Democratic Deficit – The Perspective of Non-Citizen Residents on The Lack of Voting Rights in Germany

How does the lack of active voting rights impact non-citizens’ political integration in Germany? As it is considered a democratic deficit by many scholars, in most countries residents of a foreign nationality are excluded from voting because voting rights are linked to the citizenship of the country of residence (with some exceptions, such as municipal level elections for EU citizens or universal voting rights given to residents in New Zealand, Malawi, Uruguay, Chile and Ecuador). Often it is argued that voting rights should be granted as a reward to non-citizen individuals at the end of a successful integration through naturalization in becoming a full member of the political community. A contrary assumption is that voting as a form of political participation and the right to vote are essential for integration and the sense of belonging to a political community from the beginning on. In relying on 16 qualitative interviews with non-citizen residents in Germany I want to shed light on how important it is to be able to vote in the country of residence and more importantly, how political exclusion impedes attitudinal (trust in political institutions, democratic values and subjective identification with the host country) and behavioural aspects of political integration, such as political interest and political participation. For that, I conduct qualitative guideline interviews with naturalized citizens and non-citizen residents coming from EU member and non-member countries as they differ in the possibility to vote on the local level. The group of non-nationals will comprise individuals who reside in Germany for at least 5 years and who could imagine acquiring German citizenship soon and who fulfill the preconditions for applying for it. The other subgroup - naturalized individuals – consists of individuals who have shortly (within the last 2 years) received German citizenship now having voting rights on all levels to have comparable but also contrasting cases to answer the question of whether voting rights shall rather be seen as means of integration or as a reward from the perspective of those being affected. The method of interpretation is based on qualitative content analysis.