According
to estimates from a study of the International Organization for Migration
(IOM), in 2005 around 190 million people (over 3 per cent of the world’s
population) lived in a country different from the one in which they were born.
This figure barely hints at the magnitude and complexity of the international
phenomenon of migration. This phenomenon has been present throughout the
history of mankind, but there is no question that in recent decades it has
reached proportions never seen before, and it is also presenting unprecedented
challenges. In the same sense, although less recent, a study published in 1999
by the International Labour Organization (ILO) reported that at least 50 per
cent of the 170 million people then estimated to be involved in international
migration flows belonged to the category of economically active workers.
Experts
believe that the main cause of or motivation for most large-scale international
migration is still fundamentally economic. This is explained to a great extent
by the fact that dominant and growing patterns of world development have
accentuated regional asymmetries and the process of socio-economic polarization
within most countries. Given this pattern, it is not surprising that an
increasing number of people see international migration as a means of escaping
unemployment, poverty and other socio-economic pressures.
Two factors
operating on a global scale are creating a favourable context for defending the
political rights of international migrants in general and migrant workers in
particular. One has to do with an unprecedented extension and re-evaluation of
institutions, rules and democratic practices, in which demands for universal
suffrage are prominent, particularly because international migrants in general
and migrant workers in particular have generally been excluded until recently.
The other has to do with the existence of a series of international legal
instruments that expressly recognize the political rights of migrant workers,
and consequently provide a basis on which they can claim their political
rights—at least the right to active participation, the right to cast their
vote.
The
available evidence suggests that in many cases, and especially in developing
countries which are emerging or restored democracies, the majority of the
potential beneficiaries of external voting are the migrant workers living
temporarily or permanently abroad. They account for the majority of people in
the diaspora. In some cases the majority of external voters may be other
categories of people, such as refugees or exiled or displaced people, but there
seems to be no doubt that the most recurrent and dominant pattern is for the
majority of international migrants to be working people who move from the
developing countries to regions and countries of higher economic growth and
economic development.
Accordingly,
this chapter identifies and examines some key questions for the design,
implementation and evaluation of external voting mechanisms that face the great
challenge of achieving the inclusion and participation of migrant workers as
potential voters.
