Citizenship and Political Agency. A Focus on Forms of Participation for Immigrants at Local Level

Abstract

Immigrants’ political agency is undermined by political marginalization and disenfranchisement. Standardly citizenship acquisition is considered the key to improve immigrant’s exercise of political agency. By contrast, I propose, following Bauböck (2015), a “system of differentiated membership rights” that complements citizenship acquisition with the right to vote in local councils (based on a ius domicilii principle) and with law-making procedures based on a proportionality principle (Brighouse & Fleurbay, 2010). Distribution of power should hence be determined in proportion to people’s stakes in the decision under consideration and any time specific issues related to immigrant’s life arise, they should be provided with special tools (such as veto power) to stop any abuse from the majority.