The winners of the inaugural EPSR Early Careers Prize announced
Elif Naz Kayran and Anna-Lena Nadler are the winners of the inaugural EPSR Early Careers Prize for ‘Non-citizen voting rights and political participation of citizens: evidence from Switzerland’, published in EPSR Volume 14.
Democratic systems are under constant scrutiny from political scientists. This scrutiny and process of methodological self-reflection allow for detailed and innovative analyses of democratic innovations. This year’s laureates of the new European Political Science Review (EPSR) Prize for early career scholars represent our community in an outstanding manner.
In their winning article, Non-citizen voting rights and political participation of citizens: evidence from Switzerland, authors Elif Naz Kayran (European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research) and Anna-Lena Nadler (Leiden University) examine the extent to which local non-citizen voting rights policies influence the electoral participation dynamics between native citizens and those with an immigration background.
The research shows two particularly relevant results. First, that electoral turnout is significantly higher in municipalities with non-citizens’ voting rights. Second, the observed increase in participation among citizens with immigration backgrounds is less likely to be linked to a competition for political influence, which is more likely to be the case with native citizens. Read the article Open Access here.