Slotwinski, Michaela, Alois Stutzer and Pieter Bevelander

From Participants to Citizens? Democratic Voting Rights and Naturalization Behavior
2020

We study the causal effect of the possibility to vote on foreigners’ propensity to naturalize,a key indicator of successful integration. Based on Swedish administrative data and aninstitutional setting producing a quasi-random assignment of the eligibility to vote, we findthat the overall effect depends on the composition of the migrant population. For immigrantsfrom places with poor living conditions, we observe that the experience of non-citizen votingrights substantially increases their propensity to naturalize. In contrast, for those comingfrom places with a high standard of living, the same experience reduces it. Both reactionsclearly reveal that individuals assign a positive value to formal democratic participationrights. While the behavior of the former group is likely dominated by the motivationalforce inherent in the possibility to participate, the behavior of the latter group reflects thedevaluation of formal citizenship if it is decoupled from democratic rights.