Migration and Instability: A Path Out of the Vicious Circle

Why the world still misunderstands migration: Migrants swing elections. Migrants finance wars. Migrants end wars.

(Picture Source: Shutterstock AI Generator, 2024)

Migration is one of the oldest phenomena in human history. In Western Europe and North America, two perspectives dominate the debate: migration as a threat to the labor market, a burden on the welfare state, and a source of cultural conflict — or as a humanitarian duty, a moral imperative toward the victims of injustice.

Both fall short. Migration promotes the circulation of goods and knowledge. Migrants encounter new institutions along their journey — and new ideas about how states can function. This creates an important feedback loop between countries of origin and host countries, mediated through economic, cultural, and political transmission channels.

Their remittances and the knowledge acquired abroad help build up their home country. Often, they return as successful individuals to build a new life there.

In this way, migration can strengthen democracies — but also trigger wars. Sometimes both at once: it can drive a country into a cycle of instability, emigration, democratization, and renewed collapse.

Migration in the 21st Century

Migration can change attitudes, social norms, worldviews, and with them the political orientation of people. It is a transformative experience — and migrants carry this transformation back to their home communities. Even to people who have never left their village.

Globalization, real-time communication, digitalization, and affordable travel no longer mean complete estrangement from home. Migrants thus retain their political voice in their home country — and continue to shape it.

Fortune Far from Home

Political stability is essential for growth and development — for countries and citizens alike. Most migrant-sending countries cannot provide this. Poor socioeconomic conditions and a lack of investment opportunities prompt people to pack their bags.

Unreliable payment practices and weak rule of law characterize many countries of origin. This fuels a fundamental insecurity: who guarantees that you will ever reap the fruits of your investments? Many doubt whether they can unlock and realize their full potential.

But political instability weighs even heavier: conflicts along ethnic, religious, or political lines, social tensions ranging to terrorism and organized crime — all poison the social climate. An overly tight grip by the security apparatus, arbitrary rule, corruption, and even expropriation do the rest.

Welcome Home: Return from Crisis

Albanian emigrants were hit by the crisis twice. After the collapse of the communist regime in the early 1990s, Greece became an attractive destination. Around 600,000 Albanians — roughly 40 percent of all Albanian emigrants and 20 percent of the total Albanian population — were living there when Greece was first rocked by the Global Financial Crisis from 2008 onward, and then by the Eurozone crisis from 2010.

Greece's unemployment climbed to nearly 27 percent — and among Albanians living there, it reached 40 percent. In the wake of this shock, around 134,000 working-age Albanians returned to their homeland. Overnight, the number of employed people grew by five percent. This sudden return movement sent shockwaves through the Albanian labor market — and affected even those who had never left the country.

Most returnees were drawn back to their home communities. They brought with them not only their savings — accumulated from jobs paying roughly five times the wages available in Albania — but also valuable know-how acquired in Greece: higher technical standards, a more advanced management and organizational style, and above all, hands-on experience with export practices.

Interestingly, even among people with equivalent levels of education, the competencies differed fundamentally — returnees more often had vocational training, while those who stayed behind were more likely to hold university degrees. This know-how, the returnees put to good use back in Albania.

Albania Fried Chicken in the heart of the Albanian capital Tirana: who knows where the owner got his vision? (Photo: own, 2013)

Albanian Returnees Create Jobs

Returnees were disproportionately active as self-employed workers, entrepreneurs, and managers — particularly in the agricultural sector, especially in the cultivation and export of citrus fruits and greenhouse products.

Highly qualified locals barely felt any competition from this — but returnees and low-skilled workers complemented each other remarkably well. They weren't competing for the same jobs; instead, they were creating new ones — for themselves and for others. Returnees employed other people far more often than non-migrants did.

For every percentage point increase in returnees within the population, employment among low-skilled workers rose by 1.4 percent — and their wages climbed as well. Overall, the combination of higher employment and better pay managed to nearly offset the drop in remittances from Greece — which had accounted for 1.6 percent of Albania's economic output.

At the same time, the transfer of knowledge from Greece proved to be a significant driver of innovation: Albania's subsistence farming transformed into commercial agriculture with higher yields — and Albanian exports increased.[1]

Similar patterns can be found elsewhere: Chinese returnees to rural villages, as well as former Yugoslav and Turkish migrants returning from Germany, invested significantly more in farm equipment than non-migrants.

Albanian returnees are particularly overrepresented in skilled trades, agricultural professions, and management. At the same time, they are strongly underrepresented in elementary occupations, as technicians, office workers, and other specialists — particularly where university degrees are required. ( [1], own depiction)

Moldova: Crisis Drives Emigration

One especially powerful feedback loop with the homeland is the transmission of ideas and visions about how a society should function — in real time, thanks to the internet. The Republic of Moldova offers a striking example of this.

Today the country sits directly on the eastern border of the European Union — a candidate country that has set course for Europe. But for a long time, Moldova was the southwesternmost outpost of the Soviet Union. Even after its dissolution and Moldovan independence, the population remained isolated: contact with the outside world — through migration, travel, media, or books — was scarce.

The country maintained its communist traditions and continued to seal itself off. The media remained state-dominated and spread anti-capitalist and anti-Western propaganda. External influences did not get through.

This only changed when the Russian economy slid into financial crisis in 1998. Moldova was hit even harder than Russia itself — economic output collapsed by more than 32 percent. Before this, migration played no role for most Moldovans. But the economic turmoil drove around 300,000 of what was then a population of roughly 4 million abroad by 2009.

East and West: Between Two Worlds

As a landlocked country, emigrants had two migration corridors available: 60 percent headed to Russia, while the remaining 40 percent moved to Europe. The deciding factor was usually social networks — whoever already had acquaintances in a country who could provide information and support followed them. This created a path dependency that drew further emigrants from the same community in the same direction.

Ethnic Russians thus tended to go to Russia, Turkic-speaking Gagauz to Turkey, and Romanian-speaking Moldovans — thanks to European passports — to Europe, where Romanians had already built networks.

The route westward was more expensive — visa restrictions made migration costly, limiting it to wealthier households. These migrants were younger, better educated, and predominantly female — natural opponents of the communists.

As late as 1998, just 15 Moldovans lived in Italy — by 2004, the number had reached 40,000. The Moldovan diaspora in Greece, Portugal, and Spain grew at a similarly rapid pace.

The home communities, by contrast, were barely distinguishable from one another. Most are agricultural in character, without urban centers.. 

Emigration Shapes Election Outcomes

The severe economic crisis reopened the door to power for the communists in 2001. Following the end of their ban and their rehabilitation, they won a landslide victory — Soviet nostalgia swept the country: the party promised a firm hand and the living standards of the past, and Chișinău once again turned toward Moscow.

But the emigration wave to Western Europe triggered a reversal just a few years later. Migrants grew increasingly dissatisfied with conditions back home. Their trust in the government and state media faded — they became more and more critical of state intervention.

Many emigrants began to see their relatives at home as unenlightened and uninformed — particularly in the poor, rural regions. They explained to their families and friends how Western Europe "worked": they conveyed a vision of Europe and modern society, embellished with positively charged concepts of economic prosperity and entrepreneurship.

In 2009, the communists received just 12 percent of votes cast abroad — compared to 46 percent in 2005.

When the communists became deadlocked in 2009 with the liberal four-party Alliance for European Integration, it was migrants in the West above all who stepped in. They questioned the legitimacy of the election and urged their families and friends at home to vote against the communists all the more firmly.

They warned people not to fall for the communists' electoral handouts — vodka or potatoes. Corruption had become a central concern for them — life in Western Europe had made them far less tolerant of bribery and cronyism. They encouraged those who stayed behind to stop paying bribes and instead vote for parties with a clear anti-corruption agenda. That was enough to tip the election. Without this emigrant effect, the communists would have won again in 2009.

The liberal alliance turned Moldova into a model reformer: it improved the business environment, press freedom, the investment climate, and institutional quality — Moldova's democracy index advanced across multiple dimensions.

Moldova and Transnistria Between the Blocs: The right bank of the Moldovan river has long since chosen its path westward — in industrialized Transnistria, by contrast, loyalty to Moscow holds firm. All government buildings there fly not only the Transnistrian flag — which still bears the hammer and sickle — but also the Russian one. Cross the internal Moldovan border and you see the exact opposite: public buildings are adorned with the blue EU flag, a NATO information center has opened its doors — accession is meant to be visible before it is finalized. (Photo: own, 2026)

Transmission Channels Back Home

Both the emigrants in Russia and those in Europe maintained close contact with home: 90 percent checked in with their families at least once a month, two thirds even at least once a week — primarily by phone.

As the volume of phone calls home from the West rose steadily, the share of voters for the communist party fell in tandem. Every additional percentage point of emigrants in Western Europe reduced the communist vote share within a community by 0.6 percentage points.

Emigrants in fully consolidated democracies such as Germany pushed the vote share down by as much as 1.3 percentage points. Emigrants in less established democracies like Italy or Romania, however, made barely any difference — nor did those in Russia.

An important counter-test undermines the hypothesis of monetary influence: remittances from all countries were broadly similar. The emigrant effect therefore cannot be attributed to strategic influence campaigns or monetary incentives — such as a vested interest in advancing European integration or visa liberalization.

The "emigrant effect" stems from a genuine, intrinsic desire for liberal democracy. And it is not confined to individual households — it also operates at the community level.

At the municipal level, this pattern emerged earlier: from 2006 onward, communities with different migration patterns began to diverge politically. The probability of a communist mayor fell by two percentage points for every additional percentage point of emigrants in the West. [2]

New communication technologies kept migrants — whether in Russia or Western Europe — connected to their homeland and enabled them to exert political influence. With the sharp rise in international calls from 2006 onward, Moldova's political landscape began to shift. But only migrants in Western Europe moved their acquaintances to vote for liberal, pro-European parties. ( [2], own illustration) 

Open and Liberal, but Poor?

Liberal countries are more likely to let their citizens leave. In the long run, emigration improves the quality of political institutions back home. As in Moldova, this effect applies elsewhere exclusively to emigrants in wealthy countries — for instance, when elites educated abroad return home.

A large diaspora abroad disciplines home governments. Once a critical mass is reached, migrants can become politically active in their host countries — they vote, protest, and lobby.

Interpersonal contact makes citizens of host countries more empathetic and receptive to such causes. This can prompt the host country to intervene in the country of origin — through cuts to development aid, sanctions, or in extreme cases military action.

The effect is far from marginal: depending on the index used, a ten-percent increase in the migration rate translates into a long-term improvement in institutional quality of 16 to 24 percentage points — and five percentage points in the short term.

The effect was particularly pronounced in indices that measure real, everyday freedoms — more so than in those capturing only the legal situation. And it is all the greater the poorer a country is and the weaker its institutions were to begin with. [3] [4]

High emigration rates correlate strongly with high democracy scores — particularly where citizens notice the greater freedoms almost immediately, such as economic and political rights. The diaspora thus also influences liberalization in the homeland in different ways. ( [3], own illustration)

A Vicious Circle: Emigration and Instability

Those with a good education have better prospects than average — and globalization works in their favor: scholarships at universities and research institutions are within reach, and multinational firms enable transfers to their overseas branches.

Unstable conditions therefore drive the brightest minds abroad above all. This "brain drain" has drastic consequences: expertise and important taxpayers leave. Since human capital is the primary driver of economic development, the country becomes less attractive to foreign investment — research, development, and innovation suffer, and with them the entire economy.

States that are already fragile lose further capacity to provide their populations with services and a reliable investment climate. When the financial resources to pay public servants are lacking, those servants become more susceptible to corruption. Infrastructure deteriorates, the security situation worsens — stability, the rule of law, and peace come under pressure.

The situation intensifies: the country becomes less and less able to retain its own talent — and the vicious circle keeps turning.

Migrants Decide Between War and Peace

Migration shifts the balance of power within a country. Previously marginalized ethnic groups and other social communities emigrate at disproportionate rates — and seek their fortunes elsewhere.

This weakens their group numerically at home. But remittances give it financial firepower, opening new networks and business opportunities. This growing economic strength threatens the power base of the entrenched political and economic elites — who then push back. The diaspora in turn increases its support.

A spiral of ever harsher measures emerges, which can ultimately discharge in physical violence. The civil war in Sri Lanka is one example.

Between 1983 and 2009, Tamils and the dominant Sinhalese were locked in bitter conflict. The globally dispersed Tamil diaspora massively funded the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam — the Tamil Tigers built themselves up into a formidable military force.

This dramatically prolonged the conflict, while Tamil migrants abroad campaigned for sympathy and support for their cause. The attacks of September 11, 2001 aroused suspicion toward the financial flows of the Tamil diaspora — which ultimately contributed to a peaceful settlement and power-sharing arrangement within the state.

Even in supposedly progressive Europe, the Irish community in the United States channeled money back home — enabling the paramilitary IRA's campaign against British rule. It was only when the self-image of Irish migrants shifted — from impoverished refugees to an integrated, prosperous community with a stake in the established order — that pressure mounted on the IRA to renounce violence.

The diaspora enabled Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers to fund their operations. For example, they used improvised armored bulldozers like these during the first battle at Elephant Pass in 1991, which involved thousands of fighters. (Image source: wikicommons/Antano, 2012)

International Conflicts Through Migration

The peace-promoting effect of international trade is well researched. The impact of migration is less clear — yet evidence is mounting that it can strain relations between countries and sometimes even trigger wars.

One example: between 1990 and 2000, large waves of refugees moved from Haiti to the Dominican Republic and from Nicaragua to Costa Rica. There, they placed such strain on infrastructure and society that the receiving countries could no longer absorb the newcomers.

The migration from Central America to Mexico and the United States was also accompanied by a rise in violent and organized crime. This contributed significantly to tensions between the countries involved.

The growth of an ethnic group shifts the balance of power in the host country — and can destabilize it: the host country becomes infected, in a sense, with the instability of the country of origin.

This is especially true of strong migration flows within the Global South — even more so than south-to-north migration. And all the more when the host country becomes convinced that the country of origin is deliberately steering its diaspora and intervening on its behalf. [5]

From Instability to Catch-Up — and Back Again

Migration often ends in a vicious circle. Instability drives people away — as shown in Moldova and Albania. Their experiences, financial resources, and newly acquired convictions flow back into the countries of origin, where they spark economic momentum and a liberalization of institutions.[1]

But this triggers new disruptions. The newfound financial power of one group reshuffles the deck. At the same time, the state loses tax revenue and expertise through emigration. In this way, migration generates instability anew — which in turn fuels further emigration.

The diaspora becomes the financier, supplier, and entrepreneur of war — but simultaneously the mediator and peacemaker. It escalates conflicts and resolves them — as the Irish community in the United States so vividly demonstrated.

Bringing Migrants Home for a Development Leap?

Migrants influence their home countries across many dimensions. By 2024, 304 million people — 3.6 percent of the world's population — were living outside their home country. Since 1990, their number has more than doubled.

Research into the wide-ranging feedback effects on home countries is nonetheless still in its early stages. So far, the findings suggest that the positive effects of emigration barely offset the negative ones.

Even so, bringing migrants home should not be a stated goal of governments. They simply often do not provide the stable conditions needed for successful entrepreneurship — the very same conditions whose absence prompted emigration in the first place.

There is a further complication: skills acquired abroad frequently cannot be put to meaningful use under domestic conditions. National policymakers should nevertheless maintain close ties with the diaspora — in order to mobilize its resources, expertise, and capital, and to secure the transfer of knowledge back home. [1]

[1] Many of the cited findings date from the 2010s. Since then, the picture has become more complicated: in many Central-Eastern and Eastern European countries, the trend has reversed since 2024 — liberal democracy appears to have lost its appeal. Decision-makers in the industrially far more developed Transnistria turned even further away as a result of Moldova's pro-European course. Nevertheless: in the 2025 elections, many Transnistriens made their way to the polling stations across the unofficial border — and voted overwhelmingly in favor of closer ties with Europe. The Gagauz remained skeptical.

Further Reading

[1]	R. Hausmann und L. Nedelkoska, „Welcome Home in a Crisis: Effects of Return Migration on the Non-Migrants' Wages and Employment,“ Faculty Research Paper Series 17-015, pp. 1-38, 2017.
[2]	T. Barsbai, H. Rapoport, A. Steinmayr und C. Trebesch, „The Effect of Labor Migration on the Diffusion of Democracy: Evidence from a Former Soviet Republic,“ American Economic Journals: Applied Economics 2017, Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 36-69, 2017.
[3]	F. Docquier, E. Lodgiani, H. Rapoport und M. Schiff, „Emigration and Democracy,“ FERDI Working Paper 155, pp. 1-42, 2016.
[4]	N. Dutta und S. Roy, „Do Potential Skilled Emigrants Care about Political Stability at Home?,“ Review of Development Economics, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 442-457, 2011.
[5]	F. Docquier, I. Ruyssen und M. Schiff, „International Migration: Pacifier or Trigger for Military Conflicts,“ Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 59, No. 9, pp. 1657-1679, 2018.