Political integration of foreigners: How does foreigners suffrage impact natives' attitudes?

Today's world is characterized by globalization and international mobility, yet most democratic participation rights are still tied to traditional forms of citizenship. As a consequence, non-citizen are the largest group without franchise. We examine how citizens evaluate and react to the enfranchisement of non-citizens in Switzerland. This paper combines a novel dataset about the enfranchisement process of non-citizens with individual and aggregated data about citizens' attitudes toward non-citizens and their perception of democracy. We find evidence that citizens become more skeptical toward additional migration, yet show a tendency to reduce ethnocentric attitudes toward non-citizens residing in Switzerland and are more satisfied with democracy once non-citizen are granted the right to vote.