Voting from Abroad

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Background

The number of countries that have adopted policies which allow non-resident citizens to take part in home country elections from abroad has increased greatly in the last few decades. The conditions for the exercise of rights, the degree to which rights are exercised, and the relative weights of emigrants in the national polity vary widely. Some countries have been more generous than others when it comes to enfranchising external citizens, but the trend is nonetheless clear. External voting rights are on the rise throughout democratic and non-democratic regimes . The trend reflects both the extent of emigration and the greater awareness that emigrants maintain ties with their countries of origin. Therefore, the questions of emigrant political participation and political representation are increasingly relevant.

The political participation of migrants has been thoroughly analyzed in the literature. However, existing studies on voting focus largely on domestic dynamics and assume that voter turnout is primarily influenced by individual experiences in one’s residence context. Yet, increased cross-border mobility and supranational political engagement have added a new layer of complexity to individual experiences. With more citizens living and working outside of their home country and new technologies making it ever easier for emigrants to participate in the homeland politics, the topic of emigrant voting is highly relevant and yet often omitted from electoral analyses.

This Research Topic welcomes both theoretical and empirical discussions of voting from abroad. Thematically, contributions regarding, for instance, diasporas, legislative changes, democracy theory, convenience voting methods, emigrant representation, partisanship abroad, minorities and cross-country comparisons would fit well within the broad scope of this theme.

This Research Topic aims to break down the barriers between different fields of research on voting from abroad and to identify and explain patterns of non-resident citizens’ political participation and political representation. The call for contributors is aimed at political scientists interested in political participation, voting behavior or political theory, as well as experts in fields such as sociology, migration studies, public administration and demographic studies. We welcome contributions from different fields of research using various methods to investigate this issue. As the topic of voting from abroad is still relatively novel, we wish to receive contributions to both theoretical and empirical discussions.

Keywords: voting from abroad, external voting, emigration, diasporas, overseas electorates

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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