External Voting – World Citizen Theory

Where Should We Have a Political Voice When Our Lives Cross Borders?

Imagine an Italian woman who has lived in Germany for twenty years.

She works there, pays taxes, uses public services, and has built her future in a German city. She remains an Italian citizen and has not become a German citizen.

Where can she vote?

The answer is more complicated than we might expect.

As an EU citizen, she can vote in local elections where she lives in Germany, provided she meets the ordinary eligibility requirements. She can also vote in European Parliament elections through Germany or Italy, but not both.

Yet she cannot vote for Germany’s national parliament, the Bundestag.

At the same time, she may vote in Italian national elections from Germany if she meets Italy’s overseas voter registration requirements.

She can help choose national representatives in a country where she no longer lives, but not in the country where she has spent twenty years.

Is that arrangement justified?

This question brings us to Rainer Bauböck, whose theory of citizenship explains why one person may have political relationships with several communities.

It also raises a question for the World Citizen framework: when nationality and residence point toward different political communities, which relationship should have priority?

What Makes Someone a Stakeholder?

In Democratic Inclusion (2017), Bauböck asks who should belong to a democratic political community.

His answer draws on stakeholder citizenship.

The word stakeholder may suggest someone with a financial interest. But Bauböck means something deeper.

A person has a stake in a political community when their rights, freedom, and future depend significantly on its continued self-government.

Consider the Italian woman in Germany.

German institutions shape her ordinary life. Courts protect her rights. Public authorities make decisions affecting her work and home. National policies influence her future.

She is not a visitor who happens to be affected by a few decisions.

But she also retains ties to Italy. She may have family there, plan to return, or remain affected by Italian laws.

Which relationships justify political participation?

Bauböck’s theory helps us ask that question without assuming that only one relationship can matter.

Different Rights, Different Communities

In an earlier essay, we encountered Bauböck’s distinction among three principles of democratic inclusion.

One concerns people affected by political decisions. Another concerns people subject to government authority. The third concerns people with a lasting stake in a political community.

They answer different questions.

A tourist deserves legal protection without automatically becoming a political member. Someone affected by a country’s trade policy does not necessarily become its citizen.

Bauböck also distinguishes different levels of government.

For municipalities, residence is particularly important. For states, membership may continue across generations and after migration. For a regional union, membership may arise through citizenship in a member state.

Our Italian resident illustrates these different relationships.

She has a political connection to the German municipality where she lives, retains Italian citizenship, and enjoys additional rights through the European Union.

But those connections do not give her the same rights at every level.

This is the value of Bauböck’s approach. It helps explain why political membership cannot always be reduced to one rule.

The distinction also prevents a common misunderstanding. EU citizenship gives this woman rights in Germany, but it does not make her a German citizen. A municipal ballot, a European Parliament ballot, and a national parliamentary ballot represent different political authorities. The point is not that her European rights are unimportant. It is that their existence does not settle the question of her relationship to the national institutions governing the place where she lives.

The Country Where She Lives

EU law allows eligible Italian citizens living in Germany to vote in municipal elections under the applicable conditions.

European Parliament elections provide another opportunity. She may vote through the German or Italian electoral system, subject to registration rules, but cannot vote twice.

The German Bundestag is different.

Without German citizenship, she cannot vote in federal parliamentary elections, even after twenty years of residence.

That distinction describes the law. It does not, by itself, justify it.

National legislation affects her taxes, employment, social benefits, and many other conditions of life.

Why should residence provide a basis for local voting rights but not a secure pathway toward national political membership?

The World Citizen framework approaches this question through Resident Sovereignty:

Durable residence, rather than inherited nationality, is the primary basis of ordinary political membership.

This does not mean full membership begins immediately upon arrival.

But sufficiently durable residence must provide a meaningful route toward becoming a full political member.

Living under a government for decades is more than an occasional connection to its decisions.

The Country She Left

Now consider Italy.

Eligible Italian citizens living abroad can vote in national elections under the relevant registration rules.

Italy has a special overseas constituency. Italian citizens abroad elect eight members of the Chamber of Deputies and four senators through this system.

The arrangement recognizes that political relationships may continue after someone moves.

There are legitimate reasons for this.

People may maintain family connections, intend to return, or have left their country involuntarily.

Political membership should not disappear automatically when someone crosses a border.

In his 2007 essay "Stakeholder Citizenship and Transnational Political Participation," Bauböck examines whether and when citizens abroad should retain electoral participation.

His stakeholder approach asks whether an enduring relationship with the political community justifies continued political rights.

That is a more demanding question than simply asking whether someone still holds a passport.

But it also avoids treating all citizens abroad as though their connections were identical.

The World Citizen framework likewise recognizes legitimate political ties beyond current residence.

Resident Sovereignty says primary, not only.

The challenge is to recognize continuing membership without automatically giving inherited nationality greater weight than durable residence in every situation.

What Naturalization Can Change

The Italian woman has another possibility.

She may apply for German citizenship.

Germany’s 2024 reform shortened the ordinary residence requirement for naturalization from eight years to five and broadly permitted multiple citizenship.

Italian citizens could already benefit from earlier provisions allowing dual nationality. The reform made that possibility more generally available.

If she meets the applicable conditions and becomes German, she can acquire national voting rights in the country where she lives while retaining Italian citizenship.

That may substantially reduce the difference between her place of residence and her political membership.

For someone who has lived in Germany for twenty years, the ordinary residence period itself would not be the main obstacle. Other lawful naturalization conditions and the practical administration of applications would still matter. A formal route to citizenship is most valuable when a settled resident can realistically use it, rather than being left with an indefinitely uncertain prospect.

But what should justify access to naturalization—the legal process through which someone acquires citizenship after birth?

Bauböck himself supports a right to naturalization for long-term immigrants rather than leaving their citizenship entirely dependent on state discretion.

In Stakeholder Citizenship: An Idea Whose Time Has Come? (2008), he also questions treating citizenship as a reward for exceptional integration.

This is an important point of agreement with the World Citizen framework.

Both recognize that settled residents should have a meaningful opportunity to become full political members.

Neither requires citizenship to arise automatically without any procedure.

The World Citizen framework connects this concern to a wider principle: people should have meaningful opportunities to choose political communities and develop membership within them.

Sufficiently durable residence must therefore open a credible route to full membership, subject to legitimate institutional conditions.

Belonging and Choosing

Bauböck asks when a person’s relationship with a political community justifies citizenship.

The World Citizen framework asks a further question: what opportunities should people have to establish such relationships in communities they choose?

Bauböck himself discusses migration and the formation of new political ties. The difference is not that he ignores mobility.

Rather, the World Citizen framework makes meaningful political-community choice an independent dimension of political freedom.

Established political ties deserve recognition. People must also have meaningful opportunities to develop new ones.

A Political Life Across Borders

Return to the Italian woman living in Germany.

She may vote locally where she lives, participate in European Parliament elections, and vote nationally in the country she left.

Yet until she becomes German, she cannot vote for the national parliament governing much of her present life.

These arrangements reflect different political relationships. They are not all mistakes that must be abolished.

But they raise questions about priority.

Why should durable residence carry less weight than inherited nationality in determining ordinary national political membership?

And how can we protect political ties abroad without treating residence as irrelevant?

Bauböck helps explain why different political communities may need different membership arrangements.

The World Citizen framework adds that these arrangements should provide meaningful opportunities for people to become political equals where they durably live.

Residence should not replace nationality as another rigid status determining every right or political relationship.

The point is to make political membership more responsive to where people actually live, while recognizing that their political relationships may extend beyond a single place.

A person can have more than one political connection.

The challenge is to make those connections compatible with democratic equality and meaningful political-community choice.

References

Rainer Bauböck, "Democratic Inclusion: A Pluralist Theory of Citizenship," in Democratic Inclusion: Rainer Bauböck in Dialogue, edited by Rainer Bauböck (Manchester University Press, 2017), 3–102. https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526105257.00007.
Rainer Bauböck, "Political Membership and Democratic Boundaries," in The Oxford Handbook of Citizenship (Oxford University Press, 2017), 60–82. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198805854.013.3.
Rainer Bauböck, "Migration and the Porous Boundaries of Democratic States," in The Oxford Handbook of Transformations of the State (Oxford University Press, 2015), 516–531. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199691586.013.27.
Rainer Bauböck, "Stakeholder Citizenship and Transnational Political Participation: A Normative Evaluation of External Voting," Fordham Law Review 75, no. 5 (2007): 2393–2447. https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol75/iss5/4/.
Rainer Bauböck, Stakeholder Citizenship: An Idea Whose Time Has Come? (Migration Policy Institute, 2008). https://www.migrationpolicy.org/publication/stakeholder-citizenship-idea-whose-time-has-come.
Italian Ministry of the Interior, "Voto degli italiani all’estero." https://www.interno.gov.it/it/temi/elezioni-e-referendum/voto-italiani-allestero.
Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "National Elections and Referendums." https://www.esteri.it/en/servizi-opportunita/italiani-all-estero/votoestero/elezionipolitiche/.
European Union, Your Europe, "Municipal Elections" and "European Elections." https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/residence/elections-abroad/municipal-elections/index_en.htm.
German Federal Foreign Office, "Germany’s Nationality Law – Significant Changes," June 27, 2024.