Abstract
In the direct democratic arena, the consensus of voters is required to deliberate policies; without that consent policies are blocked. When bills that support cultural diversity or foreigners’ integration are put into referendums, voters may or may not exert their veto power over the proposed policies. In order to determine under which circumstances these types of bills are successful in referendum, I have undertaken a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis of 39 referendums about the extension of political rights to foreigners at the Swiss cantonal level. My analysis identified a total of five theoretically-informed conditions that explain citizenship liberalization and the success of popular votes. I then located these conditions within two configurational hypotheses which postulate how referendum proponents might overcome direct democratic hurdles. The analysis of the success of referendums reveals that the only sufficient path that leads to the popular vote’s success is to insert the sensitive issues into a multi-faceted bill. As demonstrated by a more in-depth case analysis, the sensitive object is successful because it is hidden from voters during the referendum campaign or because other priority objects inside the bill reduce its salience.
Highlights
Christian Joppke (2010) asserted that in Western democracies it is possible to witness a trend toward what he called “citizenship light” (CL) a form of citizenship characterized by the following attributes: easy access to formal citizenship status; more rights than obligations; the lack of a sharp distinction between citizens and certain aliens; and capped by thin identities. Joppke (2007, p. 38, 2010, pp. 19–29) suggested that citizenship is becoming less exclusive toward aliens, given that aliens and citizens have similar or identical rights, and more inclusive toward minorities, due to the attitude of promoting cultural pluralism.while the literature on CL contributes to the understanding of the citizenship liberalization, it has two important shortcomings
In order to determine whether intermediate solution conditions are redundant, cases uniquely covered by the intermediate solution formula are briefly discussed
Evidence exists that the right-wing populist parties used anti-foreigner arguments, which indicates a causal role of condition POP
Summary
Christian Joppke (2010) asserted that in Western democracies it is possible to witness a trend toward what he called “citizenship light” (CL) a form of citizenship characterized by the following attributes: easy access to formal citizenship status; more rights than obligations; the lack of a sharp distinction between citizens and certain aliens; and capped by thin identities. Joppke (2007, p. 38, 2010, pp. 19–29) suggested that citizenship is becoming less exclusive toward aliens, given that aliens and citizens have similar or identical rights, and more inclusive toward minorities, due to the attitude of promoting cultural pluralism.while the literature on CL contributes to the understanding of the citizenship liberalization, it has two important shortcomings. CL literature lacks a comprehensive understanding of the CL trend in other democratic decision-making contexts than the representative parliamentary democracy. It lacks a systematic comparative perspective which allows one to validate findings across a medium-large number of cases. This article aims to close the resultant gap in CL literature regarding the CL phenomenon in the context of direct democracy and identify under which conditions or configuration of conditions CL is successful or unsuccessful in the direct democratic arena by using a systematic comparative analysis on a medium number of cases
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