Do return migrants transfer political

norms to their origin country?

Evidence from Mali
Lisa Chauvet, Marion Mercier 2014
Presented by Yao Pan and Carlo Santagiustina
04/06/2015

03/06/2015

Yao Pan & Carlo Santagiustina

Do return migrants transfer political

norms to their origin country?

Introduction
Objective of the paper:
o Explore through a case study the causal
links between return migration and political
outcomes in the origin country;
Case study:
o
Mali, two local ballots in 1998/1999 and
2009;
Approach:
o
Use electoral and census data at the
locality level to investigate the role of
return migration on participation rates
and electoral competitiveness;
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Yao Pan & Carlo Santagiustina

to their origin country?

Summary of the presentation

o

o
o

Introduction
o
Research question
o
Review of the literature on return
migration
o
Case study description
Data and identification strategies
o Model specification and regression on
cross section
o
Endogeneity concerns
Results
Conclusion

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Yao Pan & Carlo Santagiustina

Do return migrants transfer political norms

to their origin country?

Research question
Question:
What is the relationship between return
migration and electoral outcomes?
Focus:
Evaluate the effects of return migration on voting
participation and on two indicators of electoral
competitiveness:
o The fragmentation of the votes;
o The winning margin;
Why:
o So far no analysis has looked at the direct impact of
return migrants on political outcomes;
o Africa has never been the field of study to look at the
political consequences of migration (with one
Do return migrants transfer political norms
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Yao Pan & Carlo Santagiustina
exception);
to their origin country?

Review of the literature

1/2
Four channels through which emigration can affect the
quality of political institutions at home (Li and Mc Hale,
2006; Chauvet,2013):

The absence channel

The prospect channel

The diaspora channel

o Return
The return
channel
migration
& the development of the origin
countries
Better educated individuals are more likely to be
active upon return to country of origin, suggesting an
accumulation of human capital during migration
(Dustmann and Kirchkamp,2002);
Return migrants are a source of dynamism and jobcreation for the home economy: Human capital
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Yao
Pan
&
Carlo
Santagiustina
accumulation and physical
capital
accumulation
5
to their origin
country?

Review of the literature

2/2
o

Knowledge transfer
Transfer of fertility norms of Mexican migrants in
the U.S.: women living in communities with higher
female migration have fewer children. (Lindstrom
and Saucedo, 2002)

Transfer of political norms

Migrants who settled in Western countries tend to
vote differently from the non-migrant population:
political preferences thus appear to be affected by
the characteristics of the host countries (Fidrmuc
and Doyle, 2005).
The connections between migrants and their family
in the origin country induce the transfer of political
03/06/201
Do return
migrants
transfer political norms
ideas
and
norms
(Dedieu
et
al.,
2013).
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Yao Pan
& Carlo
Santagiustina
5
to their origin country?
o

Case study: Why Mali?

1/2
Mali
has a long-lasting history of
migration, both within West Africa and to
the rest of the world;
o Mali was referred to as one of the most
successful democratization stories in
Africa (before the coup of 2012);
o Malian migrants are actively involved
in the economic development of their
country:
o They send remittances to their families at
home;
o they gather in hometown associations
Do return migrants transfer political norms
03/06/2015 Yao Pan & Carlo Santagiustina
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o

to their origin country?

Case study: Why Mali?

2/2

Polity IV index in Mali, Africa and West Africa (1960

2010):
Polity IV is an index of
democracy provided by
INSCR of the Center for
Systemic Peace.
It assigns each country an
annual score in the
autocracy-democracy
spectrum, ranging from 10
(autocracy) to 10 (full
democracy).

03/06/2015

Yao Pan & Carlo Santagiustina

Do return migrants transfer political norms

to their origin country?

Data and identification strategies

Data:
Census data collected in 1998/1999 and 2009, by the
Institut National de la Statistique Malien (INSTAT).
Provides information regarding education, ethnic
characteristics, and infrastructures;
Identification strategies:
Implement an instrumentation procedure to take into
account the potential endogeneity in the
relationship between return migration and
voting behavior.
Run fixed-effect estimations over a two-period panel
to control for the time invariant unobservable
variables that may be correlated both with electoral
outcomes and return migration intensity.

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Yao Pan & Carlo Santagiustina

Do return migrants transfer political norms

to their origin country?

Model spec. and regr. on cross

sect.
regression model (general)

>Dep.
variables:
participation
rate;
competiveness
of
the
election
(fragmentation of the votes, winning
margins
> Indep. Variables: return migration
>Control variables: emigrants, population,
literacy, wealth, ethnic groups, lists, rain
shocks
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Do return migrants transfer political norms

to their origin country?

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Endegenoty concerns
>Instruments:
past return migrants in 1998, distance
variables( the distance to the traditional
migratory route, the distance to the closet
checkpoint, the distance to the Senegal
River)
>Panel Construction:

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Do return migrants transfer political norms

to their origin country?

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Results (partial)

The positive and significant impact of

returnees from non-African countries
on turnout

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Do return migrants transfer political norms

to their origin country?

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Do return migrants transfer political norms

to their origin country?

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Results (partial)

An impact of returnees from non-African

countries on electoral competitiveness, but
less robust, and depends on the variables
chosen to measure electoral competitiveness

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Other Results
1.

2.

Simulation: a diffusion of political norms

from returnees to non-migrants
Interaction between the share of returnees
and the share of educated non-migrants in
the locality: consistent with the transfer of
norm hypothesis; an impact of returnees
from non-African countries on electoral
outcomes which is stronger when nonmigrated are less educated and less
informed

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Conclusion
1. Correlation between return migration and electoral
outcomes does not only capture returnees specific
electoral behavior, but reflects a diffusion of political
norms from returnees to non-migrants;
2. Migrants who have experienced different economic
and political environments while living abroad bring
different political norms back home and are likely to
influence non-migrants electoral behavior;
3. Evidence of positive influence of returnees from nonAfrican countries on electoral participation and
electoral competitiveness;
4. Impact of returnees (both on turnout and on
electoral competitiveness) is stronger in poorly
educated localities, suggesting that the presence of
return migrants may substitute for the education of
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Yao Pan & Carlo Santagiustina
non-migrants.
5
to their origin country?

Thank you very much!!

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