How Migration Shapes Contestation and How bottom-up approaches are key to improving Women’s Political Participation

Increased emigration reduces both violent and non-violent contestation except for migration to democracies which increases non-violent protest. 

The development economist Alfred Hirschman was known for his theory about the role of leaving or “exit” and using your voice to change things. He contended that exit can “atrophy the development of the art of voice” but how exactly does migration affect global patterns of political violence and protest? The paper uses an instrumental variable design to find that greater emigration reduces domestic political violence by providing exit opportunities for aggrieved citizens and economic benefits to those who remain. Emigration also reduces non-violent forms of political contestation, including protests and strikes, implying that high emigration rates can produce relatively passive populations. However, larger flows of emigrants to democracies increase non-violent protest in autocracies, as exposure to freer countries spreads democratic norms and the tools of peaceful opposition. Read the full paper here. 

Grassroots, bottom-up approaches appear key to improving women’s political participation. 

Extensive research has investigated the impact of descriptive representation on women’s political participation; yet, we don’t know how this works. A recent academic paper sheds some empirical light by highlighting the role that women politicians play in mobilizing women’s political participation by recruiting women as grassroots party activists. Evidence from a citizen survey and the natural experiment of gender quotas in India confirms that women politicians are more likely to recruit women party activists, and citizens report greater contact with them in reserved constituencies during elections. Electoral campaigns are also more likely to contact women with women party activists at the helm. These findings suggest that the effects of descriptive representation can be understood by focusing on what women do when they are in politics, not only on what women symbolize. Paradoxically, women’s “representation from below”—not only at the top—is key to laying the groundwork essential for political equality inside parties. Check out the full paper here.