Migration Policy and Autocratic Power

Abstract

Throughout history, control over the movement of citizens has been a central source of autocratic power. Yet modern autocracies vary considerably in how much they limit the freedom to emigrate. Although mass exit can threaten autocratic leaders, emigration can also stabilize regimes by expelling dissidents and encouraging remittances. We disentangle these effects by analyzing the interaction between migration flows, democratic change, and regimes' strategic choices of emigration policy, something that has been neglected in the literature. Despite globalization, we show that emigration freedom has been steadily declining in autocracies since 1980. Using a half-century of bilateral migration data, we calculate the level and targets of expected emigration given exogenous geographic and socioeconomic characteristics. We find that when citizens are more likely to emigrate to democracies, autocracies lower emigration freedom in response. Nevertheless, these countries remain more likely to democratize. Surprisingly, total expected emigration, which tracks the feasibility of exit, predicts autocratic stability and greater emigration freedom.

Keywords: Migration, Autocracy, Democratization, Diffusion

JEL Classification: F22