Noncitizen Voting Rights in the Global Era: a Literature Review and Analysis

Ferris, Dan; Hayduk, Ron; Richards, Alyscia; Schubert, Emma; Acri, Mary

doi:10.1007/s12134-019-00687-8

Cited by 24 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…(Décision du 9 avril 1992), 92-308) (see, e.g., Delemotte 2007). 3 Reviews of these arguments are provided in Munro (2008) and Ferris et al (2020). A recent empirical literature has tried to rigorously test the different predictions (see, e.g., Ferwerda et al (2020) with regard to political participation, Slotwinski et al (2017) for legal norm compliance, or Slotwinski et al (2020) on naturalization).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Power sharing at the local level: evidence on opting-in for non-citizen voting rights

Stutzer

Slotwinski

2020

Const Polit Econ

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The enfranchisement of foreigners is likely one of the most controversial frontiers of institutional change in developed democracies, which are experiencing an increasing number of non-citizen residents. We study the conditions under which citizens are willing to share power with non-citizens. To this end, we exploit the setting of the Swiss canton of Grisons, where municipalities are free to decide on the introduction of non-citizen voting rights at the local level (a so called opting-in regime). Consistent with the power dilution hypothesis, we find that enfranchisement is less likely when the share of resident foreigners is large. Moreover, municipalities with a large language/cultural minority are less likely to formally involve foreigners. In contrast, municipality mergers seem to act as an institutional catalyst, promoting democratic reforms. A supplementary panel analysis on electoral support for an opting-in regime in the canton of Zurich also backs the power dilution hypothesis, showing that a larger share of foreigners reduces support for an extension of voting rights.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Power sharing at the local level: evidence on opting-in for non-citizen voting rights

Stutzer

Slotwinski

2020

Const Polit Econ

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“…1 The results of this Norwegian study show that early voting eligibility is associated with higher subsequent turnout, at least for immigrants from non-democratic source countries. To the extent that these results are more generally valid, they have important implications for the ongoing debate on how immigrant political integration is affected by different voting eligibility rules for non-naturalized immigrants (e.g., Seidle 2015; Ferris et al 2020). In particular, the results indicate that shorter residency requirements for voting eligibility in local elections may help increase voter turnout among (certain) immigrant groups, at least in the short run.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 83%

The Role of Local Voting Rights for Non-Naturalized Immigrants: A Catalyst for Integration?

Engdahl

Lindgren

Rosenqvist

2020

International Migration Review

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Recent decades have seen a strong trend among democratic countries to extend voting rights at subnational levels to non-naturalized immigrants, creating substantial variation across countries in terms of voting eligibility rules for non-naturalized immigrants. Our knowledge of the consequences of these different systems for immigrant political integration is, however, limited. This article seeks to shed new light on this important issue by using Swedish data to study whether immigrants who face shorter residency requirements for voting eligibility in local elections are more likely to integrate politically. We find little compelling evidence that such is the case. The results suggest that immigrants who became eligible to vote after six to seven years were as likely to naturalize and vote in future elections in both the short and long run as those who received the right to vote after only three years of residency. Thus, although expanded franchise can be of symbolic, as well as practical, value, it is unlikely to be a panacea for immigrant political inclusion. The argument that early voting rights for non-naturalized immigrants is desirable since it helps speed up immigrant political integration should, therefore, be used with some care by those advocating for such reforms.

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“…Immigrants have therefore had to naturalize in order to take part in their host country's elections. Recently this has started to change, as an increasing number of democracies have extended voting rights in local elections to non-naturalized immigrants (Ferris et al 2019). However, as mentioned in the introduction, the relatively low voter turnout of enfranchised immigrants has come as an unwelcome surprise to many of the advocates of these reforms.…”

Section: Theory and Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In response to this, an increasing number of democratic countries have decided to extend voting rights in sub-national elections to non-citizen residents (Ferris et al 2019). However, as scholars have noted, voter turnout among non-naturalized immigrants typically falls short of the expectations of advocates of these reforms (Ruedin 2018;Seidle 2015;Togeby 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Election Salience Affect Immigrant Voter Turnout?

Aggeborn

Andersson

Dehdari

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Faced with rising levels of cross-border migration, many democratic countries have extended local voting rights to non-naturalized immigrants in recent decades. However, the low turnout of enfranchised immigrants in these elections has come as a disappointment to the advocates of such reforms. In this study, we examine whether the low turnout can be explained by the low salience of local elections. Based on a regression discontinuity design and using high-quality Swedish registry data, we find this to be the case. According to our results, the average likelihood of voting increases by 10-20 percentage points once immigrants become eligible to vote in national elections. We demonstrate too that this effect is not driven by the acquisition of citizenship per se, and that the individual characteristics of immigrants cannot explain their overall lower rate of voter turnout.

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Noncitizen Voting Rights in the Global Era: a Literature Review and Analysis

Cited by 24 publications

References 25 publications

Power sharing at the local level: evidence on opting-in for non-citizen voting rights

Power sharing at the local level: evidence on opting-in for non-citizen voting rights

The Role of Local Voting Rights for Non-Naturalized Immigrants: A Catalyst for Integration?

Does Election Salience Affect Immigrant Voter Turnout?

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