Brothers or Invaders? How Crises-Driven Migrants Shape Voting Behavior

Sandra Rozo and Juan Vargas
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Sandra Rozo: University of Southern California

Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC) Working Papers from Empirical Studies of Conflict Project

Abstract: Can voter’s negative attitudes toward immigration be explained by self-interest or sociotropic motives? Self-interested voters care about their personal economic circumstances. Sociotropic voters display in-group bias and perceive migrants as threats to their culture. We study the voting effects of forced internal and international migration in Colombia and exploit the disproportionate flows of migrants to municipalities with early settlements of individuals from their origin locations. In line with the sociotropic hypothesis, we find that only international migration inflows increase political participation and shift votes from left- to right-wing ideologies. These results are not accounted for by the observed changes caused by migrants in socioeconomic variables.

Keywords: Colombia; Economic Development, Political Development, Demographic; Socioeconomic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 F2 O15 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-int, nep-pol and nep-soc
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Brothers or invaders? How crisis-driven migrants shape voting behavior (2021)
Working Paper: Brothers or Invaders? How Crisis-driven Migrants Shape Voting Behavior (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pri:esocpu:12

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