Migration, political institutions, and social networks

Catia Batista, Julia Seither and Pedro Vicente

NOVAFRICA Working Paper Series from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics, NOVAFRICA

Abstract: What is the role of international migrants and, more specifically, of migrant networks in shaping the quality of political institutions in migrant sending countries? Our theory proposes that migration might change individual social identities and in this way intrinsic motivation for political participation, while it may also improve knowledge about better quality political institutions. Hence, international migration might increase political awareness and participation both by migrants and by other individuals in their networks. To test this hypothesis, this paper uses several survey and behavioral measures related to political participation and electoral knowledge. These data were purposely collected around the time of the 2009 elections in Mozambique. The empirical results show that the number of migrants an individual is in close contact through regular chatting within a village significantly increase political participation of residents in that village more so than family links to migrants. Our findings are consistent with both improved knowledge about political processes, and increased intrinsic motivation for political participation being transmitted through migrant networks.

Keywords: International migration; social networks; political participation; information; effects of emigration in origin countries; sub-Saharan Africa; Mozambique (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 F22 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-int, nep-mig, nep-pol, nep-soc and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://novafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/17014.pdf

Related works:
Working Paper: Migration, Political Institutions, and Social Networks (2018)
Working Paper: Migration, Political Institutions, and Social Networks (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unl:novafr:wp1701

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NOVAFRICA Working Paper Series from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics, NOVAFRICA Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Susana Lopes ().