Models of representation, Mobilization and Turnout: The Election of the Foreign Citizens' Council of the Province of Bologna
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12130 |
| Date | 01 October 2016 |
| Published date | 01 October 2016 |
| Author | Djordje Sredanovic |
Models of representation, Mobilization and
Turnout: The Election of the Foreign
Citizens’Council of the Province of Bologna
Djordje Sredanovic*
ABSTRACT
The Foreign Citizens’Council of the Province of Bologna is a consultative, elected body that
the Province has implemented to give representation to the non-EU population, given the
absence of local voting rights for these migrants in Italy. This work analyses the models of
political representation implicit in the electoral rules of the council and in the organization of
the main competing lists in the election, and, through the analysis of electoral data and 32
in-depth interviews with the candidates, the effect the different models had. While the vote
seems to have been mostly intra-national, cross-national lists were the most successful. The
different levels of turnout among the electorate suggest that the vote was based on mobilization
rather than on trust in the political system, and that the analyses that link associational density
with electoral participation pose some theoretical and methodological problems in this field.
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
•Migrants’participation policy is always based on implicit political models of participation
that should always be made explicit and examined before implementation.
•There is always a plurality of political preferences for different models of participation in
the migrant population, that should be explored and accommodated.
•The number of associations in existence should not be used as an indicator of a strong
civil society as largely as it is presently.
In this article I deal with the 2007 election of the Foreign Citizens’Council of the Province of
Bologna, one of the consultative, elected bodies that a number of local authorities in Italy have
introduced in an attempt to remedy, at least in part, the absence of local voting rights for non-EU
resident citizens. I will use this example to highlight some aspects of the models and practices of
representation of migrants in Italy, particularly to show how the case adheres to or diverges from
some existing sociological theories. The objectives of the work are therefore both to analyse a
specific policy initiative in the migration field and to show the different results that different models
of migrant participation can have, an aspect that should be considered when planning policies that
have the participation of migrants as their objective.
I will first give an institutional background to the forming of the Foreign Citizens’Council and
to the precedent modes of representation of migrants in the Province of Bologna. I will then
explain the methods used in the study and show the (often implicit) models of representation
* University of Bologna, Italy.
doi: 10.1111/imig.12130
© 2013 The Author
International Migration © 2013 IOM
International Migration Vol . 54 (5 ) 2 01 6
ISSN 0020-7985Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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