Political Rights

Author accepted version can be seen at: https://www.gdblunt.com/publications

This article is premised on the idea that global poverty is the foreseeable and avoidable by-product of the international system. This position is held by many cosmopolitans, but rarely do they deal with the consequences of this claim. This paper will examine the idea of a right to resistance in the face of global poverty. It will argue that a right to resistance is a necessary component of the political conception of human rights. It will also be argued that it is latent in some major documents and declarations to the point that it can be considered an emerging practice.

The rest of the article can be found by following the link: http://muse.jhu.edu/article/676705

This article analyzes one of the most important tensions between the protection of political rights – of both popularly elected officials and their constituents - and the disciplinary functions of some administrative authorities. This tension is deepened insofar as national constitutional norms and international treaties also protect the functions of disciplinary authorities with a view to enabling the prosecution and punishment of corruption. The objective is to preserve public resources which necessary, among other purposes, to the satisfaction of Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights. The research proposes that, within the framework of the Inter-American System for the Protection of Human Rights, this tension can be overcome through a formula of mutual deference that can be applied in all States. The deference must exist on behalf of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in what concerns the States and on the part of the internal disciplinary authorities in what concerns the standards established by the Inter-American Court. The article also indicates the necessary conditions for mutual deference to occur and warns about the dangers of the Inter-American Court maintaining a textual and austere interpretation of Article 23 of the American Convention on Human Rights.

The European Court of Human Rights has occasionally made use of the language familiar from discussions of a “militant democracy” or a “democracy capable of defending itself” and scholars have used the term when discussing the Strasbourg jurisprudence. This paper suggests that it is more appropriate to concentrate on the requirements of a deliberative and participatory democratic society, rather than the theme of militant democracy. This paper examines the Strasbourg jurisprudence that may fall under this heading, and finishes by highlighting considerations the ECtHR should keep to the forefront when dealing with these cases.

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) speaks of the importance of an “effective political democracy” in its Preamble, though it is only in Article 3 of Protocol 1 (P1-3) that we find a right to free elections. This paper discusses the role of “positive obligations” under P1-3.

This paper outlines the positive obligations in P1-3 focusing on obligations where the state is required to do more than just change the law. This may mean providing resources or facilities, adopting regulatory frameworks or creating new institutions. The paper
highlights specific positive obligations that need to be further developed in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Sometimes these can be developed by analogy with positive obligations recognised in other areas of ECtHR
jurisprudence. However, beyond these cases, states should ensure that members of vulnerable and disadvantaged minorities are able to participate in the electoral process and should ensure that dominant political groups cannot abuse their political power to exclude
other parties unfairly. This is necessary to realise equal political rights.

The second section of this paper sketches some preliminary points about the Strasbourg institutions’ approach to P1-3. After that, the third section identifies circumstances where the ECtHR should apply a more intense scrutiny in P1-3 cases. The fourth, fifth and sixth
sections look at positive obligations relating to the right to vote, the right to run for election and the regulation of political parties.

Quale l'approccio della Repubblica italiana verso gli stranieri?
Raccolta degli atti della giornata organizzata presso la Camera dei deputati con l'aggiunta di un mio saggio sul concetto di "cittadinanza costituzionale" intesa come titolarità di ogni diritto e dovere costituzionale in capo a chi è presente a qualunque titolo sul territorio

The present work focuses on the underlying seminal causes of the Annihilation of Jewish Greeks in Bulgarian occupied Northern Greece, in particular the regions of Eastern Macedonia (the cities of Kavala, Serres and Drama) and Thrace (the cities of Alexandroupolis, Komotini and Xanthi), along with the Annihilation of their brethren of the cities of Didimoteixo, Nea Orestiada and Soufli of the Evros Prefecture of Thrace occupied by the Germans 70 years ago.  A definition of the Holocaust is given that broadens the term beyond its peak point that of the actual assassination of Jews by the Germans and some of their allies.  The definition includes all past historical events and practices that fermented the path to destruction of the European and North African Jewry during the World War II as well as the now and current state practices.  Starting milestones are the Preliminary Peace Treaty at San Stefano and the Peace Treaty at Berlin both of the year 1878, even though seeds of the later calamity were sowed much earlier:  The sum total of seemingly unrelated historic events led inexorably to the final act of the tragedy.  The root causes of the complicity of the Bulgarian governments of the time in the deportation of the Jewish inhabitants of the “New” Bulgarian territories are analyzed and, given the documentary and archival evidence presented, conclusions are reached.  Also, the nation states that were created in the wake of the First World War and the ensuing Peace Treaties are shown to be fraught with all those ingredients that fertilize the national psyche to accept as legitimate racist and exclusive policies along with anti-Semitic and prejudicial ones.  The distinction of Racial Anti–
Semitism versus the millennia old Religious one is emphasized.  Memory is an inseparable part of the Holocaust and, as such, it is both a means of Remembrance and a link with the past as well as instructive and educative for all generations and acts as a shield against Holocaust denial, revisionism and/or whitewashing of the past.

The present work focuses on the underlying seminal causes of the Annihilation of Jewish Greeks in Bulgarian occupied Northern Greece, in particular the regions of Eastern Macedonia (the cities of Kavala, Serres and Drama) and Thrace (the cities of Alexandroupolis, Komotini and Xanthi), along with the Annihilation of their brethren of the cities of Didimoteixo, Nea Orestiada and Soufli of the Evros Prefecture of Thrace occupied by the Germans 70 years ago.  A definition of the Holocaust is given that broadens the term beyond its peak point that of the actual assassination of Jews by the Germans and some of their allies.  The definition includes all past historical events and practices that fermented the path to destruction of the European and North African Jewry during the World War II as well as the now and current state practices.  Starting milestones are the Preliminary Peace Treaty at San Stefano and the Peace Treaty at Berlin both of the year 1878.  The root causes of the complicity of the Bulgarian governments of the time in the deportation of the Jewish inhabitants of the “New” Bulgarian territories are analyzed and, given the documentary and archival evidence presented, conclusions are reached.  Also, the nation states that were created in the wake of the First World War and the ensuing Peace Treaties are shown to be fraught with all those ingredients that fertilize the national psyche to accept as legitimate racist and exclusive policies along with anti-Semitic and prejudicial ones.  The distinction of Racial Anti–Semitism versus the millennia old Religious one is emphasized.  Memory is an inseparable part of the Holocaust and, as such, it is both a means of remembrance and link with the past as well as instructive and educative for all generations and as a shield against Holocaust denial, revisionism and/or whitewashing of the past.

One of important mechanisms considered effective to protect civil and political rights of the citizens in Indonesia is constitutional review. This mechanism was created after the constitutional reform by establishing the new Constitutional Court in 2003 as an independent and separate court from the Supreme Court. This article examines the development of human rights guaranteed in the Indonesian Constitution. It also provides a critical analysis of the Constitutional Court's role in protecting civil and political rights in Indonesia through its landmark decisions on five categories, namely: (1) freedom of assembly and association; (2) freedom of opinion, speech and expression; (3) freedom of religion; (4) right to life; and (5) due process of law. This research was conducted based on qualitative research methodology. It used a non-doctrinal approach by researching the socio-political impacts of the Constitutional Court's decisions. Although there are still inconsistencies in its decisions, the research concludes that the Constitutional Court has taken a step forward for a better protection of civil and political rights in Indonesia that never existed prior to the reform.

Keywords: civil and political rights, constitutional court, human rights, Indonesia

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Abstrak

Salah satu mekanisme yang dianggap efektif untuk melindungi hak sipil dan politik warga negara di Indonesia adalah pengujian konstitusional. Mekanisme ini dibentuk pasca reformasi konstitusi dengan mendirikan Mahkamah Konstitusi pada 2003 sebagai peradilan yang independen dan terpisah dari Mahkamah Agung. Artikel ini menganalisa perkembangan hak asasi manusia yang dijamin di dalam UUD 1945. Selain itu, artikel ini juga memberikan analisa kritis terhadap peran Mahkamah Konstitusi dalam perlindungan hak sipil dan politik di Indonesia melalui putusan-putusan pentingnya (landmark decisions) pada lima kategori, yaitu: (1) kebebasan untuk bekumpul dan berserikat; (2) kebebasan berpendapat, berbicara, dan berekspresi; (3) kebebasan beragama; (4) hak untuk hidup; dan (5) proses peradilan yang adil. Penelitian ini dilakukan berdasarkan pada metodologi penelitian kualitatif dan menggunakan pendekatan non-doktrinal dengan meneliti dampak sosio-politik dari putusan-putusan Mahkamah Konstitusi. Meskipun masih terdapat inkonsistensi di dalam putusannya, penelitian ini menyimpulkan bahwa Mahkamah Konstitusi telah memberikan kontribusi satu langkah ke depan yang lebih baik terhadap perlindungan hak sipil dan politik di Indonesia yang tidak pernah terjadi sebelum era reformasi.

Kata Kunci: hak asasi manusia, hak sipil dan politik, mahkamah konstitusi, Indonesia

Human rights have made mass murder and genocide more, rather than less, likely.

A previous version of this paper appears as chapter 3 of my Patriotic Elaborations: Essays in Practical Philosophy (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009).

The luxury-versus-necessity controversy is primarily concerned with the importance of civil and political rights vis-à-vis economic and social rights. The viewpoint of political leaders of many developing and newly industrialized countries, especially China,
Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia is that civil and political rights are luxuries that only rich nations can afford. The United Nations, transnational civil society and the Western advanced countries oppose this viewpoint on normative and empirical grounds. While this controversy is far from over, new challenges of “evidence” and “marketization” are emerging. The first calls for a narrative on the history of civil and political rights in the West in the comparative context of the Industrial Revolution and the East Asian Miracle and China’s economic growth. The effects of the recent financial crisis and insulation of China from the Arab Spring further deepen this challenge. The marketization challenge looks at this controversy from the social exclusion angle. It argues that the basic needs covered by the minimum human rights agenda are becoming luxuries in a real sense for those who do not have the power to purchase these needs from the market.

Ante la fiebre reeleccionista en la región, analizar la situación actual de la prohibición o permisión de la reelección presidencial en los 5 países centroamericanos es fundamental para determinar hasta qué punto significa una reafirmación de la «supremacía constitucional» y de la «supremacía convencional», o simplemente es un acomodamiento de la legalidad a intereses estrictamente político-partidistas con un grave déficit de legitimidad democrática.
Este libro es una obra colectiva que, a partir de los casos de Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala y del estándar interamericano, busca cuestionar, desde una perspectiva constitucional e internacional, la legitimidad de la reelección presidencial que se ha desarrollado en los últimos años. No existe un derecho absoluto a la reelección, sería la tesis principal de esta obra, sobre todo porque los efectos de perpetuación del poder son nocivos para la pluralidad del régimen político.

The human right to democracy is often justified instrumentally: democratic rights are human rights because they contribute to the preservation of basic human rights. In this article, this approach is put to test with regard to the right to vote, which is fundamental to democracy and is recognized by human rights law. The question is whether there is evidence to conclude that the right to vote serves the required instrumental purposes?

The answer will depend on how the human right to vote is understood, which in turn depends on how it is interpreted by the relevant human right bodies. The answer also depends on the empirical evidence available. This paper shows that the human right to vote is not vindicated by instrumental considerations and explains why this follows from both empirical and conceptual reasons. The conclusion is that instrumental considerations are unable to fully account for the norms currently recognised by human rights law.

Between 1750 and 1830 the Dutch state developed from an oligarchic republic into an enlightened autocratic monarchy via a brief experiment with representative democracy. During this period, there was an ongoing debate about the right to petition. Political actors and opinion-makers addressed the questions to what and to whom this right extended, and what it meant to have such a right. While theorists of the different types of government had sharply contrasting views on the place of the people in the political process, ideas about petitioning, which throughout the period under discussion remained the principal instrument for popular involvement in politics, stayed remarkably stable. Through an investigation of the debate on the right to petition in the crucial transitional phase from the Dutch Republic to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, this article contributes to bridging the divide between petition research of the early modern period and that of the modern era.

For a large segment of the urban poor in Kampala, Uganda, street vending has long served as a key livelihood strategy in the absence of formal employment opportunities and a public social safety net. This article explores the effects of de-democratisation on the rights of street vendors in Kampala, describing how changes to local government institutions and processes have forced vendors to adopt new strategies to assert their rights in an environment of closed political space. It argues that for street vendors in the city, economic and social rights are fundamentally rooted in political rights. As de-democratisation has robbed them of their political rights, it has also robbed them of their ability to assert their right to engage in their economic activities, leaving them increasingly vulnerable and marginalised. Barring a fundamental change in the city's political landscape, the hardships that vendors face appear to have no end in sight.

Demokrasi ve ekonomik büyüme ilişkisi üzerine ilk çalışma 1959 yılında Lipset tarafından yapılmıştır. Literatürde ilgili konu üzerine yapılan çalışmalar üçe ayrılmaktadır. Demokrasi ve ekonomik büyüme arasındaki ilişki bağdaşma, çatışma ve şüpheci yaklaşım olarak gruplanmaktadır. Bu çalışmanın amacı demokrasi ve ekonomik büyüme arasındaki ilişkinin farklı gelir grupları üzerindeki etkisini incelemektir. Gelişmiş ülkeleri temsilen yüksek gelirli ülkeler, gelişmekte olan ülkeleri temsilen üst orta gelirli ülkeler kullanılmıştır.  Çalışmada 2003-2018 yılları arası için yüksek gelir ve üst orta gelir grubu olmak üzere iki gelir grubu kullanılmıştır. Yüksek gelir grubu için 19 ülke ve üst orta gelir grubu için 14 ülke kullanılmıştır. Ülkeler coğrafi konumlarına göre her kıtadan en az bir ülke olacak şekilde tercih edilmiştir. Analizde kullanılan veriler Dünya Bankası Ekonomik Kalkınmalar Göstergeleri veritabanı ve Özgürlük Evi Endeksi’nden alınarak dengesiz panel veri analizi ile çözümlenmiştir. Analiz için Stata/IC 14.2, Evievs 9 ve Gauss v10 programlarından yararlanılmıştır. Kullanılan ekonometrik modelde GSYİH bağımlı değişken olarak kullanılırken; dışa açıklık, enflasyon, sivil özgürlük ve politik özgürlük bağımsız değişkenler olarak kullanılmıştır. Yüksek gelir grubu için sabit etkiler tahmincisi uygun görülmüştür. Aynı zamanda üst orta gelir grubu için de sabit etkiler tahmincisi uygun görülmüştür.  Elde edilen sonuca göre, yüksek gelir grubunda sivil özgürlük ve politik özgürlük değişkenleri ile GSYİH arasında anlamlı ve pozitif ilişki mevcuttur. Öte yandan üst orta gelir grubu için sivil özgürlük ve politik özgürlük değişkenleri ile ekonomik büyüme değişkeni arasında anlamlı bir ilişki tespit edilmiştir. Üst orta gelir grubu için politik özgürlük ve ekonomik büyüme arasında negatif bir ilişki mevcutken; sivil özgürlük ve ekonomik büyüme arasında pozitif ilişki sonucuna ulaşılmıştır. Yüksek gelirli ülkeler için bağdaşma yaklaşımı desteklenirken; üst orta gelirli ülkeler için şüpheci yaklaşım desteklenmektedir.  Bilgiler doğrultusunda varılan sonuç; üst orta gelirli ülkenin, yüksek gelirli ülke kategorisinde değerlendirilebilmesi için ilk olarak ekonomik anlamda ilerlemeyi hedeflemesi ardından demokratik sürece odaklanması daha doğru olacaktır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Ekonomik Büyüme, Demokrasi, Özgürlük Evi Endeksi, Panel Veri Analizi.

DO NOT WAIT TILL NOBODY IS LEFT TO DEFEND YOU!
We should fully endorse this statement of Professor Anand Teltumbde, I NEED YOUR SUPPORT by reproducing few lines of a great poem of resistance by Martin Niemoler (1892-1984), a steadfast anti-Nazi intellectual, German priest who was on top of the Nazi Gang's hit-list.
Professor Anand is facing persecution with other intellectuals, the finest pro-people ideologues and activists who took stand against the anti-people policies of the RSS/BJP rulers of India. Please raise your voice against their persecution so that when THEY come for us there are people to defend us too.

In Germany the Nazis came first for the Communists
And I did not speak because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak because I was not a Jew
Then they came for the trade unions
And I did not speak up because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Catholics
And I was a Protestant and so I did not speak up
Then they came for me
And by that time there was no one left to speak for anyone.

https://countercurrents.org/2019/01/16/urgent-plea-from-anand-teltumbde/

The understanding and application of shai’ah, an increasing demand of Muslim masses, is an issue that requires a special attention by contemporary Muslim scholars. Concerns over the uncritical implementation of shari’ah is not limited to quarters opposed to Islam, but is shared, for completely different reasons, by many Muslim scholars and jurists throughout the world.  Concerns over any uncritical implementation of shari’ah include the lack of clear delineation between the moral and the legal in Islamic law. What parts of shari’ah are moral, and hence fall within the realm of education and voluntary compliance, and what parts are legal, and can therefore be enforced by society? The question of delineating the legal and moral also relate to the issue of state intrusion into individual privacy, and to what extent can the state police individual morality? Also of concern is the question of due process, rules of evidence, and individual privacy. To what extent can the court rely on circumstantial evidence to convict a person of a crime he or she has not voluntarily confessed? And more importantly, how implementation of shari’ah relate to a multi-religious societies, in which people of different religion live side by side, and are subject to same legal jurisdictions.

O capítulo tem por finalidade apresentar, de forma sintética, os aspectos mais importantes da relação entre o princípio da igualdade e os direitos políticos atribuídos ao cidadão na ordem jurídico-constitucional brasileira.
Deste relato sobressaem dois elementos fundamentais. O primeiro é a posição do princípio da igualdade como alicerce do sistema político estatuído na Constituição de 1988 e, conseguintemente, como fundamento nuclear da cidadania.
O segundo é a constatação de que a experiência constitucional registrada no período pós-ditatorial tem evidenciado um desvio declarado e sistemático do princípio isonômico, a operar em favor de um regime político tendencialmente restritivo e, por isso mesmo, menos democrático do que seria de se esperar.

Since 1989 in Hungary there have been organised six national referenda related to twelve questions. Based on the content of the questions raised, one can draw a line of evolution in the history of the institution. In 1989 and in 1990 the questions were closely connected to the big political issues of the transition and democracy-building: the timing and procedure of the election of the head of the state and symbolic questions related to the state-socialist period. The 1997 referendum regarded the NATO membership, while the 2003 referendum the EU accession – therefore this period was in close connection with the country's main strategic aims. The 2004 and 2008 referenda were about core political questions – therefore functioned as instruments of outsourced daily political debate between government and opposition. Moreover, during this period sixteen questions were set on the National Assembly's agenda based on succesful popular initiatives. Since 2010 the legislative and the executive power's approach to the classic tools of direct democracy has radically transformed. The Government started to use frequently the so called 'national consultation' in important legislative issues, including the constitution-drafting process. This tool has neither constitutional foundations nor legislative background in the Hungarian legal order. Moreover, it lacks the possible benefits of direct democracy and bears the typical weaknesses of it. Besides, based on the new Fundamental Law of Hungary (2011) and the new Act on Electoral Procedure (2013) the possibility of a successful national referendum has been greatly restricted: there is prescribed as a necessary condition for validity the participation of the majority of the voters in the referendum. This condition was barely reached twice in the preceding decades. Furthermore, the institution of popular initiative is not part of the legal system anymore. The latest events related to direct democracy bear more worrisome developments. The Government initiated a referendum which adressed the European Union related to its competence to decide on settlement of migrants in Hungary – a question which is obviously excluded from the possible topics of national referenda based on the constitutional background and European law. The National Election Committee authenticated the question and its decision was surprisingly upholded by the Curia (the Supreme Court of Hungary). The seventh national referendum in the history of the democratic Hungary (on October 2, 2016) will symbolize a new stage in the line evolution of national referenda, the institution itself becoming an instrument of populist governmental politics. All in all, these tendencies are demonstrating that the classic tools of direct democracy are loosing their relevance in practice while populist instruments are used more frequently. That is why it is of key importance to identify precisely the set of constitutional requiremets related to the genuine exercise of direct democracy and to separate other populist political instruments from these. The aim of the paper is to contribute to the contemporary debate related to this challenge.

A partir de la reforma electoral de 1996 se produce una
alternancia política en la ciudad de México que permitió
registrar cambios significativos en la administración y el
gobierno. El objetivo principal de este trabajo es analizar
los cambios en las normas e instituciones electorales de la
ciudad de México y sus efectos en la participación
ciudadana y en el ejercicio de los derechos políticos,
en el periodo 1997-2012.

Around 200 leading legal experts have signed a statement defending the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement (BDS) as a lawful exercise of freedom of expression. The legal experts from 15 countries agreed the BDS movement should be treated the same way as the Anti-Apartheid Movement in South Africa. Lawyers backing Friday's statement include South African jurist John Dugard, who served at the International Court of Justice, and Guy Goodwin-Gill, former legal adviser for the Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

This paper retraces the origins and the development of international minority protection by the League of Nations and the United Nations. It describes local and regional mechanisms of protection, such as that established by the European Human Rights Convention. It also shows how the European Court of Human Rights has protected Roma and Travellers in different areas, such as the prohibition of torture, the treatment of asylum seekers and beggars, the protection of property, the right to education and the exercise of political rights. Minority-specific treaties and mechanisms may improve the situation of minority groups, while human rights mechanisms will protect the rights of their individual members.

El pluralismo político constituye, de acuerdo con el artículo 1.1 de la Constitución, uno de los valores superiores del ordenamiento jurídico español y condición fundamental para todo sistema democrático. La realización del pluralismo político requiere de dos elementos: un elemento subjetivo (la libertad de partidos políticos) y un elemento objetivo (la capacidad de los distintos partidos no mayoritarios de continuar desarrollando, después de las elecciones, una acción política de crítica y propuesta de alternativas que les permita influir en la toma de decisiones). Este artículo analiza cómo, fruto de la reestructuración del sistema político y económicos llevada a cabo en las últimas décadas, estos dos elementos clásicos necesarios para la garantía del pluralismo político podrían estar sufriendo una limitación que afectaría, en sentido negativo, al propio valor pluralismo político.

This article theorizes the historical non-relation between cultural studies and economic rights discourse, tracing it to ideal typical distinctions between economy and culture in early cultural studies; Karl Marx’s influence on Left thought generally via his critique of bourgeois rights; and Foucauldian governmentalist treatments of rights as neoliberal technologies of control and treatments of economy as having no agency of its own but rather as an effect of governmentality. It then introduces a case-study conjuncturalhistory of American economic rights as a history of present American citizenship and politics in order to demonstrate the historically contingent articulations of individual freedom, government, and economic relations, which are not easily explained by the Marxist or Foucauldian vocabularies. The conjunctural history suggests one might return to economic security, if not rights, not as an argument for liberal or even civic republican politics, but for a serious engagement with the (economic and other) preconditions of any political agency. It provides cultural studies research with a new perspective for attention to radical democracy and critiques of neoliberal capitalist policies without surrendering the utility of rights to (neo)liberalism.
"

The present text analyses the development and core ideological nations that guide nationality/citizenship laws in Mexico. It argues that some aspects of the 'Revolutionary Nationalism' doctrine still shapes laws and policies in this area, for instance, regarding the ethno-cultural composition of the Mexican nation, or the defensive stance against any type of foreign intervention. This has direct consequences, for instance, in laws and policies regarding naturalization. What is more, it has created a system of 'categories of citizenship', with different rights attached to each one – so naturalized Mexicans, as well as Mexicans with dual citizenship, face an open, legally-sanctioned discrimination in their political and labour rights. Further instances of inequalities, as well as current political debates, are also examined.

The question raised in this paper is whether legal rights to vote are also moral rights to vote. The challenge to the justification of a moral right to vote is that it is not clear that the vote is instrumental to the preservation of some critical interest of the voter. Because a single vote has 'no impact' on electoral outcomes, the right to vote is unlikely to serve the interests of the individual. The account developed in this paper holds that moral voting rights can be justified once we acknowledge that voting by a subset of citizens is among the necessary preconditions for democratic institutions making a significant difference to their collective interests. The justification of a moral right to vote does not, then, apply to each individual citizen but only to a subset of them. In order to justify inclusive moral voting rights, the further consideration must be added that individuals have critical interests in public recognition of equal status. An inclusive moral right to vote accordingly depends on both collective interest in the outcomes of democratic institutions and on individual interest in equal recognition.

This paper comprises parts of the theoretical and empirical research that I have conducted for my PhD studies. The theoretical structure focuses on the evaluative framework of capabilities, as it has been developed by Martha Nussbaum and the social and political aspects of Thomas Janoski's operationalization of citizenship. The analytical framework that I came up with was further applied on the interviews that I have conducted with Romanian olim in Israel. This allowed me to come up with significant results concerning their integration within the Israeli society. These results cover aspects that belong to areas of one's social, political, cultural life. The empirical research itself was a qualitative one with semi-structured interviews, while the results were further analyzed using the discourse analysis method.

In 2008 the first Swiss canton introduced internet voting for expatriates, complementing the trials involving
residents initiated back in 2003. More cantons soon followed, and as of this writing, expatriates from 12 out of the 26
cantons can vote online. This paper focuses on the second phase in the Swiss i-voting roll-out involving expatriates. We
address three questions at the core of the internet voting research agenda. First, the popularity question: to what extent do expatriates make use of the new online voting channel? Second, the ‘who’ question: what is the profile of the typical
expatriate i-voter? Finally, the turnout question: did the extension of internet voting to expatriates have an effect on electoral
mobilisation? Our findings indicate that the online channel is very popular among expatriates, both when compared to other
trials in Switzerland and internationally. Leaving aside i-voting’s comparatively high popularity, familiar patterns seem to
replicate in the expatriate trials. Expatriate i-voters tend to be young, male, and there is some evidence of an upper-class
bias. Thus, use of the online channel by expatriates seems also driven by the digital divide. Finally, similarly to the residents’
trials, we find some evidence that i-voting does not affect electoral mobilisation.