JBS Vol 17. Num 2. 2015 - Does Remittance Affect Local Democracy in Developing Countries? Evidence from Local Elections in Bangladesh

Recent Political Economy studies have found evidences that higher level of international immigration and remittance income have causal effects in local democracy of the sending country. Political theorists have said that positive effects of remittance in democratization should be more pronounced in countries with 'dominant party' regimes. Outward emigration and remittance income have become two of the main drivers of socio-economic change in Bangladesh in the last few decades. We argue that monopolization of state resources and practice of widespread clientelism by the ruling party, have made Bangladeshi regimes analogous to the dominant party paradigm and thus amenable to the democratizing effects of emigration and remittance. Using the elections results of the first three phases of the 2014 Upzila elections, we ran Probit Regressions to estimate the probable effects of emigration and remittance on anti-incumbency of Upzila electorates. We found that, controlling for party preference, an upward increase in quartile rank of emigration and remittance level increases the probability of incumbent turnover. The effect remains same but less significant when additional control of poverty level and educational attainment are introduced.