DOES MOBILITY MAKE BAD CITIZENS? THE IMPACT OF INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION ON DEMOCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Yoon-Ah Oh, B.A./M.A. Graduate Program in Political Science The Ohio State University 2011 Dissertation Committee: Irfan Nooruddin, Advisor Marcus Kurtz Jeremy Wallace ABSTRACT The past few decades have witnessed a dramatic increase in international migra- tion and attendant remittance flows across borders. Recent scholarship suggests that remittance wealth and mobility opportunities made available by migration may empower citizens and lead to social transformations in the country of origin. This increasingly popular view holds that the political autonomy created by remittances and democratic attitudes transmitted through diaspora networks changes political relationships in developing countries in favor of ordinary citizens. However, whether international mobility indeed promotes democracy is subject to dispute in both the- oretical and empirical terms. This dissertation explores how international migration affects citizens' demand for government accountability in origin countries. The availability of exit and migration- generated remittance inflows creates a possibility of life chances relatively indepen- dent of the home country and thus insulates citizens from the consequences of do- mestic politics. I argue that the resulting decline in a \stake" in society reduces the perceived benefits of political engagement, and this leads to fewer incentives ii on the part of citizens to hold the government accountable and to ensure effective representation. Using individual-level and subnational aggregate data from the Philippines, I demonstrate that migration changes how citizens relate to and seek to control the government. I first show that existing studies arguing that migration promotes cit- izens' political engagement may be misleading theoretically and fail to hold up em- pirically in the Philippines. I then test my theoretical argument with individual-level survey data and show that households with family members abroad are less likely to rely on government services and more likely to feel insulated from the vagaries of the domestic economy. Finally, using province-level data on local elections, I show that electoral accountability|the extent to which citizens sanction the government based on its performance—suffers in a high-migration environment. I analyze gubernato- rial election results and find that the extent to which voters reward or punish the incumbent governor on the basis of his or her performance varies depending on the prevalence of migration in that province. By operationalizing electoral accountability as incumbent governor's vote share accounted for by the performance in office, I find that good performance by the incumbent is rewarded electorally when migration is low, but that the linkage between performance and an incumbent's vote share be- comes uncertain when migration increases. In sum, this project demonstrates that international migration may have unintended consequences for the quality of democ- racy in the country of origin by making citizens less willing to enforce the principle of representation to the government. iii To my parents, Songtak Oh and Suja Lee iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have had the good fortune to meet and learn from many excellent people while working on this dissertation. My deepest gratitude goes to my dissertation com- mittee. My advisor, Irfan Nooruddin, provided invaluable guidance and unwavering support throughout the dissertation process. I hope that one day I would become an advisor like him. I am deeply indebted to Marcus Kurtz for his careful attention and advice. Jeremy Wallace has been a consistent supporter and offered insightful comments that were indispensable to completing this dissertation. Beyond the dis- sertation committee, Mathew Coleman helped me understand the political nature of human migration and provided guidance from the human geography perspective in the earlier stage of this dissertation. In the Philippines, the University of the Philippines Third World Studies Cen- ter and the Institute for Popular Democracy (IPD) in Manila provided excellent institutional support and assistance with research contacts. Many from academia, government agencies, media outlets and civil society organizations offered their valu- able insights and observations about the Philippine society. Among others, I am extremely grateful to Joel Ariate, Aries Arugay, Nikkin Beronilla, Joseph Capuno, v Jay Carizo, Grace Cruz, Mary Ann Joy Quirapas, and Joel Rocamora for their help and encouragement. I would also like to thank Bub-mo Jung of the University of the Philippines for sharing his anthropological sensibilities and deep knowledge of the country. My field work was supported by generous funds provided by the Mershon Center for International Studies, the Office of International Affairs, and the Alumni Grants for Graduate Research and Scholarship of Ohio State University. I should also thank my fellow graduate students at Ohio State for their sup- port, especially Quintin Beazer, Miryam Chandler, Soundarya Chidambaram, Eric Grynaviski, Scott Powell, Jiwon Suh, and Abdulkadir Yildirim. Outside the politi- cal science department, a mathematician deserves special thanks. My final years in Columbus would have been difficult without the friendship of Hye-Jin Park. Her sup- port and care helped me overcome setbacks and even enjoy the dissertation writing process at times. My warmest gratitude goes to her. The idea about studying international labor migration grew out of a research trip I took to Burma many years ago. One day I was walking around a neighborhood in Rangoon and noticed that disproportionately many houses had large anchor symbols painted on the outer walls. I soon learned that those houses had family members previously or currently working as seafarers on international shipping lines. Many Burmese citizens I met subsequently were also former seafarers or had their kin working on sea vessels abroad. This dissertation does not discuss Burma directly, but it was Burma that made me pay attention to the impact of labor migration on the sending country in the first place. So, in that sense, I owe this project in part to that country and everyone who helped me travel there and study its politics, vi including Saya Kyaw Yin Hlaing, then in Singapore and now in Hong Kong, and many people in Burma whom I cannot name here for obvious reasons. In Korea, my interest in political science and Southeast Asia was nurtured by two teachers. Insun You not only introduced me to Vietnamese history but guided me through further scholarship on this fascinating region. Chung-Si Ahn provided a critical link between political science and area studies. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them. Closer to home, I am grateful to my parents, Songtak Oh and Suja Lee, for the gift of their presence in my life. My sister, Minyoung, and her own family have been extremely supportive. My brother, Baeklok, has cheered me all along the way from a distance. My life is a happier and richer one because of them. Finally, my greatest personal debt is to Woo Hyun Chang. I thank him for his invaluable support, encouragement and presence. vii VITA 1978 . Born in Korea 2001 . B.A. in Political Science 2004 . M.A. in Political Science 2005-Present . Graduate Teaching/Research Associate, The Ohio State University FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Political Science Specialization: Comparative Politics Specialization: International Migration viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract . ii Dedication . iii Acknowledgments . .v Vita......................................... viii List of Tables . xii List of Figures . xiv CHAPTER PAGE 1 Introduction . .1 1.1 The Question . .1 1.2 Resources or Incentives?: Citizen Behavior in an Era of Interna- tional Migration . .5 1.3 Incentives for Being a \Good" Citizen . .8 1.4 Research Design . 12 1.4.1 Why the Philippines? . 13 1.4.2 Scope Conditions . 18 1.5 Outline of the Study . 22 2 A Theory of Demand for Accountable Government . 26 2.1 Introduction . 26 2.2 Does Exit Promote Voice? . 30 2.2.1 Networks that Connect: Migration and Two-Way Flows . 31 2.2.2 Financial Remittances . 33 2.2.3 Social Remittances . 36 ix 2.2.4 Diaspora Mobilization . 38 2.3 Theoretical Framework: Migration, Participation, and Democratic Accountability . 41 2.3.1 A Model of Participation . 42 2.3.2 Incentives Matter: The Social Contract of Democracy and the Benefits of Participation . 45 2.3.3 Voice in a Place of Exit: The Impact on Democratic Ac- countability . 50 2.4 The Argument . 54 2.5 Theoretical Implications . 58 2.6 Conclusion . 61 3 More Resources, More Voice? The Impact of Migration on Electoral Participation in the Philippines . 64 3.1 Introduction . 64 3.2 The Impact of Exit on Voice . 67 3.3 Migration and Electoral Participation . 73 3.4 Data and Measures . 75 3.5 Empirical Analysis . 83 3.5.1 Financial Remittances . 83 3.5.2 Social Remittances . 89 3.6 Robustness Checks . 94 3.7 Conclusion . 98 3.8 Appendix . 101 4 The Effect of Migration on the Utility of Citizenship: Survey Evidence 103 4.1 Introduction . 103 4.2 External Resources and the Utility of Citizenship . 106 4.3 Measuring the Utility of Citizenship: Government Services and Pri- vate Solutions . 109 4.4 The Data . 115 4.5 Empirical Analysis . 119 4.5.1 Government Assistance and Private Solutions . 120 4.5.2 Economic Assessments . 124 4.6 Robustness Checks . 130 4.7 Conclusion . 132 4.8 Appendix . 135 x 5 Does Mobility Undermine Electoral Accountability? Retrospective Vot- ing in Philippine Provinces . 138 5.1 Introduction . 138 5.2 Migration and Electoral Accountability . 141 5.3 Data and Measures . 144 5.3.1 Measuring Electoral Outcomes . 146 5.3.2 Measuring Government Performance . 150 5.3.3 Measuring Migration . 157 5.3.4 Additional Control Variables . 160 5.4 Analysis . 163 5.4.1 Governance Performance .