{"title":"A visa for a revolution? A theory of anti-authoritarian immigration policy","authors":"Carlo M. Horz, Jonghoon Lee","doi":"10.1177/09516298241266268","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Sometimes, countries target immigration policies to citizens of authoritarian regimes with the goal of influencing these regimes’ politics. Which kinds of immigration rules are optimal anti-authoritarian policies and which trade-offs do policy-makers face? We analyze a game-theoretic model in which a destination country, an autocrat, and a citizen interact. The citizen can engage in protest and emigrate while the autocrat can redistribute and repress to counter these threats. A revolution occurs if the autocrat does not repress and the citizen protests. Policy-makers in destination countries anticipate that in equilibrium, a more permissive immigration policy reduces repression but also reduces protesting. Therefore, the optimal policy strikes a balance between these two effects. A concern for improving the citizen’s welfare renders policy more permissible while the desire to punish the autocrat has an ambiguous effect. Finally, we show that a revolution and large-scale emigration are difficult to achieve at the same time.","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09516298241266268","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Sometimes, countries target immigration policies to citizens of authoritarian regimes with the goal of influencing these regimes’ politics. Which kinds of immigration rules are optimal anti-authoritarian policies and which trade-offs do policy-makers face? We analyze a game-theoretic model in which a destination country, an autocrat, and a citizen interact. The citizen can engage in protest and emigrate while the autocrat can redistribute and repress to counter these threats. A revolution occurs if the autocrat does not repress and the citizen protests. Policy-makers in destination countries anticipate that in equilibrium, a more permissive immigration policy reduces repression but also reduces protesting. Therefore, the optimal policy strikes a balance between these two effects. A concern for improving the citizen’s welfare renders policy more permissible while the desire to punish the autocrat has an ambiguous effect. Finally, we show that a revolution and large-scale emigration are difficult to achieve at the same time.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Theoretical Politics is an international journal one of whose principal aims is to foster the development of theory in the study of political processes. It provides a forum for the publication of original papers seeking to make genuinely theoretical contributions to the study of politics. The journal includes rigorous analytical articles on a range of theoretical topics. In particular, it focuses on new theoretical work which is broadly accessible to social scientists and contributes to our understanding of political processes. It also includes original syntheses of recent theoretical developments in diverse fields.