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Daniel Rojas, Alfredo Trejo III, Margaret Peters, and Yang-Yang Zhou. 2025. “Protecting Irregular Migrants: Evidence from Colombia.” Migration Studies 13: 1–24.★ Winner, Migration Studies Best Article Award, 2025.
Abstract: When do host governments choose to extend protections to irregular migrants? We examine the determinants of migrant regularization using the case of Colombia’s decision to grant Temporary Protected Status to over 1.7 million Venezuelan migrants in 2021. We argue that governments extend protection to irregular migrants when motivated by pragmatic concerns about border control, economic incentives from migrant formalization, and opportunities to enhance their international reputation. We test these arguments using original survey data and qualitative evidence from Colombia.
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Leslie Johns, Maximo Langer, and Margaret Peters. 2025. “Immigration, Justice Remittances, and US Courts.” International Studies Quarterly 69(3).
Abstract: We argue that civil remedies obtained through US courts constitute “justice remittances” to foreign countries where violations occurred, and that immigrants are instrumental in generating demand for these remedies. Using Census immigration data aggregated to judicial districts, we find compelling evidence that immigrants are agents of justice who demand justice remittances from US courts. Higher immigrant populations from a sending country in a judicial district are associated with an increased likelihood of Alien Tort Statute opinions, and greater atrocities in sending countries increase the probability of such cases. This provides the first subnational evidence that migrants drive transnational civil litigation.
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Alisha Holland, Margaret E. Peters, and Yang-Yang Zhou. 2024. “Left Out: How Ideology Affects Support for Displaced Migrants in Colombia.” Journal of Politics 86(4): 1291–1303.
Abstract: Do perceptions of migrants’ politics affect their reception? We leverage a case in which migrants share the same language and religious background as the host population to isolate the role of political perceptions. Drawing on a unique survey of 1,000 Colombian citizens and 1,600 Venezuelan migrants in Colombia, we find that Colombians view Venezuelan migrants as left-wing even though actual Venezuelan migrants are more right-wing than their Colombian hosts. In a conjoint experiment, we find that Colombians oppose the settlement of left-wing migrants in their communities, and political views matter more than race, skill, or humanitarian need in shaping support for migrants.
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Margaret E. Peters, Frida Borang, Sara Kalm, Johannes Lindvall, and Adrian Shin. 2024. “Historical Immigration Policies: Trends and Lessons.” International Studies Quarterly 68(3).
Abstract: In recent years, scholars of migration have created several new immigration policy indexes, but most existing databases have limited temporal scope. They also focus, to a large extent, on the Global North. In this research note, we introduce the Historical Immigration Policy dataset (HIP), which begins to fill these gaps. We first provide an overview of the data and then describe how they offer new insights into immigration policy. We make three empirical observations. (1) On average, democracies are less open to immigration than authoritarian states but grant resident migrants more rights. (2) European states were open to immigration earlier than standard accounts of global migration assume. (3) Historically, openness to immigration and inclusive rights for resident migrants have often been complements, not substitutes.
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Yang-Yang Zhou, Margaret E. Peters, and Daniel L. Rojas. 2024. “When Pandemic Threat Does Not Stoke Xenophobia: Evidence from a Panel Survey around COVID-19 in Colombia.” Politics, Groups, and Identities 13(3): 648–667.
Abstract: While pandemics can heighten xenophobia among host citizens through the behavioral immune system or elite-driven scapegoating, most research has overlooked the role of pandemic-related economic restrictions and job loss on sentiment toward immigrants. We use a panel survey of Colombian citizens to examine whether COVID-19-related economic hardship increased xenophobia toward Venezuelan migrants. We find that economic disruptions from the pandemic did not increase anti-migrant sentiment, challenging existing theories and suggesting that material conditions shape the relationship between pandemic threat and xenophobia in underexplored ways.
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Julian Michel, Michael K. Miller, and Margaret E. Peters. 2023. “How Authoritarian Governments Decide Who Emigrates: Evidence from East Germany.” International Organization 77(3): 527–563.★ Winner, Wallerstein Best Article Award, Political Economy Section, APSA (2024).
Abstract: Most autocracies restrict emigration yet still allow some citizens to exit. How do these regimes decide who can leave? We argue that many autocracies strategically target anti-regime actors for emigration, thereby crafting a more loyal population without the drawbacks of persistent co-optation or repression. We examine over 20,000 pages of declassified East German emigration applications and find that active opposition actually promoted approval odds while simultaneously increasing punishment risks—serving as a screening mechanism. Regimes also resist losing economically valuable citizens while facilitating exit for pensioners. This represents the first individual-level empirical analysis of autocratic emigration decisions.
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Leslie Johns, Maximo Langer, and Margaret E. Peters. 2022. “Migration and the Demand for Transnational Justice.” American Political Science Review 116(4): 1339–1362.
Abstract: Domestic courts sometimes prosecute foreign nationals for severe crimes—like crimes against humanity, genocide, torture, and war crimes—committed on foreign territory against foreign nationals. We argue that migrants can serve as agents of transnational justice. When migrants move across borders, as both economic migrants and refugees, they often pressure local governments to conduct criminal investigations and trials for crimes that occurred in their sending state. We also examine the effect of explanatory variables identified by prior scholars, including the magnitude of atrocities in the sending state, the responsiveness of the receiving state to political pressure, and the various economic and political costs of prosecutions. We test our argument using the first multivariate statistical analysis of universal jurisdiction cases, focusing on multiple stages of prosecutions. We conclude that transnational justice is a justice remittance in which migrants provide accountability and remedies for crimes in their sending states.
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David Leblang and Margaret E. Peters. 2022. “Immigration and Globalization (and De-Globalization).” Annual Review of Political Science 25(1): 377–399.
Abstract: Immigration policy is often portrayed as a zero-sum trade-off between labor and capital or between high- and low-skilled labor, and many have attributed the rise of populist movements to immigration. While immigration has distributional implications, we argue that something is missing from the discussion: the fact that migrants are an engine of globalization, especially for countries in the Global South. Migration and migrant networks serve to expand economic markets, distribute information across national borders, and diffuse democratic norms and practices throughout the world, increasing trade and investment flows. We also argue that many commentators have the causal relationship backward: rather than immigration reducing support for globalization, it is trade, financial flows, and offshoring that have reduced support for immigration among elites and a vocal plurality of citizens in the Global North.
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Margaret E. Peters and Adrian Shin. 2022. “Inequality and Immigration Policy.” Studies in Comparative International Development 58: 224–251.
Abstract: How does inequality between capital and labor affect immigration policy? Increasing inequality can heighten anti-immigrant attitudes among host-state workers. Yet for labor-intensive firms, an increasing share of value added creates more business opportunities and expands their incentive to support open immigration. Given these countervailing pressures, we argue that a country’s level of economic development is the key to understanding the relationship between inequality and immigration policy openness. We find that rising inequality leads to stricter immigration policies in lower-income countries, whereas the opposite occurs in higher-income countries.
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Tijana Lujic and Margaret E. Peters. 2022. “Informalization, Obfuscation and Bilateral Labor Agreements.” Theoretical Inquiries in Law 23(2): 113–147.
Abstract: Researchers who have attempted to collect and compare bilateral labor agreements (BLAs) have encountered varying degrees of accessibility. We argue that it is more difficult to find information on agreements, and that agreements tend to be more informal, when governments want to obscure what they are doing. Building on the literature on optimal obfuscation in trade policy and informal institutions in international politics, we argue that policymakers use more informal agreements and restrict information on BLAs when they anticipate political opposition and are unlikely to achieve ratification. In contrast, leaders use formal agreements when they want to lock in a policy. We test our argument using original quantitative data on BLA accessibility.
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Margaret E. Peters. 2022. “Government Finance and the Re-Imposition of Serfdom after the Black Death.” European Review of Economic History 27(2): 149–173.
Abstract: After the Black Death, serfdom disappeared in Western Europe while making a resurgence in Eastern Europe. What explains this difference? I argue that serfdom was against the interests of the sovereign and was only imposed when the nobility, who needed serfdom to maintain their economic and political standing, had leverage to impose their will. The nobility gained this power through financing the state. Using data from the fourteenth through the eighteenth centuries, I show that serfdom was imposed and strengthened in areas where sovereigns had few other resources to finance the state.
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Margaret E. Peters and Michael K. Miller. 2021. “Emigration and Political Contestation.” International Studies Quarterly 66(1).
Abstract: How does migration affect global patterns of political violence and protest? While political scientists have examined the links between trade and conflict, less attention has been paid to the links between migration and conflict. In this paper, we show that greater emigration reduces domestic political violence by providing exit opportunities for aggrieved citizens and economic benefits to those who remain. Emigration also reduces non-violent forms of political contestation, including protests and strikes, implying that high emigration rates can produce relatively quiescent populations. However, larger flows of emigrants to democracies can increase non-violent protest in autocracies, as exposure to freer countries spreads democratic norms and the tools of peaceful opposition. We use instrumental variables analysis to account for the endogeneity of migration flows and find robust results for a range of indicators of civil violence and protest from 1960 to 2010.
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Alisha Holland and Margaret E. Peters. 2020. “Explaining Migration Timing: Political Information and Opportunities.” International Organization 74(3): 560–583.
Abstract: How do migrants decide when to leave? Conventional wisdom is that violence and economic deprivation force migrants to leave their homes. However, long-standing problems of violence and poverty often cannot explain sudden spikes in migration. We study the timing of migration decisions in the critical case of Syrian and Iraqi migration to Europe using an original survey and embedded experiment, as well as interviews, focus groups, and Internet search data. We find that violence and poverty lead individuals to invest in learning about the migration environment. Political shifts in receiving countries then can unleash migratory flows. The findings underscore the need for further research on what migrants know about law and politics, when policy changes create and end migrant waves, and whether politicians anticipate migratory responses when crafting policy.
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Michael K. Miller and Margaret E. Peters. 2020. “Restraining the Huddled Masses: Migration Policy and Autocratic Survival.” British Journal of Political Science 50(2): 403–433.
Abstract: What determines citizens’ freedom to exit autocracies? How does this influence global patterns of migration and democratization? Although control over citizen movement has long been central to autocratic power, modern autocracies vary considerably in how much they restrict emigration. This article shows that autocrats strategically choose emigration policy by balancing several motives. Increasing emigration can stabilize regimes by selecting a more loyal population and attracting greater investment, trade, and remittances, but exposing their citizens to democracy abroad is potentially dangerous. Using a half-century of bilateral migration data, the study calculates the level and destinations of expected emigration given exogenous geographic and socioeconomic characteristics. It finds that when citizens disproportionately emigrate to democracies, countries are more likely to democratize—and that autocrats restrict emigration freedom in response. In contrast, a larger expected flow of economic emigration predicts autocratic survival and freer emigration policy.
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Margaret E. Peters. 2020. “Integration and Disintegration: Trade and Labor Market Integration.” Journal of International Economic Law 23(2): 391–412.
Abstract: After World War II, the victors—the USA and the UK—created a liberal international order (LIO) based on integrating markets for goods and capital but not labor. The decision to remove barriers to trade in goods and capital flows has had profound effects on immigration. Trade has meant the closure of businesses in developed countries that rely on low-skill labor. When these firms closed, they took their support for low-skill immigration with them. The ability of capital to move intensified this trend: whereas once firms needed to bring labor to their capital, they can now take their capital to labor. Once these firms move, they have little incentive to fight for immigration at home. Finally, increased productivity, as both a product of and response to globalization, has meant that firms can do more with fewer workers, again decreasing demands for immigration. Together, these changes have led to less business support for immigration, allowing politicians to move to the right on immigration and pass restrictions to appease anti-immigration forces. The recent backlash to the LIO, then, has implicated the very flow—the movement of labor—that was never part of it.
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Margaret E. Peters. 2019. “Immigration and International Law.” International Studies Quarterly 63(2): 281–295.
Abstract: At a time when many states are increasing restrictions on immigration, others are using formal agreements on international economic migration to open their borders. The use of international agreements on migration presents a puzzle, as most states can open their borders to migrants unilaterally. I argue that when states cannot generate large enough flows of migrants or the right type of migrants to fill open positions in the labor market, they turn to the sending state to help them. States that need migrants can negotiate a bilateral labor agreement with a sending state, which then acts as a recruiter, helping to channel labor to the receiving state. This article details the conditions under which immigrant-receiving countries use these treaties and tests the implications of the argument on a new dataset on migration treaties.
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Margaret E. Peters, Frances Rosenbluth, Seiki Tanaka, and Rieko Kage. 2019. “Labor Markets and Cultural Values: Evidence from Japanese and American Views About Care-giving Immigrants.” Economics & Politics 31(3): 428–464.
Abstract: One overlooked reason for the persistence of distinct cultural values across rich democracies, we argue, is a country's labor market structure. Parents seeking to position their children for long-term success would do well to instill values consistent with requirements of the labor market in the country where their children are likely to work. To the extent that labor markets are fluid, as in the United States, parents should teach their children to be resourceful and creative. In countries like Japan with relatively rigid labor markets, where workers have one chance to land a long-term contract with a leading company, parents instead should instill the values of hard work and respect for authority. We find evidence consistent with this argument in survey experiments about attitudes in the United States and Japan about the desirability of employing immigrants for care work, and what values the immigrant care workers should hold. We also find evidence of indirect norm creation. American and Japanese respondents prefer immigrants—not just caregiving immigrants—whose values align with their country's type of valued human capital.
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Iain Osgood and Margaret E. Peters. 2017. “Escape Through Exports? Women-Owned Enterprises, Domestic Discrimination, and Global Markets.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 12(2): 143–183.
Abstract: Does globalization provide an escape from discriminatory legal and social institutions for women-owned enterprises? We develop an original test of this proposition based on a model of firm heterogeneity with discriminatory costs. Discriminatory institutions raise barriers to entry and increase costs of production, allowing only the most productive women-owned firms to survive. If the costs of discrimination are lower in export markets, the average surviving woman-owned firm is more likely to export and exports a higher proportion of total sales. Using a cross-national data set of firms, we show that while there are significantly fewer women-owned enterprises in countries with discriminatory institutions, these businesses export at higher rates. Global markets therefore provide an important, albeit imperfect, alternative to markets with poor protections of women’s rights.
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Margaret E. Peters. 2015. “Open Trade, Closed Borders: Immigration Policy in the Era of Globalization.” World Politics 67(1): 114–154.
Abstract: This article argues that trade and immigration policy cannot be studied as separate policies: the two are substitutes. The choice of trade policy affects immigration policy in labor-scarce countries through its effects on firms. Closure to trade increases the average firm-level demand for immigration, leading to immigration openness, while free trade decreases firm-level demand for immigrant labor, leading to restricted immigration. To test this argument, the author develops a new dataset on the immigration policies of nineteen states from the late eighteenth century through the early twenty-first century.
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Margaret E. Peters. 2014. “Trade, Foreign Direct Investment, and Immigration Policy Making in the United States.” International Organization 68(4): 811–844.
Abstract: This article argues that immigration policy formation in the United States after 1950 can only be understood in the context of the increasing integration of world markets. Increasing trade openness has exposed firms that rely on immigrant labor to foreign competition and increased the likelihood that these firms fail. Increasing openness by other states to foreign direct investment (FDI) allowed these same firms to move production overseas. Firms’ choices to close their doors or to move overseas decrease their need for labor at home, leading them to spend their political capital on issues other than immigration. Their lack of support for open immigration, in turn, allows policymakers to restrict immigration. An examination of voting behavior on immigration in the US Senate shows that the integration of world capital and goods markets has had an important effect on the politics of immigration in the United States and shows little support for existing theories of immigration policy formation.
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Judith L. Goldstein and Margaret E. Peters. 2014. “Nativism or Economic Threat: Attitudes Toward Immigrants During the Great Recession.” International Interactions 40(3): 376–401.
Abstract: This article reports on a survey experiment conducted over the course of the Great Recession to evaluate the weight of economic versus cultural factors in determining individual attitudes toward open borders. Over 6,000 Americans participated in a national survey on immigration and trade attitudes in 2007, before the downturn, and the authors returned to these individuals five further times during and after the recession, measuring changes in attitudes on immigration and trade policy while controlling for economic circumstance. The results shed light on the relative importance of nativist sentiment versus economic self-interest in shaping immigration preferences.
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Adrian Mamaril and Margaret E. Peters. Forthcoming. “Economic and Social Remittances.” In Introduction to International Migration: Population Movements in the 21st Century, Second Edition. Edited by Sarah Lockhart & Jeanette Money. Routledge.
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Margaret E. Peters. 2023. “Immigration in Historical Political Economy.” In Oxford Handbook of Historical Political Economy.
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Margaret E. Peters. 2021. “Migration and Development.” In Introduction to International Migration: Population Movements in the 21st Century. Edited by Sarah Lockhart & Jeanette Money. Routledge. pp. 223–243.
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Margaret E. Peters. 2017. “Immigration and International Political Economy.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Edited by James A. Caporaso.
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Margaret E. Peters. 2016. “Goods versus People: Immigration and Trade Policy in a Globalized World.” In Handbook on Migration and Social Policy. Edited by Gary P. Freeman and Nikola Mirilovic. Edward Elgar. pp. 87–107.
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Margaret E. Peters. 2015. “Migration and Globalization.” In Emerging Trends in the Behavioral and Social Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Marlis C. Buchmann. John Wiley & Sons.
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Margaret E. Peters. 2014. “Trade and Migration.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Political Economy of International Trade. Edited by Lisa Martin. Oxford University Press.