Get Out: How Authoritarian Governments Decide Who Emigrates

• In Event: Political Economy of Migration: Driving Policies and Destabilization

Abstract

Even the most authoritarian governments allow some citizens to leave. How do they decide who exits and who stays? In this paper, we outline the trade-offs that autocrats face in managing emigration. On the plus side, autocrats can rid their states of potential challengers and opposition supporters. There may also be economic benefits due to expropriation of emigrants' property, reduction in social welfare benefits, skills upgrading, remittances, and even payment by democratic governments for the release of some citizens. On the negative side, emigrants may represent a loss of human capital, signal the level of opposition to the wider world, and spread norms of democracy back to their home countries. We propose to examine how autocrats balance these trade-offs using Stasi archival data from the German Democratic Republic under Communist rule.

Authors

• Julian Michel, UCLA

• Michael K. Miller, George Washington University

• Margaret E. Peters, University of California, Los Angeles