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Auer_Schaub_2023.pdf

Version: 2

Created: January 22, 2024 Last edited : January 23, 2024

Authors

Abstract

In many regions of the world, liberal politics is on the retreat. This development is usually explained with reference to inherently political phenomena. We propose an alternative explanation, linking democratic backsliding to deep-reaching demographic change caused by mass emigration. We argue that because migrants tend to be more politically liberal, their departure, if quantitatively significant, can hurt liberal democracy. Empirically, we focus on Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Since 2004, the region has lost about 9 percent of its population due to migration to Western Europe. Drawing on data from 430,000 individuals and a panel analysis, we show that CEE migrants systematically hold more liberal values than non-migrants, and that their exit went along with a deterioration of democracy in their home countries. Further analyses show that the mechanism we describe generalizes to various other world regions. Mass emigration may pose a challenge to democratic development in migrant-sending countries around the globe.

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https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/isq

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The author asserts that a preregistration is not applicable because no data collection, extraction, or analysis is reported in the preprint.

Conflict of Interest

Author asserted no Conflict of Interest.

preprint DOI

https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/rj6bp
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Subjects

Social and Behavioral SciencesPolitical Science

Tags

democracyliberalismmigrationvalues