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1. Migration restrictions, system condemnation, and political engagement Fouad Bou Zeineddine, Felicia Pratto, Rob Foels, Andrew L. Stewart, Antonio Aiello, María Aranda, Atilla Cidam, Kevin Durrheim, Veronique Eicher, I-Ching Lee, Laurent Licata, Jim Liu, Li Liu, Ines Meyers, Davide Moriselli, Orla Muldoon, Hamdi Muluk, Nebojsa Petrovic, Francesca Prati, Reem Saab, Joseph Sweetman Free Powerpoint Templates

2. Political Participation: Engagement and Avoidance • Political participation enables citizens to meet some of their needs and interests. • Structural and material constraints can so disempower citizens that their participation seems futile (Cooke & Belanger, 2006, Dirks, 1998). • Increased political engagement or physical or psychological escape?

3. Emigration World Bank, 2011

4. Restricting Emigration→Justify system According to Laurin et al. (2010), if people cannot emigrate: • people will be more willing to defend their government • people will rationalize away dissatisfactory elements of the system. “As restricted emigration in effect makes it more difficult for people to escape all facets of the system, we predict that restricted emigration will motivate people to defend not only this policy, but also other, unrelated aspects of the system.”

5. Restricting Emigration vs Engagement • System condemnation and emigration constraints assumed to be mutually exclusive. • People unable to emigrate may choose to redouble their efforts at political engagement.

6. Study Questions • What makes people defend or reject their political system? • Why are people unable to emigrate? • Why would anyone want to emigrate in the first place? • How politically engaged are those who desire to emigrate, and those who are unable to emigrate?

7. Method • A priori classification into “Developed” and “Developing” national samples (World Bank, 2011) • Demographics: SES, age, sex, economic insecurity. • Dangerous worldview (Duckitt, 2001) • Salient political systems’ fairness • Efficacy (internal/external, domestic/international) • Relative deprivation • Emigration desire and constraints: “The political situation makes me want to leave this country.” “If I wanted to do so, I would be able  to leave this country.”

8. Results – System justification 1. Who engages in system justification? (Own country fair.) • + power differences between countries in the world are stable. • + my voice is heard in my country. • + my country has influence in the world. • - my group is disadvantaged in my country. • - my country is disadvantaged in the world. • Developed countries: - my country dangerous & unpredictable.

9. Results – Ability to Emigrate 2. What people are able to emigrate? • Globally: • Youth • High SES citizens • Citizens of developed nations • Developed world: • Elder, high SES citizens • People who did not perceive their country as dangerous or unpredictable Question: Does constraining the privileged differ psychologically from the chronic constraints the disadvantaged face?

10. Results – Desire to Emigrate 3. Who wants to emigrate? • Young people • Economically insecure people • People who perceive their country as a dangerous and unpredictable place • People who find their domestic political systems to be unfair. • People who feel that their voice is unheard or un-influential in politics. • People who report that they are disadvantaged by domestic injustice

11. Results – Desire to Emigrate Who ESPECIALLY wants to emigrate? • Developing world: • People who feel their country is a dangerous and unpredictable place • People who feel their domestic political system is unfair. Disadvantaged people who are the most critical of their domestic political systems are those most desirous of emigration, and the most constrained from doing so.

12. Results – Political Engagement 4. How politically engaged are those who desire to emigrate, and those who are unable to emigrate? • Those who desire to emigrate, and/or those who are unable to do so, report the same level of political activism as their fellow citizens… • Avoiding politics entirely: • People from the developed world who are able to emigrate (marginal) • People from the developed world who perceive their political systems as fair • People from the developing world, especially who do not desire to emigrate • People who don’t need to emigrate are also not politically engaged.

13. Discussion • People in both developing and developed worlds respond to disempowerment by desiring emigration and engaging in domestic political activity, where possible and efficacious. • The oppression of poverty, injustice, and lack of political efficacy and influence that simultaneously causes people to desire emigration and constrains them from doing so, and pushes them to condemn, not justify, their political systems. • Further research is needed on the psychological covariates of migration desires and constraints

14. Acknowledgments • UConn Intergroup Lab • Randi Garcia • Yuanwen Liang • Counter-Dominance International project team