Dissertation Research in Political Science: The Political Economy of Mexico-US Migration: A View into the Sending Regions

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Political scientists have devoted considerable time and attention to the study of cross-border movements of goods and financial capital - to their causes and, furthermore, to their consequences on both developed and developing countries. What is surprising, though, is the relative inattention of political scientists to the study of the cross-border flows of individuals, especially to the consequences of these movements for source (and less-developed), as opposed to host (and more developed), countries. This research gap is striking. As anyone familiar with the domestic politics of less-developed countries (from Mexico and El Salvador to India and Pakistan) can attest, matters such as remittances, emigre voting rights, more or less explicit initiatives to foster workers' migration abroad, and the establishment of emigrant institutions, have become increasingly salient over the last two decades. The main impetus behind the research is, precisely, to redress this imbalance by studying recent Mexican-U.S. migration.An empirical regularity is first documented: Mexicans who migrate into the U.S. are not a random sample of the Mexican population, but instead differ from their co-nationals along a number of dimensions - i.e., gender, age, education, income, attitude towards risk. This is not surprising, given the risks and costs associated with moving into the U.S., especially since the early 1990's. What is surprising, though, is that the migration-related literature (even that produced by political scientists) has consistently overlooked that all of these dimensions are powerful predictors of a wide range of political attitudes and behaviors in Mexico - including party identification and vote choice. Building upon this regularity, the research shows that migration has not been politically neutral, especially at the sub-national level. Given that those who leave differ in politically consequential ways from those who stay, international migration has reshaped the local milieu in which Mexican politicians operate and in which citizens interact with each other. By making connections between demography, political behavior, and political economy, and by combining several modes of analysis (i.e., quantitative and qualitative), this project will shed light upon questions such as the following: Has emigration brought about changes in the patterns of partisan competition for local office in Mexico? Have the massive migratory flows of Mexicans into the U.S. during the 1990's amounted to a reshaping of the electorate that actually slowed down the demise of the incumbent party's local hegemony? Has emigration altered the incentives for governmental responsiveness to citizens? Has emigration, and remittances in particular, strengthened or weakened the effects of political voice upon the disciplining of local governments? What have been the effects of migration, via highly lop-sided gender ratios in the sending communities, upon the dynamics of gender roles? Have females become more or less likely to participate in local politics?This research will thus show that the fact that Mexico-U.S. migration provides self-selected individuals with an exit option can have not only important economic and developmental consequences for the sending country, but also substantial political effects at the sub-national level. Despite not being a typical case of "brain drain", Mexico-U.S. migration shows that the flip side of increased "exit" might well be decreased "voice". That a considerable proportion of self-selected individuals (predominantly males, young, from around the middle of the income distribution in Mexico, and with about one more year of formal schooling than the typical Mexican) has migrated to the U.S. is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it has led to an increase in remittances as a source of foreign exchange; on the other, though, it has decreased the pressures to alter the political and structural barriers that underpin the current low-quality equilibrium in which many Mexican localities are trapped.