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Why do parties support emigrant voting rights?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 September 2019

Eva Østergaard-Nielsen Open the ORCID record for Eva Østergaard-Nielsen [Opens in a new window] ,
Irina Ciornei  and
Jean-Michel Lafleur
Eva Østergaard-Nielsen*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
Irina Ciornei
Affiliation:
Institute of Sociology, University of Bern, Switzerland
Jean-Michel Lafleur
Affiliation:
Centre for Ethnic and Migration Studies (CEDEM), University of Liege, Belgium
*
*E-mail: eva.ostergaard@uab.cat
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Abstract

Policies allowing enfranchisement of non-resident citizens (emigrants and their descendants) are now implemented in the majority of states worldwide. A growing number of case studies show that the extension of voting rights to non-resident citizens is often contested among country of origin political parties. However, there is no systematic comparative study of why different political parties support or oppose external voting rights and how this position is framed by the parties. Drawing on a unique data set based on 34 debates across 13 countries, we estimate the extent to which ideology and party family are correlated with the positioning and framing of parties. Among the findings are that the more to the right is a party, the more it tends to support external voting rights, except in the case of radical right parties. The position on emigrant voting rights is largely framed along more pragmatic arguments.

Keywords

migrationpartiesframeselectoral rightspositioning

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , August 2019 , pp. 377 - 394
Copyright
© European Consortium for Political Research 2019 

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