The Impact of Voter Exit on Party Survival: Evidence from Zimbabwe

Abstract

Can voter emigration sustain hegemonic undemocratic regimes at a time when elections and democratization are on the rise around the globe? In this chapter I show a link between the mobility of young, middle class, educated urbanites and the survival of ruling parties faced with growing international and local pressures. In additional to benefiting from traditional methods of centralizing power incumbent regimes can sustain their rule when opposition supporters are forced to emigrate because of deteriorating economic or political conditions. My findings suggest that the exit of voters both weakened the opposition movement and relieved political pressures on the incumbent party.

The Extraterritorial Voting Rights and Restrictions Dataset (1950–2020)

“…The richer empirical analysis that the EVRR dataset makes possible comes at a time in which scholars working in quite diverse areas have increasingly recognized the importance of migrant rights and political engagement. Recent scholarship highlights the important role of migrant political ties within international labor markets and financial flows (e.g., Mosley & Singer, 2015), conflict studies (Helbling & Meierrieks, 2020), democratization (e.g., Escribà-Folch et al, 2015), autocratic regime stability (Dendere, 2018; Miller & Peters, 2020), and elections (e.g., Arrighi & Bauböck, 2017; O’Mahony, 2013). The EVRR dataset enables analysis of the causes and consequences of emigrant political inclusion (and exclusion) to be conducted in a more nuanced fashion across a larger number of cases and over a longer period of time.…”