Enfranchisement as a Tool for Integration: The 1975 Extension of Voting Rights to Resident Aliens in Sweden

In 1975, Sweden extended voting rights in local elections to immigrants without Swedish citizenship (resident aliens). In this essay, motives behind the reform are analysed and it is argued that these were based on a wish to speed up the integration of immigrants rather than on normative ideas about the nature of democracy. In fact, the reform was seen as a part of the emerging Swedish integration policy of the 1970s. The discursive construction of ‘the immigrant’ was another important factor. Most immigrants at the time came from other Nordic countries, and politicians saw them as culturally similar to Swedes. However, this would change after the reform was enacted as Nordic labour immigration was superseded by non-European refugee immigration and the new asylum seekers were seen as more or less ‘different’ to Swedes. Domestic political arguments such as these, rather than philosophical arguments, shaped the outcome of the Swedish decisions regarding voting rights for resident aliens.