Local Alien Enfranchisement and External Efficacy Perceptions: Intended and Unintended Effects on Non-citizens and Citizens

Abstract

AbstractDo citizens and non-citizens perceive themselves as more politically influential in contexts with more immigrant-inclusive local enfranchisement policies? Despite long-standing debates about the unequal responsiveness in the political systems of many advanced democracies, we still know little about whether targeted public policies at the local level can alter perceptions of political representation among residents. Importantly, little attention has been paid to the potential intended and unintended consequences of local electoral policies on external efficacy and research designs that include non-citizen residents. In this paper, we argue and test whether local alien enfranchisement raises external efficacy among non-citizens as a highly effective marker of immigrant inclusivity. Next, considering the potential spill-over effects of alien enfranchisement on citizens, we examine whether such electoral expansion is associated with a perceived increase in competition for political influence and a subsequent decline in citizens’ external efficacy. Empirically, we focus on the Swiss case and exploit local electoral institutions’ sub-national and temporal variation using longitudinal data from the Swiss Household Panel from 1999 to 2014. The paper adds to earlier work by proposing local policy context regarding non-citizen enfranchisement as one of the predictors of external efficacy on the resident population. Our findings suggest that perceived political influence among non-citizens is higher in municipalities with inclusive enfranchisement. We find no evidence for citizens experiencing lower external efficacy when voting rights are extended, making alien enfranchisement potentially a valuable tool to improve political integration among immigrants in today’s diverse democracies.