The Electoral Participation of Naturalized Immigrants in Ten European Cities

Abstract

The debate about the possibility of entitling foreigners with local voting rights is periodically resurrected in European countries and cities. On the one hand, the exclusion of a growing share of their population from the right to participate in elections implies a contradiction for contemporary liberal democracies with potential effects on their own legitimacy. On the other hand, the partial betrayal of the principle ‘one person, one vote’ adds up to the debate about the responsibility of the receiving states in promoting the integration of their immigrants. In fact, the recognition of voting rights to foreigners can be conceived as a tool to facilitate integration rather than just as a reward to proved attachment and assimilation derived from the acquisition of the host nationality. The former has been the predominant view in countries like Sweden, Norway, Denmark or the Netherlands, which extended local voting rights to foreign residents in the 1970s and 1980s. However, in many other countries a very nationalistic view on this issue has prevailed, either widely opposing the signature of the Convention on the Participation of Foreigners in Public Life at the Local Level (1992), or undergoing very controversial debates before approving its application.1