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CHAPTER
5
MIGRATION, STREET
DEMOCRACY AND EXPATRIATE
VOTING RIGHTS*
Wessel le Roux**
1 Introduction
The nature and benefits of democratic citizenship are undergoing
fundamental changes as the old Westphalian division of the world into
independent nation states is slowly giving way to new forms of empire,
transnationalism, postnationalism and cosmopolitanism. As a result of
political instability, ecological change and economic globalisation, states
are increasingly forced to reconfigure their relationships with migrant
populations that are growing both in size and in political mobilisation.
These migrant populations frequently include a combination of economic
migrants and refugees. From the perspective of the nation state, these
liminal figures have always constituted temporary exceptions that must, at
one point or another, be restored to a position of normality.
Normality in this context means the restoration of the full range of
rights accompanying nation state citizenship, either by voluntarily
returning, or being returned (repatriated), to the state of origin, or, by being
fully assimilated and integrated into the host state. The local integration of
migrants is often described as a triangular process with legal, economic
and social dimensions. 1 As a legal process, local integration means that
* Previous versions of this essay were read as papers at a number of different
seminars and conferences. The first version was presented on 5 August 2009 at the
States of Statelessness Conference, Unisa. Reworked versions were later presented on
23 September 2009 at the SAIFAC seminar series, Is this seat taken?, and on 29
September 2009 at the Forced Migrations Studies Project (FMSP), Wits. I wish to thank
Ulrike Kistner, Stu Woolman and Tamlyn Monson who initiated or organised these
events. A special word of thanks to Karin van Marle for her support and insightful
comments on the papers that were presented at the first and second events mentioned
above. This paper was previously published in (2009) 24 SAPL 370.
** Professor, Faculty of Law, University of the Western Cape.
1 J Crisp ‘The local integration and local settlement of refugees: A conceptual and
historical analysis’ New Issues in Refugee Research, Working Paper 102 (April 2004)
(http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/search?page=search&docid=407d3b762&q
uery=crisp (accessed 9 September 2009).
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