Migrants move more from less to more democratic countries than the other way round. Nevertheless, their democratic rights tend to diminish, as they usually have no effective voice in the recipient countries. Thus, an increasing share of the population in many democratic countries has no or only limited franchise. This fuels an intensive debate on whether or not to extend voting rights to non-citizens.
So far, not much is known about the willingness of citizens to share their democratic power with immigrants. New research by Anna Maria Koukal, Patricia Schafer and Reiner Eichenberger begins to fill this void by analysing potential drivers of, and barriers to, non-citizens’ enfranchisement using a rich dataset from Swiss municipalities.
Switzerland provides an ideal laboratory to analyse the willingness to enfranchise non-citizens as the respective decisions are not taken by the national parliament but by the native electorate through a large number of popular referenda at the level of the 26 cantons, thus allowing to observe what voters really want.
The fact that each canton decides individually on the political rights of foreigners for cantonal and municipal matters makes it possible to identify the influence of important determinants. The researchers concentrate on three determinants of natives’ willingness to share their democratic power with immigrants:
- Is it growing or decreasing in the share of immigrants?
- How does it depend on the cultural background of the migrants?
- How does it depend on the extent of democratic rights?
The results reveal that overall a larger share of foreigners lowers natives’ willingness to enfranchise non-citizens. The statistical estimates suggest that a 1% increase of foreigners in a municipality reduces natives’ willingness to share political power by approximately 0.20 percentage points.
Putting this into perspective, the overall share of foreign residents in Switzerland increased by seven percentage points during the observed period. Thus, for a municipality that faced an average increase in foreign residents, the estimates point to a decrease in the willingness to share power by 1.40 percentage points. As many enfranchisement referenda ended in close decisions, this is quite considerable.
The authors argue that this effect is likely to be driven by the costs to the native population of enfranchising non-citizens:
First, the native population’s willingness to share power with foreigners is decreasing in the cultural differences that exist between the native and the foreign populations. As cultural differences are likely to result in a larger preference heterogeneities between native and potential foreign voters, the risk for natives to be outvoted by foreigners increases.
Second, the resistance to enfranchising foreigners is increasing in the extent of institutionally determined democratic power of the native population. In municipalities, where citizens decide themselves on political matters in town meetings, instead of having their power delegated to a local parliament, they are less willing to share their power with foreigners.
What development of non-citizens’ enfranchisement can be expected for the future? Since many developed countries exhibit an increasing share of foreign residents, as well as increasing cultural differences between immigrants and natives, these results imply that citizens’ willingness to enfranchise non-citizens may decline. Therefore, the lack of democratic legitimacy is not likely to be washed away automatically.
Finally, the results point to a trade-off between deepening democracy, that is providing the citizens with more effective direct democratic instruments, and broadening democracy, that is involving a larger share of all inhabitants into political decision-making.
ENDS
Authors:
Anna Maria Koukal, Patricia Schafer and Reiner Eichenberger
University of Fribourg, Switzerland
Contact details
Dr. Anna Koukal
http://annamariakoukal.com/
Email: annamaria.koukal@unifr.ch
Phone: +49(0)1777036000