(Page 1 of 2) - Extending political rights to citizens abroad: implications for the nation-state authored by Bach, Jonathan.

Extending political rights to citizens abroad: implications for the nation-state
Jonathan Bach

Prepared for presentation at the International Studies Association Annual Meeting
New York, NY February 15, 2009

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for a complete copy of the paper.

Abstract: This paper inquires into the implications of extending the voting franchise to citizens living
outside their national territory. It argues that the recent increase in the extension of political rights began as
a restorative exercise for citizens regarded as disenfranchised for various reasons, and that this is in keeping
with the classic expansion of rights within the traditional model of the democratic nation-state. This
reinforces, rather than challenges, the principles of the sovereign state system. However, the paper then
argues that citizens abroad have distinctive characteristics that complicate core conceptions of the nation-
state: defining the scope of membership, signifying belonging, and negotiating rights and obligations.
Because of this, the extension of the franchise does potentially add a transformative dimension to
discussions about political community, national identity, and citizenship. Fieldwork in these three areas
could constitute the core of an emerging research program into the possible transformational effects on the
nation-state resulting from extending political rights to citizens abroad.

1. An intriguing trend

In the last several years a number of studies have empirically borne out a shift in the way
that the political rights of citizens abroad are treated by their home country. For
immigrants who nationalized into another country, it is now increasingly possible to be a
dual citizen: once rare and politically suspect, dual citizenship is now close to becoming a
norm—45% of the world’s recognized nation-states now offer some form of dual
citizenship, and the majority of these (64%) with few restrictions (Sejersen 2008:532).
For them, as for other categories of migrant, there are increasing opportunities to
participate in the politics of their home country. 115 states allow voting from abroad, and
an additional five states are in the process of implementing already passed legislation
(Collyer and Vathi 2007; Navarro Fierro, Morales, and Gratschew 2007). This amounts
to 62.5% of all the UN member states allowing participation from abroad, with the
majority of legislation enacted over the last three decades.

We know that the practice of external voting is spreading, but with few exceptions
(Guarnizo, Portes, and Haller 2003) we know little about its implications. Much of the
social science literature so far focuses on charting the regulatory changes (Collyer and
Vathi 2007; Sejersen 2008) or on normative questions of democratic legitimacy
(Bauböck 2007; Nohlen and Grotz 2000; Fitzgerald 2006). There is a sense in much of
the literature that this is an important development, akin perhaps to the proliferation of
citizenship itself in the 20

century in the wake of decolonization (Sejersen 2008:536).

The idea that migrant and immigrant communities are being able to exercise their
political rights, sometimes simultaneously in more than one community, has the whiff of
exciting change, but it is not obvious in what ways. The extension of voting rights to
citizens abroad could be seen not as developing something new, but protecting something
old: reinforcing the logic of the nation-state. There may be more dual citizens today than
thirty years ago, but since dual citizens remain under the jurisdiction of their respective
country of residence the impact, as Rainer Bauböck (2003:715-16) reminds us, is