The book concludes with the practical and theoretical implications of the study. The chapter shows that ZANU PF gained from a combined HIV/AIDS and migration exit premium of 5 percent in the 2000 and 2002 elections, 2 percent in the 2005 elections, 12 percent in the 2008 elections, and 4 percent in the 2013 elections. If not for voter exit, the opposition would have had more parliamentary seats and won the presidency in the disputed 2008 elections. This chapter also demonstrates that the theory of exit and party sustainability can be generalized to other states, including but not limited to Russia, Venezuela, and Syria—countries that have also experienced a mass exodus of citizens from authoritarian regimes. This chapter provides a brief comparison of the role of migrant voters in Ghana and the Gambia, where democracy struggled but ultimately thrived. I discuss the study’s policy implications, considering ongoing debates about the global immigration crisis.

This chapter analyzes the impact of remittances – the money migrants living abroad send to their family members in the home country – on the survival of authoritarian regimes, particularly in developing countries where poor economic and political conditions lead people to exit en masse. Immigrants have remitted over $500 billion in the last decade, with much of the money flowing from high-income to low- and middle-income countries. In 2018 alone, officially tracked remittances to low- and middle-income countries reached $529 billion. The actual amount is probably more because much money is channeled via unofficial routes. Ethnographic data from family interviews shows that senders can bargain for or against political participation with their receivers. Parents of young adults were likely to discourage them from engaging in politics, fearing for their lives. Receivers could also opt out of political engagement because they did not see the government playing an essential role in their economic lives. Remittances also cushioned the government from possible voter protests and welfare demands.

Financial platforms are the basic infrastructure of emerging digital platform economies. As instantiations of “infrastructural power,” they partake in processes of politico-economic subordination or the creation and reproduction of structural inequalities. These processes of subordination are depicted in terms of a prevailing global logic and directionality: from the Global North to Global South. Thus, while financial platforms are apprehended as vectors of financialization globally, they are reduced to processes of financial inclusion when referencing the so-called Global South. What is missed are the pragmatic practices of financial platforms, or how they function as sites of value production and conversion, and what is at stake for diverse actors. An examination of the consolidation of a new financial infrastructure based on digital platforms in sub-Saharan Africa illustrates this point. Financial infrastructures constituted by a nexus of mobile telecommunications operators, mobile money issuers, remittance and payment services providers, and commercial banks generate new value forms, strategies, and practices. By focusing on the latter, it is possible to better appreciate processes of both value subjugation and autonomization, evidence that the fault lines of value production generated by financial platforms are obscured by the Global North versus Global South frame.

Egypt is the most populous state in the Arab world, with just over 100 million citizens residing in the country, and Egyptian nationals have long looked abroad for opportunities. This chapter examines the evolution of the country’s policies toward its diaspora and seeks to understand how the Egyptian government has attempted to protect, assist, and cultivate loyalty among its citizens abroad, as well as how it has sought to exert further control over this population. Beginning with targeted secondment policies that aimed to spread pan-Arabist ideology in the 1950s and 1960s, and broadening to mass labor exportation agreements directed primarily toward other Arab nations in the 1970s, Egypt sought to address demographic concerns of overpopulation and an overburdened and underfinanced public sector, and to reap the benefit of remittances as a major contribution to the country’s GDP. But the chapter also addresses Egypt’s failure to establish effective governance of, and engagement with, its diaspora. This includes the overlapping responsibilities of the numerous ministries in charge of emigration, an unwillingness to resolve domestic economic issues in order to prevent further brain drain and to incentivize the return of Egyptians abroad, and the state’s continued use of transnational repression toward its citizenry.

India has historically been the leading country of origin of international migrants, with an estimated 32 million overseas Indians in 2018, including 19 million Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) and 13 million Non-Resident Indians (NRIs). This chapter looks at how India initially adopted a policy of limited engagement with Indians abroad due to limited material capacities to support a large and diverse overseas community. In reaction to the emergence of an increasingly rich and influential Indian diaspora in the OECD countries, and as India’s own material capacities grew, the chapter then describes how the Government of India sought since the early 1990s to actively co-opt its community abroad by providing more consular services and by redesigning its diaspora policies and institutions. The chapter shows that the expansion of India’s consular support services has also been driven by the need to ensure stable remittances from low-skilled migrants. Also noted is how the Indian government has developed repressive tools against Indians abroad whom it considers to be a threat to its national sovereignty and integrity. This chapter concludes that, despite the design of new policies to engage nationals abroad, limited material resources devoted to these initiatives have in turn limited their implementation and success.

According to Türkiye’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there are approximately 6.5 million Turkish people living abroad. With national communities in more than seventy nations, the Turkish diaspora has a global reach. This chapter examines Türkiye’s relations with its national communities abroad. Over the decades, Türkiye reimagined its relationship with its citizens abroad, which in turn allowed national communities abroad to reimagine their home state. In the early years of labor migration, Türkiye focused on economic benefits such as remittances. Later on, Ankara noticed the public policy potential of national communities living abroad. With widening diplomatic support and an increase in selective cultural engagement, Türkiye expanded its reach to overseas communities. While diplomatic services benefited all, some forms of cultural support targeted conservative populations. Domestic security concerns also led to an interest in understanding the political leanings of the diaspora.

Overseas Pakistanis continue to grow in number, expanding the national community abroad. The three main challenges that exist for the Pakistani government in protecting its citizens abroad are interconnected and have to do with maintaining remittances, increasing educational opportunities, and potentially loosening visa restrictions that hamper the ability of Pakistanis to travel and interact with other countries economically. While the world has focused on security, mainly evaluating Pakistan from an Afghanistan-focused lens as US and NATO forces remained in the country till August 2021, Pakistanis have been busy seizing opportunities for themselves and their families, indicating a high level of agency. The Pakistani government is motivated by its diaspora’s agency and self-identity needs, and welcomes engagement. This movement has now resulted in remittances becoming Pakistan’s largest source of national foreign exchange. In order to maintain remittances, the Pakistani government’s activities are likely to intensify over time. As the Pakistani government engages with its citizens abroad, one of the most interesting revelations about this research is the lack of direct military involvement.

Challenging the myth of non-return, this chapter shows that, by the 1970s, many guest workers did want to return to Turkey. But instead of support, they encountered opposition from the Turkish government. In the 1970s, the link between return migration and financial investments dominated bilateral discussions between Turkey and West Germany. After the Oil Crisis, West Germany devised bilateral policies to promote remigration. Turkey, then mired in unemployment, hyperinflation, and debt, actively resisted those efforts. The Turkish government realized that guest workers played a significant role in mitigating the country’s economic crisis. To repay its foreign debt, Turkey needed guest workers’ remittance payments in high-performing Deutschmarks. If guest workers returned to Turkey, then that stream would dry up. Turkish officials thus strove to prevent mass return migration at all costs – even when it contradicted guest workers’ interests. These tensions also manifested in Turkey’s charging of exorbitant fees for citizens abroad who sought exemptions from mandatory military service, prompting young migrants to create an activist organization that critiqued this policy. The knowledge that they were unwanted in both countries widened the rift between the migrants and their home country, which disparaged them as “Germanized” yet relied on them as “remittance machines.”

This chapter presents a cutting-edge study of multidimensional poverty since it fully exploits highly granular data on expenditure (government programmes) matched with social development indicators. First, we explore how economic well-being and various socioeconomic rights, in Mexico, have benefited from domestic income and remittances of households located in the deciles 1 to 5 of the income distribution. Second, we analyse the degree of substitutability of remittances (or personal income in general) vis-à-vis spending on social programmes.

This chapter examines the role of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in global migration governance and its implications for migrant workers’ rights and well-being. As global lead migration agency for the U.N. system, is well-positioned to influence whether and how States address the significant gaps in international migration law and institutions that enable the continued exploitation and abuse of migrant workers worldwide. This chapter explores IOM’s potential to advance migrant workers’ rights by examining an IOM initiative explicitly established to do so: IOM’s International Recruitment Integrity System’s (IRIS), which seeks to promote ethical cross-border recruitment. IOM’s approach tends to prioritize increasing labor migration to harness “the developmental potential of migration” – but too often at the cost of migrants’ rights. Moreover, IOM ultimately encourages further privatization of area of governance that experts—and, indeed, ethical recruiters themselves—believe requires, instead, strong state involvement in order to meaningfully advance migrant workers’ rights protection.

Volume 2 of The Cambridge History of Global Migrations presents an authoritative overview of the various continuities and changes in migration and globalization from the 1800s to the present day. Despite revolutionary changes in communication technologies, the growing accessibility of long-distance travel, and globalization across major economies, the rise of nation-states empowered immigration regulation and bureaucratic capacities for enforcement that curtailed migration. One major theme worldwide across the post-1800 centuries was the differentiation between “skilled” and “unskilled” workers, often considered through a racialized lens; it emerged as the primary divide between greater rights of immigration and citizenship for the former, and confinement to temporary or unauthorized migrant status for the latter. Through thirty-one chapters, this volume further evaluates the long global history of migration; and it shows that despite the increased disciplinary systems, the primacy of migration remains and continues to shape political, economic, and social landscapes around the world.