International Migration and Home Country Politics

Transnational remittances and state protection of human rights: A case for caution

“…Second, if remittances are indeed an important means whereby diasporic communities influence political outcomes in the home country, to what extent does diasporic political engagement actually improve domestic institutions? Again our results do not contradict the case‐specific evidence mentioned surveyed in Meseguer and Burgess () or Baudasse et al (). They simply lead us to question if the case studies are actually indicative of a general trend.…”

“…We should clarify that we do not deny the existence of a political motive for remittances (Kapur, ; Meseguer & Burgess, ). Nor do we dispute existing accounts of political remittance cycles (O’mahoney, ).…”

“…The institutional impact of international remittances has emerged as an important area of research in the last decade or so; with increasing scholarly effort being devoted to exploring the consequences of such transfers on the quality of governance (Abdih, Chami, Dagher, & Montiel, ), the level of corruption (Tyburski, , ), the composition of public expenditure (Doyle, ), the likelihood of civil conflict (Regan & Frank, ), the persistence (Ahmed, , , ), and democratization (Escriba‐Folch, Meseguer, & Wright, ) of autocratic regimes, and the level of political (Meseguer & Burgess, ) and civic (Nikolova, Roman, & Zimmerman, ) engagement of the population. To the best of our knowledge, however, the present study is the first to undertake a rigorous empirical investigation of the impact of international remittances on a fundamental measure of institutional quality in the form of state protection of human rights.…”

Financial remittances, trans-border conversations, and the state

“…Only recently have political scientists and political economists started to systematically look into the political consequences that these flows and outmigration more generally may have for sending countries (see Kapur, 2014;Meseguer & Burgess, 2014;Mosley & Singer, 2015 for reviews). 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.…”

How do countries of origin engage migrants and diasporas? Multiple actors and comparative perspectives

“…The politics of sending states and migration is attracting increased attention (Adamson and Demetriou, 2007;Collyer, 2013;De Haas, 2007;Délano and Gamlen, 2014;Fitzgerald, 2006;Gamlen et al, 2013;Hollifield, 2012;Kapur, 2010;Koinova, 2012Koinova, , 2018aMeseguer and Burgess, 2014;Mylonas 2012;Naujoks, 2013;Østergaard-Nielsen, 2003;Ragazzi, 2014;Tsourapas, 2015Tsourapas, , 2018aWaterbury, 2010).…”