Freedom of foreign movement, economic opportunities abroad, and protest in non-democratic regimes

Abstract

Allowing or restricting foreign movement is a crucial policy choice for leaders. We argue that freedom of foreign movement reduces the level of civil unrest under non-democratic regimes, but only in some circumstances. Our argument relies on the trade-offs inherent in exit and voice as distinct strategies for dealing with a corrupt and oppressive state. By permitting exit and thereby lowering its relative costs, authoritarians can make protest and other modes of expressing dissatisfaction less attractive for potential troublemakers. Liberalizing foreign movement can thus function as a safety valve for releasing domestic pressure. But the degree to which allowing emigration is an effective regime strategy is shaped by the economic opportunities offered by countries receiving immigrants. We find that freedom of foreign movement and the existence of economic opportunities abroad reduce civil unrest in non-democratic states. However, at high levels of unemployment in the developed world, greater freedom of foreign movement actually increases protest.

Remittances and Protests against Crime in Mexico

“…This finding is relevant to several literatures. First, research on the international determinants of protests is only starting to pay attention to emigration and financial remittances (Barry et al 2014;Miller and Ritter 2014;Escribà-Folch, Meseguer, and Wright 2018;Germano 2018). In the literature on protests, resources are deemed essential for grievances to be transformed into collective action.…”

Civil unrest and herding behavior: evidence in an emerging market

“…Weinberg and Bakker (2015) investigated the relationship between food prices inside a country and social unrest, reporting a positive relationship between them. Barry et al (2014), who use a cross-national sample of 125 countries from 1981 to 2007, find that freedom of foreign movement and the existence of economic opportunities abroad reduce civil unrest. Kibria et al (2020) using a sample of 34 countries in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) between 1972 and 2013 found that an increase in foreign direct investment reduces the risk of civil violence for skilled-labor intensive fuel-resource rich SSA countries.…”

Remittances and Protest in Dictatorships

“…However, there is little research on this and less so in autocratic contexts. Dionne, Inman, and Montinola (2014) show that remittance receivers are more likely to protest in Africa, whereas Barry et al (2014) argue that open emigration policies reduce protest in nondemocracies by allowing dissenters to leave. Yet open emigration policies may increase protest if migrant remittances decline when economies weaken in destination countries.…”