MASS MIGRATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE

Abstract

This dissertation looks at the association between mass migration and changes to social life. Firstly, using a constructed data set of historical mass migrations, the dissertation compares the frequency of transformative changes in political institutions in periods following decades of mass migration, to the frequency of changes following decades of low migration. The analysis shows that countries experience fewer transformative events following a decade of mass migration than following decades of low migration. Secondly, the dissertation looks at changes in global migrant stocks and in institutional scores from the Polity IV index and Freedom in the World during the period 1990-2011. The analysis shows that there are no cases of high immigration coinciding with declining institutional scores. Finally, the dissertation compares the experiences of Hong Kong and Taiwan with mass migration in the decades after 1949. This case study shows that while Taiwan experienced transformative change in its institutions Hong Kong did not.