18 (SDmax = maximum theoretically possible SD).
11. For enactment of active rights: SDmax = 51.18, CV2015 = 0.87; for regulation of active rights: SDmax = 51.18, CV2015 = 0.91. For enactment of passive rights: SDmax = 51.18, CV2015 = 0.69; for regulation of passive rights: SDmax = 51.18, CV2015 = 0.77(SDmax = maximum theoretically possible SD).
12. Colombia’s bicameral system is grounded in the principle of separation of powers, rather than on a clear division of interests represented (e.g. general population vs. territorial sub-units) and both legislative chambers are in charge of representing the territorial entities of the country (see for instance, Corte Constitucional de la República de Colombia Citation2008).