Defending Political Enfranchisement of Immigrants: Ideology Critique and Limits of Democratic Legitimacy

The political enfranchisement of immigrants is an appealing democratic ideal, both on the political agenda of immigrant-receiving societies, as well as in normative philosophical debate. Often defended in the literature on ethics and politics of migration by asserting different demos-constituting principles; such as the all-affected (Goodin 2007; Young 2000, 23), all-subjected (Lopez-Guerra 2005; Rubio-Marín 2000; Walzer [1983] 2008), all-coerced (Abizadeh 2008) or stakeholder (Bauböck 2009). There are also various social movements demanding the inclusion of immigrants in local or nation-wide elections to establish or safeguard democratic legitimacy. The conviction in academic and political circles defending the political enfranchisement of immigrants, the possession of political rights by immigrants is considered either as an acquiescence of ‘a right to have an essential right’, or ‘right instrumental to having other rights’. In both cases, the normative conviction of defenders is the political enfranchisement is an essential step for establishing immigrant rights, and just migration policies. In this paper, I will focus on this case in relation with the methodological debate on ‘ideology critique’. I will challenge the conviction that political enfranchisement of migrants is an unquestionable step forward for conferring important immigrant rights, and establishing ultimately just migration policies. My aim is to critically assess this conviction, given that it seems unclear at best, and flawed at worst, in particular when a large set of instances regarding the actual democratic processes are taken into account. While there are various reasons for why the defense is questionable, a second aim of focusing is its relevance to what is called ‘the ideology critique (IC)’, the view that our cultural practices are flawed and should be critically assessed based on epistemic and/or moral reasons (Aytac and Rossi 2022; Sankaran 2020; Haslanger 2019). As a normative critique, it can help to articulate some of the normative shortcomings of the defense of political enfranchisement of immigrants as a significant step forward for migration justice. Beyond this, the engagement with this case can productively contribute to the debate on the IQ. By focusing on a case where a political progressive movement becomes, as I will claim, the victim of its own ideology, I will explore the possibility whether or not a morally grounded IC is able to succesfully perform its role (contrary to Aytac and Rossi 2022). Intuitively, a successful answer would reveal interesting implications for the debate on the IC. For example: (1) Keeping both, the epistemic and moral grounds might be desirable (and hence the contrast between them might be overrated); (2) Relying on social sciences might actually not suffice to fully/significantly isolate the normative conceptual presuppositions embedded in the empirical research; but also (3) There might be other ways of productively relying on social sciences compatible with morally grounded normative research