RAPID: Return Migrants, Violent Electoral Politics and Electoral Integrity

选举之前、期间和之后的选举暴力在中等收入民主国家很常见，这些国家产生了大量国际移民，这些移民从国外与这些国家保持着社会、政治和经济联系。 该项目通过审查在美国以移民身份生活后竞选墨西哥市长的候选人，探讨返回的移民是否能够加强面临选举暴力风险的国家的选举诚信和竞争。墨西哥市长候选人及其家人面临被谋杀或暴力袭击的重大风险;然而，多达30%的当选市长以前住在美国。该项目审查回返的移民候选人是否有机会获得资源和能力，以加强对暴力的复原力和容纳暴力行为者的能力，增进与移民管理政策有关的知识，减少选举暴力对民主竞争和选举诚信的负面影响。为了在暴力选举的背景下研究返回的移民，该项目在墨西哥2021年选举前的两个月内调查了大约1,100名市长候选人的全国样本。受访者是从2,100名候选人的名单中抽取的，该名单采用分层抽样设计，其中包括从墨西哥各州的官方候选人登记册中随机选择，并从移民人数较多的城市进行过抽样。调查问题涉及个人移民经历和获得移民驱动的资源和能力的机会，包括跨境网络、移民产生的财富、美国的犯罪和刑事司法经验以及穿越美墨边境的设施。候选人还被问及影响候选人竞选公职的其他因素，如墨西哥国内的政治社会化、党派关系、个人属性和社会经济地位。调查数据与公开的企业级数据合并，以供分析。 作为世界上第一个广泛考察候选人移民经历的大型调查，该项目为受移民美国和选举暴力影响的其他国家的未来调查提供了方法学经验，包括萨尔瓦多萨尔瓦多、洪都拉斯、尼加拉瓜、该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响进行评估，被认为值得支持审查标准。

Electoral violence before, during, and after elections is common in middle-income democracies that produce large numbers of international migrants who retain social, political, and economic ties with those countries from abroad. This project addresses whether return migrants can strengthen electoral integrity and competition in countries at risk of electoral violence by examining candidates who run for mayor in Mexico after living as immigrants in the United States. Mexican mayoral candidates and their family members face significant risks of being murdered or violently attacked; yet, as many as 30 percent of elected mayors previously lived in the US. The project examines whether return-migrant candidates have access to resources and capacities that enhance resilience against violence and the ability to accommodate violent actors, advancing knowledge relevant to policies on migration management and the reduction of electoral violence's negative repercussions on democratic competition and electoral integrity. To examine return migrants in the context of violent elections, this project surveys a national sample of approximately 1,100 mayoral candidates during the two months leading up to Mexico's 2021 election. Respondents are drawn from a list of 2,100 candidates developed using a stratified sampling design that involves a random selection from each Mexican state's official candidate registry with an oversampling from municipalities with higher migration. Survey questions address personal migration experiences and access to migration-driven resources and capacities, including cross-border networks, migration-generated wealth, experiences with crime and criminal justice in the United States, and facilities for crossing the US-Mexico border. Candidates are also asked about other factors that influence candidates' choices to run for office, such as political socialization within Mexico, party affiliation, personal attributes, and socio-economic status. The survey data are merged with publicly available municipal-level data for analysis. As the first large-n survey in the world that examines candidates' migration experiences extensively, the project provides methodological lessons for future surveys in other countries affected by migration to the US and electoral violence, including El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.