Do Migrants Remit Democracy? International Migration, Political Beliefs, and Behavior in Mexico

Abstract

International migrants are agents of democratic diffusion. They spread attitudes and behaviors absorbed in democratic host countries to their less democratic home countries by way of three processes: (a) migrant returns, (b) cross-border communication between migrants still abroad and their friends and family back home, and (c) migrant information networks in high-volume migration-producing communities. Marshaling data from an original June 2006 national survey in Mexico, the authors show that through one or another of these processes, migration alters the political participation and behavior of Mexicans living in Mexico.

Financial remittances, trans-border conversations, and the state

“…Do trans-border conversations simply modify attitudes without having an effect on actual behaviors? In view of the extant research that shows that trans-border communication makes those left behind more politically active, especially at the local level (Pérez-Armendáriz & Crow, 2010;Careja & Emmenegger, 2012;Córdova & Hiskey, 2015), it makes sense to expect that changing attitudes will be reflected in local activism demanding a more present state. This is a hypothesis that future research should look into.…”

“…Research so far has focused on the impact of remittances on electoral vs. non-electoral political behavior (Careja & Emmenegger, 2012;Germano, 2013;Goodman & Hiskey, 2008;Nyblade & O'Mahony, 2014;O'Mahony, 2013;Pérez-Armendáriz & Crow, 2010;Dionne, Inman & Montinola, 2014), as well as on the impact of remittances on the survival of autocrats and the likelihood of democratization (Ahmed, 2012;Escribà-Folch, Meseguer, & Wright, 2015;Moses, 2011;Pfutze, 2012Pfutze, , 2013. Whether remittances constitute yet another resource curse that may feed government corruption is another subject on the research agenda (Tyburski, 2012(Tyburski, , 2014.…”

Empowering to engage with the homeland: do migration experience and environment foster political remittances?

“…Interdisciplinary scholarship presents varying claims to explain levels of transnational engagement, ranging from demographic and socio-economic factors to assimilation 1 and the political environment of the host society. This research has begun to concentrate on the question of whether migrants are agents of change, first of development and social change more generally (Glick Schiller, Basch, & Blanc, 1992;Itzigsohn & Villacres, 2008;Kapur, 2004;Levitt, 1998Levitt, , 2001Levitt & Lamba-Nieves, 2011) and more recently of democratization (Careja & Emmenegger, 2012;Pérez-Armendáriz & Crow, 2010;Rüland, Kessler, & Rother, 2009) and legal consciousness (Kubal, 2015). 2 Theoretic-In this article, we seek to understand a natural prior of emigrants' making a difference in their homeland, namely the factors that affect such transnational engagement.…”

Migrant Political Participation and Voting Behavior in Romania

“…The emigration experience in a consolidated democracy increases satisfaction with democracy (Careja and Emmeneger 2012, Perez-Armedaniz and Crow, 2010, Camp 2003 …”