The Core Argument for Immigrant Enfranchisement

Let me begin by defining some key terms. I use the term “immigrant” to refer to individuals who have migrated into the territory of a state but have not acquired citizenship there. The term is meant to exclude foreign-born citizens who naturalized as well as transients, for example, tourists, who are merely passing through, but it is not meant to be restricted to permanent residents or individuals who intend to settle. Thus, the category includes, among others, long-term resident non-citizens, temporary workers, foreign students, irregular migrants, and refugees. There are obviously gray areas, for example, foreign exchange students who usually spend more time in the state's territory than tourists, but we can set these cases aside in the following discussion.

By “immigrant enfranchisement,” I mean granting immigrants full voting rights and rights to participate in democratic deliberation on a par with citizens on the national level. Although in contemporary democracies immigrants usually have the right to participate in public deliberation to some extent, for example, they can freely voice their opinions on political matters, and in many places immigrants are also granted voting rights on the local level (Reference Arrighi and RainerArrighi and Bauböck 2017), only a handful of states, for example, New Zealand, allow all legal residents to vote in national elections after a period of residence, and even these states usually exclude irregular immigrants. “Immigrant enfranchisement,” then, means abolishing all these forms of democratic exclusion and granting immigrants democratic participation rights that are, for all intents and purposes, equivalent with those of citizens.^{Footnote 1}

I distinguish the problem of immigrant enfranchisement from the problem of access to citizenship. It is often argued that some or all immigrants should have straightforward and easy access to citizenship in their host countries (Reference BuxtonBuxton 2021; Reference Rubio-MarínRubio-Marín 2004), and naturalization, in liberal democracies at least, involves enfranchisement. But democratic participation rights and citizenship rights, while often intertwined, are separable both conceptually and in practice, as the case of New Zealand and similar countries show. The question of whether immigrants are owed enfranchisement, then, can be separated from the question of their access to citizenship. Indeed, those who argue for immigrant enfranchisement often do not do so as part of a larger argument for granting immigrants access to citizenship.^{Footnote 2} Rather, they believe that there is a separate, specifically democratic worry about not enfranchising immigrants, which is independent of their citizenship status. Sarah Fine formulates this worry in the following way: “According to democratic theory, the governed must have access to participate in government, and as long as outsiders, non-citizens, are governed, they too may demand a say in the relevant processes and policies” (Reference FineFine 2011: 637).

I will call the argument suggested here the Core Argument for Immigrant Enfranchisement:

1. 1. Those who are ruled must have a say in how they are ruled, that is, must be enfranchised.^{Footnote 3}

2. 2. Immigrants are ruled.

3. 3. Immigrants must be enfranchised.

That is, the same principles that commit one to enfranchising citizens also commit one to enfranchising immigrants.^{Footnote 4} Many authors have defended immigrant enfranchisement for some or all immigrants along these lines (Reference Angell and RobertAngell and Huseby 2017; Reference BeckmanBeckman 2006; Reference BenderBender 2020; Reference DuarteDuarte 2018; Reference LenardLenard 2015; Reference PedrozaPedroza 2014; Reference SongSong 2009; Reference WilsonWilson 2022; Reference ZieglerZiegler 2017). But is the Core Argument convincing? The conclusion, (3), certainly follows from (1) and (2), and (2) can hardly be contested regardless of how one understands “being ruled.” Immigrants are under the jurisdiction of the receiving state, they are obligated to comply with the law of the land, pay taxes, and keep speed limits. They are also governed in ways citizens are not; they are subject to immigration control, often require visas and permits to engage in activities that citizens are at liberty to do. Many immigrants can under various circumstances face deportation, while citizens usually do not have to face the prospect of any kind of expulsion, save for extreme cases. Immigrants are, therefore, ruled. Thus, the crucial premise is (1). Of course, (1) is a foundational principle of democratic theory, one that anyone committed to the democratic ideal is bound to accept. One may argue, then, that it can be treated by advocates of immigrant enfranchisement as a given. Still, as we will see, how convincing the Core Argument is, depends greatly on how (1) is understood and justified.

Oftentimes the Core Argument is presented in terms of the so-called democratic boundary problem (Reference Arrhenius and FolkeArrhenius 2005; Reference WhelanWhelan 1983) whereby (1) is stated in the form of one of the well-known boundary principles, for example, the All-Affected Principle (Reference GoodinGoodin 2007) according to which all individuals are owed democratic inclusion whose interests are affected in the right way by a certain decision, or the All-Subjected Principle (Reference BeckmanBeckman 2022) that suggests democratic inclusion is justified by subjection to coercive state power. Once one or more boundary principles are selected as plausible, it is argued that immigrants fall under their scope, and therefore should be enfranchised (see Reference Angell and RobertAngell and Huseby 2017; Reference BeckmanBeckman 2006; Reference BenderBender 2020; Reference DuarteDuarte 2018; Reference SongSong 2009). Of course, selecting a boundary principle presupposes a democratic theory that justifies it. The question, then, becomes whether the democratic theory underlying a particular interpretation of (1), whether proposed in terms of a boundary principle or not, is plausible.

In my view, a standard assumption in the literature is that (1) is justified by individuals’ interests against being ruled. It is argued that being ruled is of presumptive disvalue to individuals; whatever its benefits, it always involves certain costs that need to be, in some way, offset by democratic inclusion. Take, for example, the influential argument presented by Arash Reference AbizadehAbizadeh (2008) in defense of the democratic illegitimacy of unilateral border control. Here Abizadeh invokes the All-Subjected Principle to defend not immigrant enfranchisement, as I understand it here, but the democratic inclusion of immigrants in border control. Still, his reasoning is often invoked in arguments for immigrant enfranchisement, even by authors who otherwise do not rely on his version of the All-Subjected Principle (e.g., Reference Song, Sarah and LeaSong 2016).^{Footnote 5} Abizadeh argues that claims for democratic inclusion are justified by subjection to coercive state power which always implies a threat to individuals’ autonomous agency. “Because coercion always invades autonomy, . . . coercive state practices—that is, practices that subject persons to coercion—must either be eliminated, or receive a justification consistent with the ideal of autonomy” (Reference AbizadehAbizadeh 2008: 40). Democracy is meant to be this autonomy-preserving method of justification that neutralizes the autonomy-invading quality of coercive state power, thus offsetting the presumed disvalue of being ruled.^{Footnote 6}

Another example of understanding (1) in terms of an interest against being ruled is provided by Patti Lenard. She writes: “since democratic citizens are coerced by shared institutions, as a result of which their autonomy is reduced, they are owed a kind of “compensation”; this compensation comes in the form of rights protection proffered by opportunities to participate in the relevant political institutions” (Reference LenardLenard 2015: 127, see Reference Lenard2023: 35). For Lenard, at least one of the functions that immigrant enfranchisement fulfills is compensation for the disvalue of being ruled. Here again, the normative function of immigrant enfranchisement is to provide an appropriate response to individuals’ interest against being ruled. Another recent example is J. L. Wilson's defense of the All-Affected Principle, which is meant to imply, among other things, immigrant enfranchisement (Reference WilsonWilson 2022: 169). Wilson argues that whenever others’ decisions significantly “direct” or “implicate” our agency, that is, limit or constrain our options, or place burdens of responsibility on us, we have an autonomy-based claim to shared authority over these directing and implicating decisions. Since immigrants’ actions are directed and implicated by virtue of being ruled by the receiving state, they have a claim to democratic inclusion. Although Wilson, unlike Lenard, insists that democratic inclusion “is not compensation for being coerced” (Reference WilsonWilson 2022: 186), it is still a way to appropriately respond to individuals’ autonomy-based interest against being ruled.

I will call this way of unpacking (1) the Standard Interpretation of the Core Argument. In the Standard Interpretation, it is immigrants’ claim against being ruled by the receiving state that underlies their claim to be enfranchised. Of course, being ruled by receiving states can have benefits to immigrants; an immigrant from a poor, war-torn country settling in a prosperous and peaceful one, may be better off, all things considered, under the rule of the receiving state. Still, the Standard Interpretation claims that whatever its benefits, being ruled by the receiving state brings with it a certain kind of disvalue against which the immigrant has a claim. If this claim is not addressed, that is, if the receiving state does not respond to it appropriately, it wrongs the immigrant. Only democratic inclusion counts as an appropriate response to this claim, the Standard Interpretation continues, and therefore, immigrants must be enfranchised. In the following section I will argue that this Standard Interpretation of the Core Argument is not plausible.

Shared Interest Accounts of Immigrant Enfranchisement

The Standard Interpretation of the Core Argument offers an individualist justification for immigrant enfranchisement. In the Standard Interpretation, it is because immigrants as individuals possess a self-serving interest against being ruled that they ought to be enfranchised. But since a claim to enfranchisement is a claim to a share in ruling powers, and ruling powers are not to be justified solely in terms of the interests of powerholders, this interest against being ruled proved to be an inadequate basis for immigrant enfranchisement. Immigrants’ claim to enfranchisement cannot rest on their individual interests alone; the interests of those who will be ruled by immigrants as members of the demos must count as well. Thus, I propose that immigrant enfranchisement is best justified not by immigrants’ individual interests but by the shared interests of immigrants and citizens.

By the term “shared interest” I do not simply mean an interest that multiple people happen to have in common, for example, when employees of a firm all have an interest in getting a raise. Rather I understand a shared interest of parties P₁, P₂, . . . P_n in X such that for any P _{1 ≤ i ≤ n,} they have an interest in X, and this interest is advanced only if it is also advanced for all other parties. Any employee's interest in a raise can be advanced without giving any other employee a raise. They may think their privileged salary is unfair, and this may taint their enjoyment of it, but their interest in a better salary was nonetheless advanced. Contrast this with two friends’ interest in their friendship going well. Friends’ interest in a good friendship can only be advanced by advancing it for both of them because it is an interest not in each enjoying a good friendship separately but them sharing a good friendship together. This interest in a good friendship can only be communally advanced not simply because of the non-excludability of the good in question, but because each party's interest in the good constitutively involves advancing the other party's interest in the good.^{Footnote 10}

My proposal then, is to avoid the problem of the Standard Interpretation by justifying immigrant enfranchisement in terms of immigrants’ and citizens’ shared interests. But what are these shared interests exactly? I will consider three possibilities, namely, collective autonomy, relational equality, and mutual service, defending the last one as the most plausible. Let me begin with relational equality. Although the interest in relational equality is sometimes spelled out in individualistic terms, for example, in terms of an individual claim against inferiority (Reference KolodnyKolodny 2023), it can also be understood in terms of shared interests; just as friends have a shared interest in improving their friendship in terms of the goods that make friendship valuable, so too individuals more generally may have a shared interest in improving their interpersonal relations in terms of equality.^{Footnote 11} Recently, it has also been argued that relational equality, at least in the political realm, requires democracy in one way or another (Reference Anderson, Thomas and JohnAnderson 2009; Reference KolodnyKolodny 2023; Reference SchemmelSchemmel 2021; Reference WilsonWilson 2019). Thus, those who relate have a shared interest in relating as equals, and since relating as equals requires democracy, those who relate, at least in the political realm, should all be democratically included in decision-making within their relations. This equal relations principle, which has recently been defended by Andreas Bengston (2022) as a principle of democratic inclusion, seems to imply immigrant enfranchisement on the assumption that immigrants are related to citizens in the relevant sense.

The main difficulty this proposal faces is that it is not at all obvious that relational equality between immigrants and citizens requires democratic inclusion. The most straightforward argument for why non-democracy is incompatible with relational equality is that non-democracy implies an asymmetry in power, for example, between the enfranchised citizenry and the non-enfranchised immigrants, which generates objectionable hierarchies and corrodes egalitarian social relations. But, first, not all power asymmetries generate objectionable hierarchies—think of power asymmetries in hospitals or fire departments. Whether power asymmetries are incompatible with a claim against inferiority greatly depends on how they are justified (Reference ViehoffViehoff 2019). But suppose that the political realm is qualitatively different from hospitals and fire departments such that power asymmetries cannot be justified and must be corrected. Even this does not necessarily imply immigrant enfranchisement. Power inequalities can be mitigated both by empowering the powerless party or disempowering the powerful one. Let me illustrate.

Suppose that a significant number of state A's citizens are immigrants in state B, and A and B sign a treaty granting special protections, privileges, and immunities to citizens of A in B and deferring important decisions affecting A-ers in B to an external body C. Now, not only has B-ers’ power to unilaterally impose their preference on A-ers been significantly curtailed, but A-ers have been officially designated as bearers of a special status in B. Granted, A-ers are still marked as having a different status than B-ers in B, but this status, much like that of foreign diplomats, need not be considered inferior. B-ers may, of course, still harbor negative attitudes toward A-ers despite their official status, but the same can be true were they enfranchised. Thus, it is not immediately clear that there remains an objectionable relational inequality between immigrants and citizens in B that can only be addressed through immigrant enfranchisement. Note that this is compatible with saying that among citizens, in whose case such protection by treaty and decision-externalization is usually not a live option, relational equality requires democracy.

The argument for immigrant enfranchisement must invoke a shared interest that can only be advanced by empowering immigrants, rather than disempowering citizens. The concept of collective autonomy might be thought to offer a solution. One may argue that the autonomy-based arguments considered in the previous section fail because they focus on the wrong kind of autonomy. The sort of autonomy that matters for democracy is not individual autonomy, the invasion of which is against our individual interests, but collective autonomy. After all, we have interests in autonomous self-determination not only as independent individuals, but also as interdependent members of collectives (Reference StilzStilz 2016). As a member of a sports club or an orchestra, I have an interest in this group governing itself according to its own collective judgments, for example, that it plays a certain style of game or performs certain pieces of music according to members’ judgments. This is a shared interest and the only way to advance it is to make the whole group itself self-governing. In addition, unlike relational equality, collective autonomy so understood cannot be advanced without empowering group members; it is through such empowerment that the group becomes collectively autonomous. For this reason, democracy uniquely advances this interest in collective autonomy by rendering the collective self-governing (Reference Lovett and JakeLovett and Zuehl 2022).

The idea of collective autonomy is a fascinating one that raises a host of questions. For example, is it really autonomy that is realized through collective self-governance; if so, how does this kind of autonomy relate to individual autonomy; and is democracy, in fact, best understood as a vehicle for collective autonomy? Let me set these questions aside, however, and accept, for the sake of argument, the viability of the concept of collective autonomy and its connection to democracy. The main problem this proposal faces is that it offers little help in explaining why immigrants specifically should be enfranchised, that is, why they share an interest with citizens in the autonomous self-governance of the polity. The idea of collective autonomy by itself tells us nothing about which groups should be collectively autonomous exactly. One may well argue that it is only the citizenry, rather than citizens and immigrants together, that constitutes a unit with valid claims to collective autonomy. Indeed, some authors, like Sarah Song in her more recent work, argue that it is precisely in order to maintain the value of collective self-determination, which is something very much like collective autonomy, that citizens should have the liberty to refuse to enfranchise immigrants despite their strong moral claims to democratic participation rights (Reference SongSong 2019: 181). To avoid this conclusion and support immigrant enfranchisement, we need to invoke another interest in addition to the one in collective autonomy.

One may propose combining relational equality and collective autonomy,^{Footnote 12} for example, by supplementing Bengtson's equal relations principle with an account of collective autonomy so as to claim that exactly those individuals share an interest in collective autonomy via democracy who relate in the political realm. But such a principle cannot simply be stipulated without further argument. For while it seems clear to me why relating in the political realm implies a shared interest in relating as equals, it is far from obvious why the same relation would imply a shared interest in collective autonomy analogous to that of the sports club or the orchestra. Indeed, there are cases where shared interests in collective autonomy do not track political relations. For example, members of a colonized people share an interest in self-determination or collective autonomy, with one another but not with their colonizers despite the fact that qua imperial subjects, they do relate to them in the political realm (Reference StilzStilz 2019). For this reason, I am unsure if relational equality and collective autonomy provide the best justification for immigrant enfranchisement. In the next section, I turn to what I believe is a more promising strategy.

Mutual Service

Elsewhere I have defended an account of the value of democracy that, I believe, can help us identify the shared interest underlying immigrants’ claim to enfranchisement (Reference KapelnerKapelner 2022). Let me summarize it briefly. Ruling power, as noted, must be justified, at least partly, in terms of the interests of the ruled. Rulers should serve the ruled, although they often do not. Rulers serve the ruled by establishing justice, however understood,^{Footnote 13} within the polity. This is the specific kind of service that rule is meant to provide. This service of rule has instrumental value; it advances the interests of the ruled in justice. But service, in general, also has non-instrumental value. Service establishes a valuable relationship with others, one in which people do not relate as agents indifferent to each other's good or as hostile agents willing to benefit at others’ expense, but as agents concerned for and caring about each other (Reference KapelnerKapelner 2022: 658).

People who participate in the system of social cooperation,^{Footnote 14} or social cooperators, for short, depend on and are vulnerable to each other for the protection and advancement of their fundamental interests. People in such relationships of dependence and vulnerability have a fundamental interest in relating not as indifferent or hostile agents, but in the mode of mutual service (Reference KapelnerKapelner 2022: 661). There are many ways for people to serve each other; friends, family members, doctors, teachers, and good Samaritans serve others in different ways, and these can establish valuable relationships between them. But qua social cooperators, the appropriate kind of service is establishing justice, as it is social injustice we are primarily threatened by in our capacity as social cooperators. If so, then the kind of service we owe to each other as social cooperators is the service of rule, that is, establishing justice. If we are to advance our shared interest in relating as mutually serving social cooperators, then we must become co-rulers of the polity. And the form of government under which we are all co-rulers of our polity is democracy.^{Footnote 15}

One may object that we can contribute to justice even without being co-rulers of our polity as do, for example, social movements and civil society organizations. But while such agents advocate for justice, often effectively, they do not establish it; the institutional power to create and maintain a just system of public rules governing social cooperation remains with the co-rulers of the polity. Unless individuals rule their polity together, their agency remains problematically divorced from the justness of the polity; they can appeal to rulers to make justice but cannot themselves make it (see Reference KapelnerKapelner 2022: 662). Such a differential allocation of the power to make justice together with others denies to the democratically excluded “that the labors of justice are theirs to complete” (Reference HowardHoward 2019: 181). This offends their fundamental interest in relating to others as fully fledged agents of justice.^{Footnote 16}

Thus, by recruiting individuals in the common undertaking of ruling the polity justly together, democracy allows them to relate in a uniquely valuable way, that is, as mutually serving agents of justice (Reference HowardHoward 2019: 178; see Reference SchemmelSchemmel 2021: 208) who assume institutional responsibility for creating justice for one another as democratic co-rulers of the polity. Being part of such interpersonal relationships between such agents of justice, similarly to friendship, is not simply good for the participants considered separately and in isolation; the relational value of democracy constitutively references the interests of all involved parties. In other words, individuals’ interest in relating as mutually serving agents of justice is a shared interest underlying democracy.

What does this mean for immigrant enfranchisement? Immigrants participate in the system of social cooperation,^{Footnote 17} and therefore share this fundamental interest in relating in the mode of mutual service through democracy.^{Footnote 18} They too are vulnerable to fellow social cooperators on whom they depend through the system of social cooperation for their basic rights and interests, and they too are called upon to take responsibility for the justness of this system as democratic agents of justice.^{Footnote 19} Importantly, a share in ruling powers is not claimed here as compensation for, or indeed in any way as a response to the disvalue of this dependence or vulnerability. It is unclear if democratic inclusion would eliminate or ameliorate this vulnerability in any way. Rather, shared dependence and vulnerability within the same system of social cooperation merely marks out the domain where it is particularly important for us to relate to others as mutually serving agents of justice. It is within this domain of a shared system of social cooperation that those who are victims of social injustice acquire standing to demand justice from others, and those who are beneficiaries of social justice can expect others to help reproduce this just scheme, rather than erode or damage it for personal benefit. In my view, then, immigrants should be enfranchised not primarily because this protects them from state abuse or allows them to advance their individual interests but rather because they share a fundamental interest with all those to whom they relate within a shared scheme of social cooperation in fully relating as mutually serving agents of justice, that is, not as indifferent or hostile agents, but as mutually serving agents who are concerned for securing justice for one another.

This view has several advantages compared with the alternatives discussed above. Unlike the Standard Interpretation, it explains the value of immigrant enfranchisement in terms of a shared interest of both immigrants and citizens. Thus, it explains the value of extending democratic ruling powers to immigrants in terms of the interests of both would-be rulers, namely, immigrants, and those subject to rule, namely, immigrants and citizens. Like Bengtson's equal relations view and unlike the collective autonomy view, the mutual service view explains why immigrants share the relevant interest with citizens, namely, because they too participate in the system of social cooperation. But unlike the equal relations view, it explains why being related in this way necessitates the democratic empowerment of immigrants, namely, because it is an interest in relating as mutually serving agents of justice advanced only by democratic inclusion.

In the same way, my view can explain something that proved difficult within the Standard Interpretation, that is, why constitutional protections and open borders cannot adequately substitute for immigrant enfranchisement. Although constitutional protections may prevent egregious injustice and may even allow immigrants to voice their concerns about injustice, for example, through protecting free speech rights, without democratic inclusion they do not allow immigrants to take direct responsibility for justice within the scheme of social cooperation. In the absence of democratic powers, immigrants can at best advocate for justice but not directly create it as co-rulers of the polity. Exit similarly fails to advance this shared interest in relating as mutually serving agents of justice by only allowing immigrants to dissociate themselves from a system of social cooperation, rather than transforming it through democratic participation.

This argument can also further illuminate the normative function and significance of immigrant enfranchisement. I argued that the point of immigrant enfranchisement is not simply protecting or promoting immigrants’ individual interests but rather establishing a valuable kind of interpersonal relationship between immigrants and citizens. This means that the point of enfranchisement is not so much about individual empowerment but rather integration. Of course, the word “integration” has problematic connotations (Reference SchinkelSchinkel 2018). It invokes the idea of a host society demanding cultural assimilation and economic productivity from immigrants as the price of the right to remain, requiring them to become “model immigrants” as a precondition of securing their basic rights. But there is perhaps a better understanding of integration according to which integration is a two-way process whereby both members of the host society and immigrants come to relate and act with each other as fully fledged partners in social cooperation (see Reference KlarenbeekKlarenbeek 2021). This involves relating as mutually serving agents of justice. This does not have to imply inclusion in citizenship—temporary workers who plan to return to their state of origin after a few years and have no desire to naturalize should not be excluded from these valuable interpersonal relationships.

Seeing immigrant enfranchisement as integration allows us to better understand its role within the demands of justice for immigrants and inform the criteria for its successful implementation. For example, if my argument holds, then in implementing immigrant enfranchisement, we need to go beyond merely formal inclusion and ensure that immigrants are equipped with the relevant participatory capabilities (Reference KapelnerKapelner 2020) not only to advance their own interests but also to promote justice within their host society, including epistemic capabilities to assess policies and party platforms (Reference Giavazzi and ZsoltGiavazzi and Kapelner 2024) that may pose specific challenges of language, unfamiliarity with local institutions, political history, social structures, and so on that do not similarly affect citizens.

Finally, one may object that I falsely suppose that immigrant enfranchisement would bring about more justice. What if, in fact, it would only make achieving justice more difficult? What if it would increase social tension, fuel exclusionary populist sentiments, and erode social cohesion (Reference PevnickPevnick 2023)? What if in a particular country, immigrants’ anti-democratic or illiberal attitudes would only undermine the polity's ability to establish justice (Reference JoshiJoshi 2018)? My answer is that in my view, the goal of democracy is not strictly speaking justice as such. It is justice achieved through the common effort of individuals as equal co-authors of the political order under which they live. The value of democracy does not simply lie in justice itself, but in allowing us to achieve justice together, and thereby relating to each other in a particularly valuable way. So understood, there may very well be reasons for including immigrants, even if this creates backlash and instability. For even under such circumstances, democratic inclusion enables all participants of the system of social cooperation to relate as mutually serving agents of justice. It fulfills a necessary condition for just democratic self-government, even if other conditions remain to be satisfied.