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

政治学家花了相当多的时间和精力研究货物和金融资本的跨境流动，研究其原因，进而研究其对发达国家和发展中国家的影响。然而，令人惊讶的是，政治学家对个人跨境流动研究的关注相对较少，尤其是对这些流动对来源国（和欠发达国家）而不是东道国（和更发达国家）的影响。这一研究差距是惊人的。任何熟悉欠发达国家（从墨西哥和萨尔瓦多到印度和巴基斯坦）国内政治的人都可以证明，汇款、移民投票权、或多或少促进工人移民海外的明确举措以及建立移民机构等问题在过去二十年中变得越来越突出。准确地说，这项研究背后的主要推动力是通过研究最近的美墨关系来纠正这种不平衡。迁移。首先记录了一个经验规律：移民到美国的墨西哥人不是墨西哥人口的随机样本，而是在性别、年龄、教育程度、收入、对风险的态度等许多方面与他们的同胞不同。考虑到进入美国的风险和成本，尤其是自20世纪90年代初以来，这并不奇怪。然而，令人惊讶的是，与移民相关的文献（甚至是由政治学家撰写的文献）一直忽视了所有这些方面都是墨西哥广泛的政治态度和行为的有力预测因素——包括政党认同和投票选择。基于这种规律性，研究表明，移民并不是政治中立的，尤其是在次国家层面。考虑到那些离开的人在政治上与留下的人不同，国际移民重塑了墨西哥政治家运作和公民相互交往的当地环境。通过建立人口统计学、政治行为和政治经济学之间的联系，并结合几种分析模式（即定量和定性），该项目将阐明以下问题：移民是否带来了墨西哥地方办公室党派竞争模式的变化？20世纪90年代墨西哥人大量移民到美国，这是否意味着选民的重塑，实际上延缓了现任政党在当地霸权的消亡？移民是否改变了政府回应公民的动机？移民，特别是汇款，是加强还是削弱了政治声音对地方政府纪律的影响？通过派遣社区高度不平衡的性别比例，移徙对性别角色的动态有什么影响？女性参与地方政治的可能性是增加了还是减少了？因此，这项研究将表明，墨西哥和美国之间的关系。移民为自我选择的个人提供了一个退出的选择，不仅可以对派遣国产生重要的经济和发展后果，而且还可以在次国家一级产生重大的政治影响。尽管这不是一个典型的“人才流失”案例，但美墨两国之间的关系。移民表明，“退出”增加的另一面很可能是“声音”减少。相当一部分自我选择的个人（主要是男性，年轻人，来自墨西哥收入分配的中间位置，比典型的墨西哥人多受一年正规教育）移民到美国是一把双刃剑：一方面，它导致了作为外汇来源的汇款的增加；然而，另一方面，它减轻了改变政治和结构性障碍的压力，这些障碍支撑着当前墨西哥许多地方陷入的低质量平衡。

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.