Passed,regulated, or applied? The different stages of emigrant enfranchisement in Latin America and the Caribbean

ABSTRACT

When are emigrants really enfranchised? Lengthy lags exist between some reforms that de jure introduced external voting and their application. In the blooming literature on emigrant enfranchisement, these lags remain unexplained. We argue that this hampers our understanding of enfranchisement processes as having different legal and political stages. With data on Latin American and Caribbean states since 1965 until the present, we investigate why some states in this region have delayed the regulation and application of external franchise while others have implemented it right after enactment. We propose hypotheses to understand these reforms as episodes marked by different contexts, engineered by different agent coalitions and embedded into larger processes of political change. In particular, we suggest that enfranchisement processes are composed of three stages: enactment, regulation, and first application. Our findings suggest that the process of adoption of external voting is shaped by the legal mechanism of enactment and the stability of political coalitions.     

Expatriates as voters? The new dynamics of external voting in Sub-Saharan Africa

Expatriate voting has gained in importance over the last decade in Sub-Saharan Africa. This article gives an empirical overview of existing regulations in all independent states of the continent and examines some explanatory approaches in the African context. One approach claims that expatriate enfranchisement is a functional response to the increasing importance of migrants and their remittances. A second explanation refers to the role of domestic political structures and regime types. A third cluster of explanatory factors links external voting to the interests of political parties. Both in the broader comparative analysis and by looking more specifically at the cases of Ghana, South Africa, Cape Verde and Nigeria, all three approaches specifically contribute to understanding variation of external voting rights in Sub-Saharan Africa.     

Beyond citizenship and residence? Exploring the extension of voting rights in the age of globalization

The introductory article to the special issue discusses how the extension of voting rights beyond citizenship (that is, to non-national immigrants) and residence (that is, to expatriates) can be interpreted in the light of democratization processes in both Western countries and in developing regions. It does so by inserting the globalization-specific extension of voting rights to immigrants and expatriates within the long-term series of historical waves of democratization. Does the current extension enhance democracy by granting de facto disenfranchised immigrants and emigrants political rights or does it jeopardize the very functioning of democracy by undermining its legitimacy through the removal of territorial and national boundaries? The article offers a synthesis of the findings of the volume's contributions in a broad comparative perspective covering both alien and external voting rights in Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. It shows that reforms toward more expansive electorates vary considerably and that their effects on the inclusion of migrants largely depend on the specific regulations and the socio-political context in which they operate.     

Voting void? Young South Africans,elections and the media

In May 2014, many of South Africa’s young citizens had the opportunity to vote in national elections for the first time. Youths who were born post-1994 (often referred to as the ‘Born Frees’) are the first generation of South Africans who live in a democratic country and hold no individual memory of life under apartheid. These young South Africans were born during a period of democracy, a time of transition and of great hope for the future. As a result of having been born outside the confines of apartheid racial segregation, they are expected to be racially integrated with their peers. The expectation which comes with the freedoms fought for by previous generations is that the youth will take up formal democratic practices, such as voting and engaging with parliament. However, during the recent national elections, the youth turnout revealed surprising differences amongst the 18–29-year age group. Young people aged 18–19 opted not to take up the right to vote – in fact, only 31 per cent of them had registered. This article interrogates the attitudes and actions of young South Africans within the political sphere, specifically by examining a group of young South Africans who are eligible to vote, as well as the role of the media in aiding or deterring voting engagement and perceptions. The central argument is that the local media fail to engage young people with content which advances their political identities. Despite high levels of media consumption, youths are engaging with formal politics as a result of pressure from family or due to socio-economic limitations, rather than a desire to add value to their citizenship.     

“Keeping Pandora's (ballot) box half-shut”: a comparative inquiry into the institutional limits of external voting in EU Member States

The article compares the institutional constraints that limit the potential electoral impact of external voting in national legislative elections in the 28 Member States of the European Union (EU). It shows that the discrepancy between policy aims and outcomes can be mainly attributed to a variety of institutional constraints restricting the scope of the policy (through residence and professional qualifications); limiting eligible voters’ access to the ballot (through cumbersome registration procedures and voting methods); and reducing the electoral weight attributed to their votes (through distinct modes of representation). It argues that the discrepancy is at least partly the result of a combination of electoral and normative concerns about the influence that external voters could and should have in elections. Institutional restrictions on the franchise of external citizens may be interpreted as a way to keep the “Pandora's box” of unexpected electoral consequences half-shut, by extending the suffrage to a traditionally excluded electorate while at the same time moderating the implications.     

The Tech Industry Meets Presidential Politics: Explaining the Democratic Party’s Technological Advantage in Electoral Campaigning, 2004–2012

Drawing on theories in organizational sociology that argue that transpositions of people,/ skills, and knowledge across domains give rise to innovations and organizational foundings that institutionalize them, we conducted a mixed-methods study of the employment biographies of staffers working in technology, digital, data, and analytics on American presidential campaigns, and the rates of organizational founding by these staffers, from the 2004 through the 2012 electoral cycles. Using Federal Election Commission and LinkedIn data, we trace the professional biographies of staffers (N = 629) working in technology, digital, data, or analytics on primary and general election presidential campaigns during this period. We found uneven professionalization in these areas, defined in terms of staffers moving from campaign to campaign or from political organizations to campaigns, with high rates of new entrants to the field. Democrats had considerably greater numbers of staffers in the areas of technology, digital, data, and analytics and from the technology industry, and much higher rates of organizational founding. We present qualitative data drawn from interviews with approximately 60 practitioners to explain how the institutional histories of the two parties and their extended networks since 2004 shaped the presidential campaigns during the 2012 cycle and their differential uptake of technology, digital, data, and analytics.     

A Review of: “Hillel Schenker and Ziad Abu-Zayyad. Islamophobia and Anti–Semitism,”

Although foreign fighting is hardly new, scholarly research on the phenomenon is only a decade old. Since 2005, there has also been a dramatic rise in the number of transnational insurgents fighting in the Middle East, and they appear to have become the face of the jihad movement. However, of the dozens of foreign fighter contingents around the world in recent decades, only about half have been Islamists. In this article, I contend that the difference between the other contemporary and historical foreign fighter groups and the jihadis is not one of mobilization or effectiveness, but of persistence. Most other foreign fighters demobilized at the end of their conflicts and reintegrated. I argue that the primary factor that accounts for the persistence of the jihadis was the policies of their home and host states that prevented reintegration and created cohorts of stateless, and now professionalized, actors who perpetuate in weakly-governed conflict zones. In presenting this argument, I first attempt to establish a common working definition of foreign fighter based on the first decade of discourse in this emerging field of study, and present a comparative examination of the largest recorded foreign fighter mobilizations.     

Who Speaks for Women? Print Media Portrayals of Feminist and Conservative Women's Advocacy

Feminists have frequently accused media outlets of not giving them enough coverage and/or portraying them negatively. Conversely, conservative women have argued that media suffer from liberal biases. While some studies have addressed the larger question of media and ideological prejudices, none have examined how media report women's activism in comparative terms. Since feminist and conservative women's organizations vie with one another over who represents women's interests, how media portray them has implications for how well they achieve this goal. Using data gathered from four major national newspapers, this study analyzes how print journalists depict feminist and conservative women's activism over a 14-year span. In so doing, it provides information about frequency of media coverage, as well as how advocates are labeled, on which issues they are getting visibility, and whether or not media present feminist and conservative women's organizations as being in direct conflict with each other. Implications for understanding women's political efforts, broadly speaking, are also explored.     

Does ethnic voting harm democracy?

A large literature argues that ethnic voting is detrimental to democracy. Ethnic voting may have at least three effects: (1) it can reduce uncertainty over electoral results; (2) it may increase the winner-take-all character of elections; and (3) it can lead to a process of ethnic outbidding. However, few studies have tested the effect of ethnic voting on democracy using large-N quantitative analysis. Previous tests instead look at whether ethnic fractionalization hinders democracy. Yet, ethnic diversity does not necessarily lead to the politicization of ethnicity, and it is only when ethnicity is activated as a vehicle of political mobilization that it can destabilize democracy. This article tests the effect of ethnic voting in 58 democracies worldwide between 1992 and 2015. On balance, the evidence suggests that democracies with high ethnic voting levels tend to see the quality of their democracy reduce over time relative to those with less ethnic voting. Ethnic and religious fractionalization, however, have little effect.