Integration Through Participation: Non-Citizen Resident Voting Rights in an Era of Globalization

Abstract

This paper examines institutional arrangements, which grant municipal voting rights to non-citizen residents of multicultural democracies and considers whether such arrangements are normatively compelling and practically useful as a way to achieve the multiculturalist aim of integration. Local voting rights have been granted to non-citizens in part as a strategy to integrate immigrants into mainstream democratic political life and thereby to avoid the radicalism that is sometimes the product of political exclusion and isolation. The author argues that the adoption of such arrangements in Canada and other multicultural democracies might not only provide newcomers with better opportunities to participate in decision-making processes that affect their interests -thus satisfying a democratic commitment to legitimacy -but that formal political participation by noncitizen residents might also encourage the development of the deliberative capacities and democratic commitments of those potential citizens. Indeed, the arrangements offer a democratic citizen apprenticeship that pursues a gradual integration of newcomers while being responsive to their claims and interests. The paper identifies and discusses certain barriers to non-citizen participation -including the comparatively lower socioeconomic status of newcomers and the lack of official language mastery -but it argues that inclusive, albeit unconventional, participatory arrangements may offer the best hope we have to overcome those circumstances and avoid newcomers' slide into political cynicism.Résumé Cet article porte sur les arrangements institutionnels dans les démocraties multiculturelles qui donnent aux résidents non-citoyens le droit de vote municipal, et examine si ces arrangements représentent un impératif à tendance normative et une façon pratique et utile d'atteindre le but multiculturel qui est l'intégration. Le droit de vote local a été accordé aux non-citoyens en partie comme stratégie visant l'intégration des immigrants dans la vie politique et démocratique régulière, évitant ainsi le radicalisme qui est parfois le résultat de l'exclusion politique et l'isolement. L'auteur maintient que l'adoption de ce genre d'arrangements au Canada et dans d'autres démocraties multiculturelles offre aux nouveaux arrivants de meilleures occasions pour participer aux processus de prise de décisions qui les affectent, satisfaisant ainsi un critère démocratique de la légitimité. De plus, la participation politique formelle par des résidents non-citoyens pourrait stimuler le développement des capacités délibératives et de l'engagement démocratique chez ces citoyens potentiels. Effectivement, les arrangements proposent un apprentissage démocratique à la citoyenneté comme cheminement vers l'intégration graduelle des nouveaux arrivants, tout en respectant leurs revendications et leurs intérêts. Cet article identifie et discute certaines barrières à la participation de la part de non-citoyens, y compris le statut socioéconomique relativement faible et le manque de maîtrise ...

Voting Rights and Immigrant Incorporation: Evidence from Norway

“…These efforts -regardless of their ultimate success in influencing turnout -should raise levels of political knowledge and engagement among foreign residents. 4 Second, and perhaps more importantly, the extension of rights may increase levels of trust and promote identification with the host society, providing foreign residents with incentives to engage with civil society and local governments, and avoid political exclusion and isolation (Munro 2008).…”

“…Yet in recognition of the large (and growing) number of non-naturalized citizens within Europe, policymakers have sought other means to channel immigrant sentiments and concerns through formal political institutions. Building on normative arguments that non-citizens are "members of a community of shared political fate"' (Earnest 2014, 2), and on the assumption that the exercise of political rights will accelerate engagement and adaptation with the host society (Munro 2008), a number of European states have extended voting rights to foreign residents in local elections. Currently, all European Union states allow EU citizens to vote in local elections, while 15 European states have extended some degree of local voting rights to third country nationals.…”

Dual citizenship and theories of democracy

“…The answer to this challenge is either giving non-citizen residents voting rights (e.g. Munro 2008) or facilitating immigrant's acquisition of citizenship if voting rights and other rights of political participation (e.g. office holding) are kept reserved for formal members (Bauböck 2003).…”

The Democratic Potential of Enfranchising Resident Migrants

“…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 formal way. Some argue that the political inclusion of all residents in a polity 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, ). Yet the extension of voting rights (hereafter enfranchisement ) to denizens is more than a policy that may enhance democracy: it bears on principles, deeply rooted in liberal and republican traditions of citizenship, that are open to interpretation and controversial.…”

“… For comprehensive reviews of normative arguments against the denizen franchise see Munro ; for studies on arguments held on debates in several countries, see Hammar ; Jacobs ; Groenendijk . …”