Migration and democracy: how remittances undermine dictatorship
In: Princeton scholarship online
Remittances, money sent by workers back to their home countries, support democratic expansion. Migration and Democracy focuses on the effects of worker remittances and how these resources shape political action in the Global South. Remittances are not only the largest source of foreign income in most autocratic countries, but also, in contrast to foreign aid or international investment, flow directly to citizens. As a result, they provide resources that make political opposition possible, and they decrease government dependency, undermining the patronage strategies underpinning authoritarianism. The authors discuss how international migration produces a decentralised flow of income that generally circumvents governments to reach citizens who act as democratizing agents.