Data estimates suggest that up to half of all migrants return to the country of origin within 5 years of leaving. Return migration is known to be a boon for the local economy and a catalyst for political reform. However, these effects are conditional on successful reintegration, which is dependent on the preferences of nonmigrants. What causes negative attitudes towards return migration, given its significant potential economic benefits? I argue that nonmigrants are concerned about both the economic and political competition of returnees. Nonmigrants prefer to welcome back migrants who can bring financial capital and employment back home, but will oppose competitors on the job market when unemployment is high. Furthermore, nonmigrants are concerned about the potential role of return migrants as norm entrepreneurs. I test my hypotheses with a conjoint survey experiment conducted in Colombia, as well as an analysis of the 2016 peace referendum.

How does large scale emigration affect politics in the peripheral states of the European Union? While a large literature looks at the political consequences of immigration in the more affluent member states, comparatively few scholars have taken up the mantle of examining the political effects of large-scale emigration in Central and Eastern Europe. From a political economy perspective, high levels of emigration, which is concentrated in the younger, more progressive parts of society, changes the makeup of both the labor force and the electorate. This article investigates how emigration and its associated economic and political consequences affect policy making and politics in Central and Eastern European countries. Evidence is provided from a difference-in-difference estimator and supplementary analyses of government and individual level data. The findings suggest that European Union membership leads to fundamental demographic changes, which affect the dominant forms of programmatic competition, and that governments reacting to this extend their stay in government.

Within sovereign states citizenship is arguably the most important political marker of in- and outsiders. As a result, questions about who gets to reap the benefits of citizenship often result in distributional conflict. This conflict becomes inflamed when a country goes through a period of significant inward migration. Given that citizenship is so important and so contentious, from where do the rules governing its acquisition come? Our starting point is the acknowledgment that migrants are mobile labor. From this perspective, countries in which elites benefit from an increased supply of productive labor—that is, those with high land/labor ratios—will be more likely to adopt policies that attract migrants, such as easier naturalization rules, including birthright citizenship. We illustrate the plausibility of our argument with some statistical evidence and suggest some avenues to further explore this crucial question.