Working Papers
Working Papers
This paper asks how domestic migration transforms electoral politics in rich democracies. I start by describing the political differences between movers and stayers: while movers are more invested in national politics, stayers are more invested in local politics. Because of these differences, a nationally-minded electorate emerges in in-migration areas, while the electorate in out-migration areas becomes more locally-minded. These compositional changes affect the extent to which local elections are nationalized, leading to the dominance of national politics in in-migration areas and of local politics in out-migration areas. This process draws the attention of political parties to in-migration areas, resulting in the systematic underrepresentation of out-migration areas. I support these arguments using household panel data as well as data on cross-county migration, voting in local and national elections, and political selection in contemporary Germany. The paper identifies domestic migration as a little-acknowledged yet key factor shaping democratic functioning and stability.
How do native voters respond to refugee inflows? While past scholarship largely emphasizes popular backlash, this paper studies welcoming responses. I focus specifically on the building of durable institutions, which have received only scant attention so far. Analyzing comprehensive data on refugee support organizations (RSOs) in Germany, I demonstrate that the creation of RSOs during the recent refugee crisis was associated with domestic in-migration. This effect is not driven by differential demand among refugees or the selection of movers into liberal communities. I argue instead that domestic migration contributes to geographic polarization by concentrating voters who, due to their sociopolitical characteristics and past experiences, are particularly likely to support refugees. Household panel data substantiates the idea that movers became more likely to volunteer during the refugee crisis. The paper contributes to our understanding of refugee integration and joins a nascent literature on domestic migration and geographic polarization in rich democracies.
Does voters' political behavior change after a move? To answer this question, this paper analyzes comprehensive data on all domestic moves in Germany and a large household panel survey. I document that most residential moves in Germany occur between socio-politically similar contexts, which limits the room for behavioral change following a move. Analysis of household panel data reveal important differences between national and local politics. I demonstrate that migrants' interest and participation in national politics remains largely unchanged after a move. This is also the case if the move occurs between very dissimilar places or among relatively young voters. By contrast, a domestic move comes with a temporary decline in migrants' participation in local politics and local civic engagement. I propose that moves temporarily raise the costs of participation in local politics, which explains this decline. The paper's findings contribute to nascent scholarship on how domestic migration reshapes electoral politics in rich democracies and further our understanding of the origins of social and political polarization.
How does emigration influence authoritarian stability when it is restricted? I argue that while the selective departure of political opponents improves stability, it can also create new opposition by raising popular demands for further emigration among left-behind citizens. I support this argument by analyzing an emigration reform in socialist East Germany that allowed an additional 54,000 citizens to leave. Novel panel data on crimes show that emigration had countervailing effects. While it was associated with a lasting decline in ordinary crimes, it lowered political crimes only temporarily. In later years, I find a sharp increase in political crimes, driven especially by more attempted illegal border crossings. New panel data on emigration-related petitions demonstrates that emigration in one period can create more demand for emigration in the future. The paper refines our understanding of how emigration influences authoritarian stability and offers new insights into the politics of closed regimes.
Citizens in authoritarian regimes frequently communicate grievances to the government. While there is some evidence that governments respond to such petitions, little is known about the nature of this responsiveness: can petitions yield tangible improvements to citizens' livelihoods? To answer this question, we assemble a novel panel of housing-related petitions to the government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and all housing constructed between 1945--1989. Exploiting the timing of the largest housing program in 1971, we employ a difference-in-differences design to show that construction was targeted at regions with higher rates of petitioning. We then use a variance decomposition method to benchmark the importance of petitions against objective indicators of housing need. Our results suggest that petitions allow citizens to meaningfully influence the allocation of public resources. Our paper contributes to nascent scholarship on responsiveness in non-democratic regimes and shows that responsiveness leads to tangible improvements in citizens' livelihoods.
Immigrants are increasingly confronted with exclusion at the local level. How do immigrants respond to such backlash? To answer this question, I study how exclusionary local immigration policies influence immigrants' internal migration decisions--a key outcome in the relevanat political debate. Analyzing two pre-registered survey experiments conducted among first-generation Mexican immigrants in the United States, I show that local immigration policies indeed inform immigrants' migration decisions, although their effects are often trumped by economic considerations. Importantly, exclusionary policies affect all classes of immigrants, including naturalized citizens, who are not the target of these policies. This is becauase all respondents regardless of immigration status are concerned about immigration and worry about safety and discrimination in places with exclusionary policies. The paper provides novel empirical evidence to a contentious political debate and illuminates some of the repercussions that exclusionary immigration policies can have even for American citizens.
Scholars of political behavior have studied how place can shape citizens' attitudes and behavior. A spate of recent scholarship investigates whether, in an era of nationalized politics and media, place still matters. In this paper, we take up two questions that are crucial in understanding how a place might affect its residents: what does it mean for a person to feel attached to a place, and how can attachment to a place be measured? We develop a concept of geographic attachments and present a flexible measure that can be used to capture strength of identification with a variety of places. We present evidence from the United States and Germany that many people identify strongly with the country, state, and local area they call home, and that the strength of this identification is related to how they engage with politics.
What are the implications of US-China competition for Asian American identity and political behavior? Using several pre-registered survey experiments, we explore whether and how increasing the salience of anti-China rhetoric impacts Asian Americans' affinity with their ethnic, racial, and national identity, support for political candidates, and engagement in civic initiatives. We find some suggestive evidence that anti-China rhetoric leads non-Chinese Asian Americans to identify more as American and Chinese Americans to identify more with their ethnic group, arguably to signal assimilation in American society. Anti-China rhetoric does, however, have strong consequences for Asian Americans' political behavior. It causes Asian Americans to support co-ethnic rather than a panethnic political candidate and to support fundraisers that benefit their co-ethnic group rather than Asian Americans more generally. These results point to a backlash effect of anti-China rhetoric. Asian Americans seek to distance themselves from a panethnic group label when exposed to anti-China rhetoric.