The Democratic Potential of Enfranchising Resident Migrants Luicy Pedroza*,** ABSTRACT The right to vote has always been the central privilege of citizenship. Its extension to resident migrants holds a promise of democratizing citizenship by bringing it closer to principles with deep roots in liberal and republican traditions, and further away from particularistic under- standings that reduce citizenship to nationality. This article’s main contribution is a systematic and policy-relevant discussion of the kind of enfranchisement that can realize that potential, approached in three steps: first, a demarcation of citizenship policy within migration policy substantiates the need to employ a normative perspective; second, a description of the trend of enfranchisement of non-citizens provides the normative paper with a sound empirical base for a non-ideal discussion; third, a discussion of different kinds of enfranchisement tackles the controversial issues related to it and delineates the specific requisites to realize its potential. The policy of extending voting rights to non-citizen resident migrants (henceforth denizens) 1 con- firms basic principles of democratic rule in political communities that experience high immigration. Certainly, denizens’ lack of access to formal channels of political participation is at odds with basic principles of democratic theory in their formulations of affectedness, self-rule and inclusion: what concerns all should be approved by all; no-taxation-without-representation; no person should be subject to political decisions for long periods of time without being able to influence them in a for- mal way. Some argue that the political inclusion of all residents in a polity 2 improves governance through more genuine representation of the resident population in policy-making and is actually required as long as laws and policies of democratic states apply not only to the citizens of states but to all residents of those states (see Munro, 2008). Yet the extension of voting rights (hereafter enfranchisement) to denizens is more than a policy that may enhance democracy: it bears on princi- ples, deeply rooted in liberal and republican traditions of citizenship, that are open to interpretation and controversial. A rigorous assessment of enfranchisement’s potential as a policy to democratize the migrant receiving-polity can only be guided by an informed look at its empirical reality. Migration policy and citizenship policy are closely related, but they are not the same. Immigra- tion policy, in particular, concerns problems that may be defined in demographic, economic and political terms and covers policy instruments from visa regulations and border control to the rights accorded to immigrants once in the territory. Justifications about numbers, quotas or “critical mass” to protect liberal politics fit easily under the umbrella of immigration policy. Citizenship policy, however, is a much more sensitive policy field because it is related to the ideal contract that legiti- mizes political rule and is therefore embedded in normative controversies regarding how the demos is defined. For instance, most liberal political theorists agree that a liberal democratic state should * Central European University, Budapest. ** German Institute for Global and Area Studies, Hamburg. doi: 10.1111/imig.12162 © 2014 The Author International Migration © 2014 IOM International Migration Vol. 53 (3) 2015 ISSN 0020-7985 Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.