Why Do Parties Support External Citizenship?

The majority of countries worldwide (115) allow their non-resident citizens to vote from afar.  A growing number of contextualized single case studies or focused comparisons show that the implementation of external voting rights is often contested among country of origin political parties. However, there is no systematic comparative study of why different political parties support (or oppose) external voting rights. This paper unpacks the politics of the implementation or subsequent reform of external voting rights at the national level through a comparative analysis of party positions. Recent analysis has shown that party positioning on immigration policy can not only be inferred from their location on a left-right ideological scale, but from the broader competition between mainstream parties and the challenges posed by far right parties. Yet, this type of analysis has not been extended to policies towards non-resident citizens.

In order to fill this gap, this paper analyses the determinants of party positions on external voting rights across a broad selection of 15 EU member-states. We estimate the extent to which a series of factors are significant for the positioning of parties ‘that count’, including ideology, electoral support (from emigrants), party positions on other issues such as nationalism and immigrant rights as well as the dynamics of electoral competition and coalition building, including the existence of a far right party. We will draw on both primary and secondary data on party support for external voting, as well as Comparative Manifesto Project indicators on policy positions and population and election statistics.