Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T09:23:35.690Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Restraining the Huddled Masses: Migration Policy and Autocratic Survival

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2018

Michael K. Miller  and
Margaret E. Peters
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

What determines citizens’ freedom to exit autocracies? How does this influence global patterns of migration and democratization? Although control over citizen movement has long been central to autocratic power, modern autocracies vary considerably in how much they restrict emigration. This article shows that autocrats strategically choose emigration policy by balancing several motives. Increasing emigration can stabilize regimes by selecting a more loyal population and attracting greater investment, trade and remittances, but exposing their citizens to democracy abroad is potentially dangerous. Using a half-century of bilateral migration data, the study calculates the level and destinations of expected emigration given exogenous geographic and socioeconomic characteristics. It finds that when citizens disproportionately emigrate to democracies, countries are more likely to democratize – and that autocrats restrict emigration freedom in response. In contrast, a larger expected flow of economic emigration predicts autocratic survival and freer emigration policy. These results have important implications for autocratic politics, democratic diffusion and the political sources of migration.

Keywords

migrationautocratic politicsdemocratizationinternational political economy
Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , April 2020 , pp. 403 - 433
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Department of Political Science, George Washington University (email: [email protected]); Department of Political Science, University of California at Los Angeles (email: [email protected]). We would like to thank Hans Lueders for his research assistance. We also thank Lisa Blaydes, Joe Wright, David Steinberg, Jeff Colgan, Andrew Kerner, David Singer, David Bearce, Tom Pepinsky, Hein Goemans, Lilly Frost, Michael Joseph, audiences at APSA 2014, IPES 2014, Yale University, and the University of Michigan, Editor René Lindstädt, and three anonymous referees for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. Data replication files are available in Harvard Dataverse at: https://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/KGL6YO and online appendices at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123417000680.

References

REFERENCES

Abel, Guy J., and Sander, Nikola. 2014. Quantifying Global International Migration Flows. Science 343:1520–1522.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Adida, Claire L., and Girod, Desha M.. 2011. Do Migrants Improve Their Hometowns? Remittances and Access to Public Services in Mexico, 1995–2000. Comparative Political Studies 44 (1):3–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adserà, Alícia, and Boix, Carles. 2002. Trade, Democracy, and the Size of the Public Sector: The Political Underpinnings of Openness. International Organization 56:229–262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahmed, Faisal Z. 2012. The Perils of Unearned Foreign Income: Aid, Remittances, and Government Survival. American Political Science Review 106 (1):146–165.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahmed, Faisal Z.. 2017. Remittances and Incumbency: Theory and Evidence. Economics & Politics 29 (1):22–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alemán, José, and Woods, Dwayne. 2014. No Way Out: Travel Restrictions and Authoritarian Regimes. Migration and Development 3 (2):285–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Perry. 1974. Lineages of the Absolutist State. London: NLB.Google Scholar
Barbieri, Katherine, and Keshk, Omar. 2012. Correlates of War Project Trade Data Set Codebook, Version 3.0. Available from www.correlatesofwar.org. Accessed 7 September 2016.Google Scholar
Barry, Colin M., Clay, K. Chad, Flynn, Michael E., and Robinson, Gregory. 2014. Freedom of Foreign Movement, Economic Opportunities Abroad, and Protest in Non-Democratic Regimes. Journal of Peace Research 51 (5):574–588.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Batista, Catia, Lacuesta, Aitor, and Vicentea, Pedro C.. 2012. Testing the ‘Brain Gain’ Hypothesis: Micro Evidence From Cape Verde. Journal of Development Economics 97 (1):32–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bearce, David H., and Hutnick, Jennifer A. Laks. 2011. Toward an Alternative Explanation for the Resource Curse: Natural Resources, Immigration, and Democratization. Comparative Political Studies 44 (6):689–718.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beine, Michel, Docquier, Frédéric, and Oden-Defoort, Cecily. 2011. A Panel Data Analysis of the Brain Gain. World Development 39 (4):523–532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bermeo, Nancy. 2007. War and Democratization: Lessons from the Portuguese Experience. Democratization 14 (3):388–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bermeo, Sarah Blodgett, and Leblang, David. 2015. Migration and Foreign Aid. International Organization 69 (3):627–657.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Black, Ian. 2013. Saudi Arabia Expels Thousands of Yemeni Workers. The Guardian. 2 April 2013.Google Scholar
Boix, Carles. 2003. Democracy and Redistribution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boix, Carles, Miller, Michael K., and Rosato, Sebastian. 2013. A Complete Data Set of Political Regimes, 1800–2007. Comparative Political Studies 46 (12):1523–1554.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brand, Laurie A. 2006. Citizens Abroad: Emigration and the State in the Middle East and North Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brettell, Caroline B. 1984. Emigration and its Implications for the Revolution in Northern Portugal. In Contemporary Portugal, edited by Lawrence S. Graham and Harry M. Makler, 281–298. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Breunig, Christian, Cao, Xun, and Luedtke, Adam. 2012. Global Migration and Political Regime Type: A Democratic Disadvantage. British Journal of Political Science 42 (4):825–854.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brinks, Daniel, and Coppedge, Michael. 2006. Diffusion is No Illusion: Neighbor Emulation in the Third Wave of Democracy. Comparative Political Studies 39 (4):463–489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camp, Roderic Ai. 2003. Learning Democracy in Mexico and the United States. Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 19 (1):3–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chauvet, Lisa, and Mercier, Marion. 2014. Do Return Migrants Transfer Political Norms to Their Origin Country? Evidence From Mali. Journal of Comparative Economics 42 (3):630–651.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cingranelli, David L., and Richards, David L.. 2014. The Cingranelli-Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Dataset. Version 2014.04.14. Available from www.humanrightsdata.org. Accessed 7 September 2016.Google Scholar
Clemens, Michael. 2011. Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk? Journal of Economic Perspectives 25 (3):83–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clemens, Michael. 2014. Does Development Reduce Migration? In International Handbook of Migration and Economic Development, edited by Robert E. B. Lucas, 152–185. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Coppedge, Michael, Gerring, John, Lindberg, Staffan I., Skaaning, Svend-Erik, Teorell, Jan, Altman, David, Bernhard, Michael, Fish, M. Steven, Glynn, Adam, Hicken, Allen, Knutsen, Carl Henrik, Marquardt, Kyle, McMann, Kelly, Miri, Farhad, Paxton, Pamela, Pemstein, Daniel, Staton, Jeffrey, Tzelgov, Eitan, Wang, Yi-ting, and Zimmerman, Brigitte. 2016. V-Dem Dataset, Version 6. Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project.Google Scholar
Correlates of War Project. 2007. Direct Contiguity Data, 1816–2006, Version 3.1. Available from www.correlatesofwar.org. Accessed 7 September 2016.Google Scholar
Correlates of War Project. 2013. Formal Interstate Alliance Dataset, Version 4.1. Available from www.correlatesofwar.org.Google Scholar
Docquier, Frédéric, Lodigiani, Elisabetta, Rapoport, Hillel, and Schiff, Maurice. 2016. Emigration and Democracy. Journal of Development Economics 120:209–223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Docquier, Frédéric, and Marfouk, Abdeslam. 2005. International Migration by Educational Attainment (1990–2000), Release 1.1. Available from perso.uclouvain.be/frederic.docquier/oxlight.htm. Accessed 7 September 2016.Google Scholar
Docquier, Frédéric, and Rapoport, Hillel. 2012. Globalization, Brain Drain, and Development. Journal of Economic Literature 50 (3):681–730.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dowty, Alan. 1987. Closed Borders. The Contemporary Assault on Freedom of Movement. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Doyle, David. 2015. Remittances and Social Spending. American Political Science Review 109 (4):785–802.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Endoh, Toake. 2009. Exporting Japan: Politics of Emigration to Latin America. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Easton, Malcolm R., and Montinola, Gabriella R.. 2017. Remittances, Regime Type, and Government Spending Priorities. Studies in Comparative International Development 52 (3):349–371.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Escribà-Folch, Abel, Meseguer, Covadonga, and Wright, Joseph. 2015. Remittances and Democratization. International Studies Quarterly 59 (3):571–586.10.1111/isqu.12180CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzgerald, David. 2006. Inside the Sending State: The Politics of Mexican Emigration Control. International Migration Review 40 (2):259–293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzgerald, Jennifer, Leblang, David, and Teets, Jessica C.. 2014. Defying the Law of Gravity: The Political Economy of International Migration. World Politics 66 (3):406–445.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleck, Robert K., and Hanssen, F. Andrew. 2013. When Voice Fails: Potential Exit as a Constraint on Government Quality. International Review of Law and Economics 35:26–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankel, Jeffrey A., and Romer, David. 1999. Does Trade Cause Growth? American Economic Review 89 (3):379–399.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freeman, John R., and Quinn, Dennis P.. 2012. The Economic Origins of Democracy Reconsidered. American Political Science Review 106 (1):58–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fukuyama, Francis. 2011. The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
Gehlbach, Scott. 2006. A Formal Model of Exit and Voice. Rationality and Society 18:395–418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gleditsch, Kristian S., and Ward, Michael D.. 2001. Measuring Space: A Minimum Distance Database. Journal of Peace Research 38:749–768.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gleditsch, Kristian S., and Ward, Michael D.. 2006. Diffusion and the International Context of Democratization. International Organization 60:911–933.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, David M. 1994. Immigrant Links to the Home Country: Empirical Implications for US Bilateral Trade Flows. Review of Economics and Statistics 76 (2):302–316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenhill, Kelly M. 2010. Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanson, Jonathan K., and Sigman, Rachel. 2013. Leviathan’s Latent Dimensions: Measuring State Capacity for Comparative Political Research. Paper presented at the World Bank Political Economy Brown Bag, 21 March 2013, Syracuse University.Google Scholar
Heston, Alan, Summers, Robert, and Aten, Bettina. 2011. Penn World Table Version 7.0. CICPIP, University of Pennsylvania. Available from pwt.econ.upenn.edu. Accessed 7 September 2016.Google Scholar
Hirschman, Albert O. 1970. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Repsonses to Declines in Firms, Organizations, and States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hirschman, Albert O.. 1978. Exit, Voice, and the State. World Politics 31 (1):90–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirschman, Albert O.. 1993. Exit, Voice, and the Fate of the German Democratic Republic: An Essay in Conceptual History. World Politics 45 (2):173–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iskander, Natasha. 2010. Creative State: Forty Years of Migration and Development Policy in Morocco and Mexico. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Jamal, Vali. 1976. Review of Expulsion of a Minority: Essays on Ugandan Asians by Michael Twaddle. Journal of Modern African Studies 14 (2):357–361.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kapur, Devesh. 2014. Political Effects of International Migration. Annual Review of Political Science 17:479–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kapur, Devesh, and McHale, John. 2012. Economic Effects of Emigration on Sending Countries. In Oxford Handbook of the Politics of International Migration, edited by Marc R. Rosenblum and Daniel J. Tichenor, 131–152. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
LaGraffe, Daniel. 2012. The Youth Bulge in Egypt: An Intersection of Demographics, Security, and the Arab Spring. Journal of Strategic Security 5 (2):65–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leblang, David. 2010. Familiarity Breeds Investment: Diaspora Networks and International Investment. American Political Science Review 104 (3):584–600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levitsky, Steven, and Way, Lucan A.. 2010. Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levitt, Peggy. 1998. Social remittances: Migration Driven Local-Level Forms of Cultural Diffusion. International Migration Review 32 (4):926–948.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Light, Matthew A. 2012. What Does it Mean to Control Migration? Soviet Mobility Policies in Comparative Perspective. Law & Social Inquiry 37:395–429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahmoud, Toman Omar, Rapoport, Hillel, Steinmayr, Andreas, and Trebesch, Christoph. 2017. The Effect of Labor Migration on the Diffusion of Democracy: Evidence from a Former Soviet Republic. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 9 (3):36–69.Google Scholar
Marshall, Monty G. 2010. Major Episodes of Political Violence (MEPV) and Conflict Regions, 1946–2008. Center for Systemic Peace. Available from www.systemicpeace.org. Accessed 7 September 2016.Google Scholar
Marshall, Monty G., and Jaggers, Keith. 2014. Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800–2014. Available from www.systemicpeace.org. Accessed 7 September 2016.Google Scholar
Massey, Douglas S. 1999. International Migration at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century: The Role of the State. Population and Development Review 25 (2):303–322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melitz, Jacques, and Toubal, Farid. 2014. Native Language, Spoken Language, Translation and Trade. Journal of International Economics 93 (2):351–363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meseguer, Covadonga, and Burgess, Katrina. 2014. International Migration and Home Country Politics. Studies in Comparative International Development 49 (1):1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Michael K., and Peters, Margaret E.. 2017. Replication Data for: Restraining the Huddled Masses: Migration Policy and Autocratic Survival, doi:10.7910/DVN/KGL6YO, Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:QOD0bB0xspoR5nNa2f/RcQ==Google Scholar
Milner, Helen V., and Mukherjee, Bumba. 2009. Democratization and Economic Globalization. Annual Review of Political Science 12:163–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Min, Ye. 2013. How Overseas Chinese Spurred the Economic ‘Miracle’ in Their Homeland. In How Immigrants Impact Their Homelands, edited by Susan Eva Eckstein and Adil Najam, 52–74. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Moses, Jonathon W. 2011. Emigration and Political Development. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neumayer, Eric, and Plümper, Thomas. 2016. W. Political Science Research and Methods 4 (1):175–193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Onorato, Massimiliano Gaetano, Scheve, Kenneth, and Stasavage, David. 2014. Technology and the Era of the Mass Army. Journal of Economic History 74 (2):449–481.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Özden, Çağlar, Parsons, Christopher R., Schiff, Maurice, and Walmsley, Terrie L.. 2011. Where on Earth is Everybody? The Evolution of Global Bilateral Migration, 1960–2000. World Bank Economic Review 25 (1):12–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pagan, Adrian. 1984. Econometric Issues in the Analysis of Regressions With Generated Regressors. International Economic Review 25 (1):221–247.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pandya, Sonal. 2014. Trading Spaces: Foreign Direct Investment Regulation, 1970–2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pepinsky, Thomas B. 2009. Economic Crises and the Breakdown of Authoritarian Regimes: Indonesia and Malaysia in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pérez-Armendáriz, Clarisa, and Crow, David. 2010. Do Migrants Remit Democracy? International Migration, Political Beliefs, and Behavior in Mexico. Comparative Political Studies 43 (1):119–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, Margaret. 2015. Open Trade, Closed Borders: Immigration in the Era of Globalization. World Politics 67 (1):114–154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, Margaret. 2017a. Immigration and International Law. Working Paper, UCLA: Los Angeles, CA.Google Scholar
Peters, Margaret. 2017b. Serfdom for Sale: Government Finance and Imposition of Serfdom After the Black Death. Working Paper, UCLA: Los Angeles, CA.Google Scholar
Peters, Margaret. 2017c. Trading Barriers: Immigration and the Remaking of Globalization. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Pfaff, Steven, and Kim, Hyojoung. 2003. Exit-Voice Dynamics in Collective Action: An Analysis of Emigration and Protest in the East German Revolution. American Journal of Sociology 109 (2):401–444.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pfutze, Tobias. 2012. Does Migration Promote Democratization? Evidence from the Mexican Transition. Journal of Comparative Economics 40:159–175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Regan, Patrick M., and Frank, Richard W.. 2014. Migrant Remittances and the Onset of Civil War. Conflict Management and Peace Science 31 (5):502–520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roman, Howaida. 2006. Emigration Policy in Egypt. Analytical and Synthetic Notes Series, Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration, European University Institute.Google Scholar
Rudra, Nita. 2005. Globalization and the Strengthening of Democracy in the Developing World. American Journal of Political Science 49 (4):704–730.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sarkees, Meredith Reid, and Wayman, Frank. 2010. Resort to War: 1816–2007. Washington: CQ Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, David Andrew. 2010. Migrant Remittances and Exchange Rate Regimes in the developing World. American Political Science Review 104 (2):307–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solinger, Dorothy J. 1999. Citizenship Issues in China’s Internal Migration: Comparisons With Germany and Japan. Political Science Quarterly 114 (3):455–478.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spilimbergo, Antonio. 2009. Democracy and Foreign Education. American Economic Review 99 (1):528–543.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinberg, David A., and Malhotra, Krishan. 2014. The Effect of Authoritarian Regime Type on Exchange Rate Policy. World Politics 66 (3):491–529.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tanaka, Hiroyuki. 2008. North Korea: Understanding Migration to and From a Closed Country. Migration Policy Institute. Available from migrationpolicy.org. Accessed 7 September 2016.Google Scholar
Tiebout, Charles. 1956. A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures. Journal of Political Economy 64 (5):416–424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Torfason, Magnus Thor, and Ingram, Paul. 2010. The Global Rise of Democracy: A Network Account. American Sociological Review 75 (3):355–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, Jeremy. 2014. Cities and Stability: Urbanization, Redistribution, and Regime Survival in China. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Bank. 2014. Statistics Retrieved 2014, From World Development Indicators Online (WDI). Available from www.worldbank.org/data. Accessed 7 September 2016.Google Scholar
World Bank. 2017. Migration and Remittances Factbook 2016. Available from www.worldbank.org/en/research/brief/migration-and-remittances.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Miller and Peters Dataset

Dataset

https://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/KGL6YO
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Miller and Peters supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Miller and Peters supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 239.1 KB