The International Transmission of Democratic Values: Evidence from African Migration to Europe by Marco Manacorda

Join us for the latest Applied Economics Research Seminar Series event, Autumn Term 2025.

Marco Manacorda, from Queen Mary University of London, will present this week's seminar on The International Transmission of Democratic Values: Evidence from African Migration to Europe.

Abstract

This paper examines how rising Anti-immigrant sentiment in host countries affects outcomes and attitudes toward host countries’ institutions among migrants and how these percolate into migrants’ origin communities. We focus on African migration to Europe and propose a novel methodology to estimate migration stocks from subnational areas of origin in Africa to any country worldwide using Google Trends data. We combine these data with electoral outcomes that capture the success of Anti-immigrant parties in Europe to derive African region-specific measures of exposure to Anti-immigrant sentiment at destination. Our results show that increased Anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe led to a deterioration in democratic attitudes among African citizens, with the effect being concentrated in non-democratic countries. Consistent with the hypothesis that these effects are mediated through migrant networks, we find evidence of worsened labor market outcomes and declining support for democracy among African migrants in Europe. We conclude that rising Anti-immigrant sentiment in Western democracies has the potential to hamper migrants’ integration and support for host-country institutions, in turn undermining democratic progress at origin.

The seminar will begin with a presentation and will end with a Q and A session.

It will be held in the Economics Common Room at 2pm on Thursday, 9 October 2025. This event is open to all levels of study and is also open to the public. To register your place and gain access to the webinar, please contact the seminar organisers.

This event is part of the Applied Economics Research Seminar Series.