When “Voice” Gets the Opportunity to “Exit”: Evidence from Hong Kong (with Maggie Peters)
Working Paper presented at APSA 2021. Currently in preparation for submission to PNAS.
Does having the outside option of emigration make people more or less likely to engage in contentious politics? We utilize an age-based discontinuity in eligibility for the British National Overseas (BNO) passport in Hong Kong to obtain quasi-random variation in exit opportunities. Only those Hong Kong natives born before the territories’ handover on July 1st, 1997, were eligible for the BNO passport that awarded an immediate right to work and a clear trajectory to British citizenship. We employ a pre-registered regression discontinuity design and surveyed 763 young Hong Kongers in June 2020. We targeted exclusively native Hong Kongers who were born within an 18-month interval around the handover date (January 1996 – December 1998). Crucially, the local average treatment effect of BNO status on protest intent refers to a subpopulation of considerable substantive interest – those who age-wise should be most likely to protest. We find that BNO status does not reduce intent to protest, the expected size of overall turnout in the annual July 1st marches, or the perceived efficacy of contentious politics. Our findings suggest that announcing more liberal immigration policies (“exit”) does not reduce intent to engage in contentious politics (“voice”).
How Autocratic Regimes Select Who Emigrates: Evidence from East Germany (with Michael K. Miller and Maggie Peters)
(Published in International Organization; link)
Even the most authoritarian governments allow some citizens to emigrate. How do these regimes decide who can leave? We argue that autocrats often strategically target anti-regime actors for emigration, thereby crafting a more loyal population without the drawbacks of persistent cooptation or repression. However, this generates problematic incentives for citizens to join opposition activity to secure exit. In response, autocracies simultaneously punish anti-regime actors when they apply to emigrate, screening out all but the most determined opponents. Besides selecting out dissidents, regimes weigh the economic benefits and harms of allowing certain individuals to leave. To test our theory, we examine an original dataset of emigration applications collected from East Germany’s state archives. In the first individual-level test of an autocracy’s choices on emigration, we find that active opposition made emigration approval more likely, but also raised the likelihood of punishment for applying. In addition, pensioners were more likely to be granted exit, but professionals were less likely. The results shed light on the sources of global migration and an overlooked strategy of autocratic resilience.
Julian Michel 