Migration and Regime Change: Outflows Follow Democratic Decline, Inflows Fuel Illiberal Drift

This paper explores the two-way relationship between international migration and political regime change, emphasizing the potential for a feedback loop: political shifts influence migration patterns, and migration can, in turn, affect political developments. Using a Difference-in-Differences (DiD) approach and a dataset combining migration flows, regime quality indicators (CHRI), and measures of economic integration such as EU membership, the study identifies three key findings. First, substantial immigration into politically fragile democracies can further weaken their institutions. Second, democratic decline tends to increase emigration, undermining a country's ability to a democratic institutional recovery. Third, international economic integration, particularly in our study, through EU accession—shapes how emigration responds to political change. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.