The Impact of Emigration on Democracy in Pakistan

Abstract

This study contributes to the literature on the political implications of emigration for sending countries. As migration generally flows from developing to developed countries, most existing studies highlight the positive political influence of liberal democratic states on non-democratic countries, transmitted through return migration or diaspora networks. Focusing on the case of Pakistan, this study highlights that emigrants can also transfer non- democratic norms and values from wealthy authoritarian states, such as those in the Middle East, to developing countries. Using time series methods, it examines the impact of emigration on democracy in Pakistan from 1972 to 2018. The Johansen Cointegration results revealed that emigration and democracy are cointegrated. Furthermore, the results from Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square (FMOLS) indicated that democracy is negatively affected by emigration. Granger causality, established through the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM), confirms a causal relationship between emigration and democracy. Overall, the findings suggest a long-term cointegration between the two, with emigration taking about 16 years to negatively impact democracy. These results confirm our initial presumption that emigration might have negative implications for democracy in Pakistan, as the majority of Pakistani emigrants have migrated to wealthy, authoritarian Middle Eastern countries.