Transcript ¿Al diablo con las instituciones? La (des)confianza institucional en

Payin’ it Backward: Migration and
Democratic Diffusion in Latin America
David Crow
División de Estudios Internacionales
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (Mexico City)
[email protected]
Clarisa Pérez-Armendáriz
Political Science Department
Bates College
[email protected]
Migration and Democratic
Diffusion: Theory
Our Work on Mexico:
- “Social remittances”
 Transmission of values, attitudes, practices: here, migrants spread
values from more democratic host countries to less democratic (Levitt,
1998)
- Democratic Diffusion
 democracy spreads across international borders (Brinks and Coppedge
2006, Przeworski et al. 2000, Starr 1991). BUT no theory of agency
- Policy Diffusion
 supplies theory of agency (functionaries, social elites, members of
organized civil society, etc.) applied to policy change (Kapur and McHale
2005, Keck and Sikkink 1998, Tarrow 2005)
New Theoretical Element:
- Interpersonal Communication
 people are more receptive to and put more stock in ideas they receive
from people they know (e.g., “two-step flow” in which “primary reference
groups” and friends and family, Lazarsfeld, Berelson, Katz, 1944, 1955)
Migration and Democratic
Diffusion: The Case of Mexico
- Three transmission “paths”
• Return migration: Mexicans absorb values in host country
(U.S.) and retain them back home
 item: “Have you ever lived outside Mexico?”
• Cross-border communication: Mexicans abroad
communicate values to friends and family back home
 item: “Do you have family members or friends who live
outside Mexico?”
• Information networks in high-volume sending
communities:
 item: CONAPO, Migration Intensity Index
- Data: Original survey, Desencanto Ciudadano , June,
2006 (N=650)
Attitudes and Behaviors
• Attitudes:
– Satisfaction with Democracy
– Government Respect for Rights
– Composite Tolerance Indicator
(political, religious, sexual orientation)
• Behaviors:
– Non-electoral individual participation
(contact authorities, handed out flyers, signed complaint, etc.)
– Organizational participation
(parties, neighborhood associations, civic organizations, etc.)
– Protest
Findings
• Migration increased democratic attitudes and
behaviors, but effects are differentiated
– Return migration
• Increased tolerance
• Negative evaluations of government respect for rights
(“critical citizens”)
– Friends and Family Abroad
• Less satisfied with democracy
• More individual and organizational participation,
protest
– High-intensity migration community
• More organizational participation
• No Effect for Remittances
Extending the Research to
Latin America: Challenges
• Different migratory destinations:
Central and South American migration is much more varied
than Mexican migration (e.g. Peruvians go to Argentina, Chile,
Spain, and U.S., Nicaraguans go to Costa Rica and U.S., etc.)
Do Nicaraguans in Costa Rica learn the same things
as Peruvians in Spain and Mexicans in the U.S.? 
Probably not BUT, migration generally occurs from less to more
democratic countries  so, the general expectation is for some
democratic learning
Extending the Research to
Latin America: More Challenges
• Different reasons for migrating:
Mexican migration has been almost exclusively economic and
familial, but Central and South American migration has also
been political and related to natural disasters
Do economic migrants, political migrants, family
reunification migrants and refugees from natural
disasters have the same predisposition toward
political learning  Again, probably not
Extending the Research to
Latin America: Yet More Challenges!
• Different national contexts:
Political institutions, histories, cultures, and economic development
also influence political attitudes and behaviors
Study on Mexico holds constant not only sending country
context, but (given 95% in U.S.) host country context
Ideally, the different national contexts could be measured
and included in the model as variables (“turn proper
names into variables”)  easier said than done
Data: Latin American Public
Opinion Project (2008)
LAPOP 2008: 22 Countries
Argentina
Haiti
Belice
Honduras
Bolivia
Jamaica
Brasil
Nicaragua
Chile
Panamá
Colombia
Perú
Costa Rica
Paraguay
Ecuador
República Dominicana
El Salvador
Suriname
Guatemala
Uruguay
Guyana
Venezuela
LAPOP 2008: Data Limitations
– Return migration: poor measure
• Time window for living abroad (5 yrs. ago) too narrow
 only 1.3% of Latin Americans (and 0.71% of Mexicans)
• No item on destination (i.e., host country)
• Question only asked in 10 (of 22) countries
– Family members’ host countries: little information 
just coarse categorization (U.S. only, U.S. and other, other)
– Communication: frequency, not content
– Reasons for migrating: no information
– Remittances/Communication: does receiving
remittances count as communication?
 measurement error for communication
LAPOP 2008: Dependent Variables
• Evaluations of Democracy
- Satisfaction
with Democracy (Mucho, Algo, Poco, Nada)
- Political system’s protection of “basic rights” (7-pt. scale, “Nada” to
“Mucho”)
• Political engagement
- Convince others to vote for party or candidate (4-pt. “Never” to “Frequently”)
- Meet with neighbors to solve community problem (4-pt. “Never” to “Frequently”)
- Protest in last 12 months (3-pt. “Never”, “Almost Never” and “A Few Times”
LAPOP 2008:
Independent Variables – Migration
• Household members residing abroad
– In U.S. only (binary)
– U.S. and Elsewhere (binary)
– Elsewhere (binary)
• Frequency of communication (5-pt. ordinal “Never”,
“Rarely”, “Once or Twice a Month”, “Once or Twice a Week”, “Every Day”)
• Household receives remittances (binary)
Distribution of Family
Members Living Abroad
80%
75.3%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
11.4%
8.6%
10%
4.7%
0%
US Only
US & Other
Other
None
Frequency of Communication with
Family Members Abroad
35%
30.0%
30.0%
30%
28.1%
25%
20%
15%
10%
6.5%
5.4%
5%
0%
Never
Rarely
Once or Twice a Month
Once or Twice a Week
Every Day
Countries by % of Households that
Receive Remittances
60%
50%
49.2%
40.4%
40%
34.8%
30%
26.7%
22.0%
20%
20.2% 19.2%
10.9%
10.8% 10.5%
10%
10.3% 8.8%
7.8%
5.5% 5.2%
3.6% 3.6% 3.5% 2.9%
1.6% 1.6% 0.7%
Brasil
Venezuela
Chile
Argentina
Panamá
Uruguay
Paraguay
Costa Rica
Colombia
Peru
Mexico
Ecuador
Belice
Bolivia
Guatemala
Rep. Dominicana
Honduras
Nicaragua
El Salvador
Guyana
Jamaica
Haiti
0%
Countries by Dependence on Remittances
Among Receiving Households
% of Households (Among Receptors) that Depend “A Lot” or
“Somewhat” on Remittances for Monthly Income
90%
85.7%
82.6%
80%
71.3%
70%
69.6% 69.3%
67.6%
63.5%
60%
58.0%
56.9% 56.7%
56.5% 56.4% 56.3% 55.8% 54.7%
51.2% 50.4%
50%
48.9%
45.2%
40.0% 39.7%
40%
33.3%
30%
20%
10%
Costa Rica
Belice
Brasil
Peru
Chile
Uruguay
Guatemala
Panama
Argentina
Bolivia
Guyana
Ecuador
El Salvador
Mexico
Colombia
Jamaica
Rep. Dominicana
Nicaragua
Paraguay
Haiti
Venezuela
Honduras
0%
LAPOP 2008: Controls
• Sociodemographic
–
–
–
–
–
Sex
Age
Income
Education
Employment
• Retrospective economic evaluations
– Pocketbook
– Sociotropic
Expectations
• Having family members abroad will
– Make citizens more critical in their evaluations of their country’s
democracy
– Increase different forms of civic engagement
• Differentiated effects among host country
categories  US > US + Other > Other
• Greater communication should also increase
critical citizenship and civic engagement
• Remittances
– Increase criticism
– Decrease engagement (following Goodman and
Hiskey)remittances may substitute for goods capital, etc., one
would normally get leveraging local networks, obviate need for
community participation
Results: Attitudes
Satisfaction with Democracy Pol. System Protects Rights
B
p
B
p
US
-0.038
0.057
-0.119
0.013
US + Other
-0.057
0.021
-0.256
0.000
Other
-0.027
0.180
-0.107
0.030
Communication
0.018
0.032
0.032
0.104
Remittances
-0.020
0.173
-0.027
0.443
Results: Engagement
US
US + Other
Other
Communication
Remittances
Electoral Persuasion
B
p
0.115
0.000
0.154
0.000
0.125
0.000
-0.032
0.003
0.055
0.005
Solve Community Problem
B
p
0.048
0.048
0.068
0.024
0.037
0.144
0.027
0.007
-0.054
0.003
Protest (Last 12 Mos.)
B
p
0.886
0.000
-0.079
0.767
-0.119
0.561
-0.212
0.008
-0.761
0.000
Findings
• Household Members Abroad
– Makes citizens more critical, increases engagement
– BUT, order different than predicted; in most cases having household
members in the U.S. and elsewhere has an effect of greater absolute
magnitude
• Frequency of Communication
– Some direct effects, but important as suppressor variable
Satisfaction with Democracy
B
p
US
-0.007
0.633
US+Other
-0.026
0.190
Other
0.004
0.780
Remittances
-0.011
0.428
i.e., effects of household members abroad become apparent (or sharper)
only when comparing within each level of communication frequency.
More Findings
• Remittances:
– Insignificant for attitudes toward democracy
– Positive for electoral persuasion
– Negative for civic involvement and protest
 Some evidence of remittance-induced alienation
Next Steps
• What’s going on in the individual countries?
– Better statistical model:
random effects model not good enough for exploring
heterogeneity between countries.
1)
2)
–
•
Case studies
Effects differentiated by host country
–
–
•
How do the effects of household members abroad, communication, etc.,
differ across countries  i.e., random slopes as well as intercepts
Explicitly include aggregate-level variables to account for differences in
institutions, culture, history, etc.
Better theory: a more coherent account of why the the
implantation of democratic values/behaviors should vary according
to host country
Auxiliary data: more precise idea of who’s going where, possibly
imputing host countries
Communication: frequency and content  do people really talk about
politics?
–
–
•
Modify survey items
Qualitative interview data
Return migrants: ???