Full Description
In Citizenship Beyond Nationality, Luicy Pedroza considers immigrants who have settled in democracies and who live indistinguishably from citizens-working, paying taxes, making social contributions, and attending schools-yet lack the status, gained either through birthright or naturalization, that would give them full electoral rights. Referring to this population as denizens, Pedroza asks what happens to the idea of democracy when a substantial part of the resident population is unable to vote? Her aim is to understand how societies justify giving or denying electoral rights to denizens.
Pedroza undertakes a comparative examination of the processes by which denizen enfranchisement reforms occur in democracies around the world in order to understand why and in what ways they differ. The first part of the book surveys a wide variety of reforms, demonstrating that they occur across polities that have diverse naturalization rules and proportions of denizens. The second part explores denizen enfranchisement reforms as a matter of politics, focusing on the ways in which proposals for reform were introduced, debated, decided, and reintroduced in two important cases: Germany and Portugal. Further comparing Germany and Portugal to long familiar cases, she reveals how denizen enfranchisement processes come to have a limited scope, or to even fail, and yet reignite. In the final part, Pedroza connects her theoretical and empirical arguments to larger debates on citizenship and migration.
Citizenship Beyond Nationality argues that the success and type of denizen enfranchisement reforms rely on how the matter is debated by key political actors and demonstrates that, when framed ambitiously and in inclusive terms, these deliberations have the potential to redefine democratic citizenship not only as a status but as a matter of politics and policy.
Contents
List of Abbreviations
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ENFRANCHISEMENT OF MIGRANT RESIDENTS ACROSS THE GLOBE
Chapter 1. Citizenship, Nationality, and Voting Rights
Chapter 2. Broad Comparisons: Denizen Enfranchisement Across Countries
PART II. PROCESSES OF DENIZEN ENFRANCHISEMENT
Chapter 3. The Differentiated Enfranchisement of Denizens in Portugal
Chapter 4. The "Failed" Denizen Enfranchisement in Germany
PART III. COMPARING AND THEORIZING
Chapter 5. The Steps of Denizen Enfranchisement Processes
Chapter 6. A Process Approach to Denizen Enfranchisement in Further Cases
Chapter 7. Beyond Denizen Enfranchisement: Citizenship Change and Migration Policy
Notes
Appendix
References
Index
