International remittances, cash transfer assistance and voter turnout in Mexico

Abstract

Most research on the political consequences of international migration conceptualizes financial remittances as being a substitute for state-provided assistance. This paper tests the actual validity of this assumption. Using data from the 2012-2016 Americas Barometer, the analysis confirms previous findings on the negative impact of financial remittances on electoral turnout intentions. However it reveals that this effect does not vary according to an individual's beneficiary status of Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) assistance. This finding is corroborated using data aggregated at the municipal level within Mexico. Accordingly, voter turnout rates in a given municipality for the 2012 presidential election are negatively associated with the percentage of households receiving remittances in that municipality. However, this association does not vary with the spending on CCT assistance within a given municipality. The evidence thus suggests that financial remittances undermine electoral participation through mechanisms other than the substitution of state-sponsored assistance, and as such further research is needed for us to discover what is really going on here.