Joseph Wright, along with co-authors Abel Escribà-Folch and Covadonga Meseguer, won the 2023 APSA Migration and Citizenship Best Book Award for their new book, Migration and Democracy. The book shows how financial remittances—money sent by workers back to their home countries—support democratic expansion throughout the Global South. Remittances are not only the largest source of foreign income in most autocratic countries, but also, in contrast to foreign aid or international investment, flow directly to citizens. As a result, they provide resources that make political opposition possible, and they decrease government dependency, undermining the patronage strategies underpinning authoritarianism.
