Book Manuscript

I am currently working on book manuscript informed by my dissertation .

Overview

My book is a critical study of the impact of large-scale emigration on the politics of the sending country, specifically the survival authoritarian regimes using the example of Zimbabwe’s ruling party the Zimbabwe African National Unity-Patriotic Front  (ZANU PF). In 2010 the United Nations estimated that at least one in three people live outside their country of birth. The majority of migration studies in political science, sociology and economics have largely focused on the impact of emigration on the politics of receiving countries, for example the voting patterns of migrants in popular receiving countries like the United States and Great Britain. However, little is known on the impact of forced and voluntary exit of millions of citizens on the democratization processes of sending countries. In explaining the survival of authoritarian regimes on the African continent and elsewhere the majority of literature has focused on activities of the ruling parties as vote buying, violence and other forms of election fraud. While these factors do account for a great deal of regime survival I argue that emigration is an important and missing part of the survival argument.