Voting Rights and Suffrage/Depends on governance
Is this right exercised in different ways depending on the political governance regime in place (democracy, autocracy, hybrid regime)?
The type of regime governing a state often influences the level of voting rights people have and the way in which those rights are exercised. According to the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), most countries regardless of regime type legally have universal suffrage, and most have an age requirement of over eighteen years old or a similar age (CIA). Some other common notes on suffrage statuses included a citizenship or residency year requirement and the exclusion of military and police force members from voting. These voting requirements and restrictions are not exclusive to democratic versus autocratic regimes. France, Mali, Thailand, and Afghanistan (countries encompassing a wide range of democracy levels) have universal suffrage for all citizens, but one must reside in the country for five years in order to become a citizen. However, countries leaning more autocratic commonly have longer or unknown residency requirements to become naturalized and therefore able to vote, such as Bhutan (ten years), Cambodia (seven years), China (unspecified residency and extremely difficult naturalization process), Oman (unknown), Kuwait (twenty years), and Venezuela (ten years except for applicants from a specified set of countries) (CIA). Additionally, more than half of all countries and territories have compulsory voting (Shumacher and Connaughton, 2020). There is no visible trend, however, about regime types that employ compulsory voting, as both democratic and autocratic states require it, including but not limited to Belgium, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Greece, North Korea, and Luxembourg (CIA).
There is much scholarship on the status of voting rights for non-resident citizens in stable democracies, violent democracies, and autocracies. According to a study by Frontiers in Political Science, the more democratized a regime is, the more likely it will grant non-resident citizens’ enfranchisement (along with enfranchisement of other marginalized groups), and the more autocratic a regime is, the less likely it will do so (Umpierrez de Reguero, Yener-Roderburg, and Cartagena, 2021, 2). Additionally, they found that “when the diaspora favors (or is perceived to favor) the incumbency, then external voting rights are extended; otherwise, third, they are withheld or limited for nonresident citizens” (1). Nyblade cites Umpierrez de Reguero and builds on the discussion of emigrant voting rights as determined by regime type, contributing research on violent democracies specifically. Using Pérez-Armendáriz’s definition that violent democracies are states in which “manifold political actors regularly use violence to compete for power and make demands within established democratic institutional frameworks,” Nyblade argues that “domestic political actors that rely on violence may be particularly resistant to adopting extraterritorial voting rights, as emigrant voters are more difficult to target with violence (and indeed, may have become emigrants in order to flee violence)” (Nyblade, Iams Wellman, and Allen, 2022, 2). violent democracies When violent democracies do grant external voting rights, they may prevent them from exercising the right by neglecting to put into place actual systems to register and count their votes from abroad (15). A regime’s status as a violent democracy contributes to distinct voting dynamics and practices in the state.
Rather than outright restricting the right to vote, violent democracies and autocracies will grant the right legally and then employ other tactics to ensure their desired electoral outcome. For instance, “elections may allow dictators to co-opt rivals, gain legitimacy, deter opposition, and learn about regime/opposition strength and standing in the broader population” (Knutsen, Mokleiv Nygard, and Wig, 2017, 98). Holding elections does garner the risk of defeat, even with vote-buying and election-rigging, but “many autocratic leaders, at least those who are not too myopic, accept the increased short-term risk of being ousted in exchange for an improved grip on power in the long run” (136).
Attitudes towards voting by citizens also differ depending on regime type: “scholars have long argued that where political institutions encompass broad views and interests in policymaking processes, citizens are more likely to engage in the political process, because they signal the openness of the political system to citizens, thus altering their belief about their influence” (Hyun Kim, 2019, 597). Theoretically in democracies, citizens vote because they trust that elections will be fair and reflect the will of the people; democracies make room for diverse citizen opinions to be heard. In contrast, citizens in autocracies understand the electoral corruption, and therefore may not have faith in their vote. Scholarly accounts conclude that this lack of trust in the regime does not stop people from voting. In Cameroon, “despite the fact that 70% of respondents believed the ruling party will win elections, when asked whether their vote makes a difference in elections, 65% of Cameroonians said it did” (Wenzell Letsa, 2019, 440). Though the people polled by Wenzell Letsa expressed various opinions of the ruling party, the party won 148 out of 180 seats in the 2013 legislative election and 71.28% of votes in the 2018 presidential election (443). In a study on voting in Russia, Reuter suggests that “the duty to vote under autocracy is rooted not in norms of democratic participation but rather in reverence for the state” (Reuter, 2021). Similarly, while Chinese political participation voting (in local/village elections) is tightly controlled, “Chinese citizens are often insistently ingenious in organizing protests or engaging in public discussions in ways that work around official controls, while leveraging official rules and promises” (He and Warren, 2011, 274).
References:
Central Intelligence Agency. “Field Listing- Suffrage.” CIA World Factbook. Accessed July 12, 2024. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/suffrage/
He, Baogang, and Mark Warren. 2011. “Authoritarian Deliberation: The Deliberative Turn in Chinese Political Development.” Perspectives on Politics, 9 no. 2 269-289. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41479652
Hyun Kim, Jeong. 2019. “Direct Democracy and Women’s Political Engagement.” American Journal of Political Science, 63 no. 3. 549-610. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45132499
Knutsen, Carl, Havard Mokleiv Nygard, and Tore Wig. 2017. “Autocratic Elections: Stabilizing Tool or Force for Change?” World Politics, 69 no. 1 98-143. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26347385
Nyblade, Benjamin, Elizabeth Iams Wellman, and Nathan Allen. 2022. “Transnational voting rights and policies in violent democracies: a global comparison.” Comparative Migration Studies 10 no. 27. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-022-00299-9
Reuter, Ora John. 2021. “Civic Duty and Voting Under Autocracy.” The Journal of Politics, 83 no. 4. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10.1086/711718
Shumacher, Shannon and Aidan Connaughton. 2020. “From voter registration to mail-in ballots, how do countries around the world run their elections?” Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/10/30/from-voter-registration-to-mail-in-ballots-how-do-countries-around-the-world-run-their-elections/
Umpierrez de Reguero, Sebastian, Inci Oyku Yener-Roderburg, and Vivian Cartagena. 2021. “Political Regimes and External Voting Rights: A Cross-National Comparison.” Frontiers in Political Science 3, Sec. Elections and Representation. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2021.636734
Wenzell Letsa, Natalie. 2019. “Expressive Voting in Autocracies: A Theory of Non-Economic Participation with Evidence from Cameroon.” Perspectives on Politics, 18 no. 2 439-453. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592719001002