Remittances and Democratization

Abstract

Do remittances stabilize autocracies? Remittances—money sent by foreign workers to individuals in their home country—differ from other sources of external non‐tax revenue, such as foreign aid, because they accrue directly to individuals and thus raise the incomes of households. We argue that remittances increase the likelihood of democratic transition by undermining electoral support for autocratic incumbents in party‐based regimes. Remittances therefore make voters less dependent on state transfers. As a result, autocracies that rely heavily on the broad‐based distribution of spoils for their survival, namely party‐based regimes, should prove especially vulnerable to increases in remittances. Evidence consistent with this argument suggests that remittances promote democratization in some dictatorships.

Financial remittances, trans-border conversations, and the state

“…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.…”

Harnessing the Diaspora

“…Migrants are increasingly part of the global supply chain and are consumers of products manufactured in their homeland. At the macro-level, scholars have found that remittances play an important role in shaping a country's exchange rate regime preferences (Singer, 2010) and, under certain conditions, can facilitate a country's transition into democracy by undermining support for autocrats (Escriba-Folch, Meseguer, & Wright, 2015). And, like their ancestors centuries earlier, migrants funnel capital directly back to their families and friends through remittances.…”

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

“…It is unclear to what extent migrant and diaspora engagement by democracies and non-democracies differs across the globe. Both regime types have shown they can benefit from financial remittances, and many emerging democracies actively encourage labour migration (Escribà-Folch et al, 2015), as do some authoritarian regimes (Tsourapas, 2015(Tsourapas, , 2018b.…”