The Direct and Indirect Effects of Remittances on Human Rights Violations in Recipient States

초록

This study argues that remittances reduce human rights violations in democratic recipients but have little effect in autocratic recipients. Specifically, when we consider characteristics of each regime type, remittances directly reduce human rights violations in all recipient states by increasing vulnerability to international audience costs. In autocracies, however, they indirectly increase human rights violations by facilitating protests through heightened political grievances and greater capacity for mobilization. In democracies, by contrast, remittances rarely foster protests due to well-established conventional politics and protests rarely trigger human rights violations, so remittances have little indirect effect on human rights violations via protest. Overall, remittances have little net effect in autocracies but reduce human rights violations in democracies. This argument is tested using structural equation models, and the empirical results support these expectations.

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