The Democratic Potential of Enfranchising Resident Migrants
| Author | Luicy Pedroza |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12162 |
| Published date | 01 June 2015 |
| Date | 01 June 2015 |
The Democratic Potential of Enfranchising
Resident Migrants
Luicy Pedroza*,**
ABSTRACT
The right to vote has always been the central privilege of citizenship. Its extension to resident
migrants holds a promise of democratizing citizenship by bringing it closer to principles with
deep roots in liberal and republican traditions, and further away from particularistic under-
standings that reduce citizenship to nationality. This article’s main contribution is a systematic
and policy-relevant discussion of the kind of enfranchisement that can realize that potential,
approached in three steps: first, a demarcation of citizenship policy within migration policy
substantiates the need to employ a normative perspective; second, a description of the trend of
enfranchisement of non-citizens provides the normative paper with a sound empirical base for
a non-ideal discussion; third, a discussion of different kinds of enfranchisement tackles the
controversial issues related to it and delineates the specific requisites to realize its potential.
The policy of extending voting rights to non-citizen resident migrants (henceforth denizens)
1
con-
firms basic principles of democratic rule in political communities that experience high immigration.
Certainly, denizens’lack of access to formal channels of political participation is at odds with basic
principles of democratic theory in their formulations of affectedness, self-rule and inclusion: what
concerns all should be approved by all; no-taxation-without-representation; no person should be
subject to political decisions for long periods of time without being able to influence them in a for-
mal way. Some argue that the political inclusion of all residents in a polity
2
improves governance
through more genuine representation of the resident population in policy-making and is actually
required as long as laws and policies of democratic states apply not only to the citizens of states
but to all residents of those states (see Munro, 2008). Yet the extension of voting rights (hereafter
enfranchisement) to denizens is more than a policy that may enhance democracy: it bears on princi-
ples, deeply rooted in liberal and republican traditions of citizenship, that are open to interpretation
and controversial. A rigorous assessment of enfranchisement’s potential as a policy to democratize
the migrant receiving-polity can only be guided by an informed look at its empirical reality.
Migration policy and citizenship policy are closely related, but they are not the same. Immigra-
tion policy, in particular, concerns problems that may be defined in demographic, economic and
political terms and covers policy instruments from visa regulations and border control to the rights
accorded to immigrants once in the territory. Justifications about numbers, quotas or “critical mass”
to protect liberal politics fit easily under the umbrella of immigration policy. Citizenship policy,
however, is a much more sensitive policy field because it is related to the ideal contract that legiti-
mizes political rule and is therefore embedded in normative controversies regarding how the demos
is defined. For instance, most liberal political theorists agree that a liberal democratic state should
* Central European University, Budapest.
** German Institute for Global and Area Studies, Hamburg.
doi: 10.1111/imig.12162
©2014 The Author
International Migration ©2014 IOM
International Migration Vol. 53 (3) 2015
ISS N 00 20- 7985 Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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