Crime, remittances, and presidential approval in Mexico

Abstract

Previous work on remittances and incumbency support has focused on recipients’ (pocketbook and sociotropic) economic assessments. In Mexico, however, crime has become the second (if not the first) concern of voters and security evaluations have become closely linked to the national executive’s performance. In this paper we posit that in Mexico remittances can also increase incumbent support through their effect on recipients’ security assessments. We attribute this finding to remittances allowing recipients to take crime-preventive measures and alleviate some of the pressure associated with crime and violence, which in turn improves recipients’ assessments of the security situation of the country and evaluations of the incumbent. Using individual data from Mexico for the period 2006–2017, we find that remittance recipients have higher levels of perceived personal safety and better national security evaluations than non-recipients, and that security assessments are a significant predictor of presidential approval rates. The evidence thus suggests that in Mexico, where crime is rising, and presidents are increasingly rewarded or blamed for containing violence, the effect of remittances on presidential approval also operates through improved personal safety perceptions and public security assessments.