'A multilevel citizenship puzzle: residence and citizenship in national and local elections' with Rainer Bauböck

Past Event

Date
10 February 2016, 2:00pm - 3:00pm

Location
Queen Elizabeth House
Oxford Department of International Development, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB

This is part of the International Migration Institute's Hilary Term Seminar Series, Migration, politics and political change

Speaker: Rainer Bauböck, European University Institute

Summary: In contemporary democracies, the franchise in national elections has been largely separated from territorial residence by extending it to voters residing permanently abroad, but not from citizenship status, which remains a fundamental requirement in all but a few countries, with New Zealand as the most significant exception that confirms the rule. Conversely, the local franchise has been separated from national citizenship requirements in a significant number of (mostly European) states but remains – with only few exceptions – reserved for those who reside in the municipality. These observations can be condensed into a testable hypothesis: The national franchise is separable from territorial residence but not from national citizenship; the local franchise is separable from national citizenship but not from territorial residence. Stated differently, voting rights are increasingly differentiated according to the criteria of residence and citizenship, and there is an interaction between the vertical differentiation of voting rights in multilevel polities and the horizontal differentiation of the franchise in contexts of international migration.

In this seminar Rainer will discuss findings from a European and American survey of voting rights and focus on exceptions to the two non-separability claims and examples for resistance against actual separation. With the aim of showing that the exceptions confirm the rule and that resistance against separation can be explained contextually rather than by some inherent features of the democratic franchise in national and local elections. In the second part ohe will try to make sense of these observations from the perspective of democratic theory.

Sandwiches will be provided

For further information visit www.imi.ox.ac.uk or contact: Ali R. Chaudhary; ali.chaudhary@qeh.ox.ac.uk t. 01865 281 706 or Marieke van Houte; marieke.vanhoute@qeh.ox.ac.uk t. 01865 281 726