Getting engaged instead of getting out: Restricting migration, system condemnation, and political engagement

Political participation ostensibly enables citizens to meet their needs and interests. But structural and material constraints can so disempower citizens that their participation seems futile. People may then come to see escape as an attractive, though often inaccessible, option. Experiments by Laurin et al. (2010) imply that if people cannot emigrate, they may choose self-pacification by justifying their political system. Alternatively, people unable to emigrate may choose to redouble their efforts at political engagement. In a survey of 1457 citizens from 14 nations, we found that citizens’ desire to emigrate is a function of perceptions of injustice in their political system, corruption, and the unlikelihood of upward mobility, as well as destitution and danger. Our results also indicated that it is the lack of political voice and efficacy, and the perception that other nations were unfairly advantaged, rather than the inability to emigrate, which predicted rejection of system justification. People desiring emigration reported more political engagement than others regardless of ability to emigrate, and were actually less acquiescent to dominant groups the less able to emigrate they thought they were. The importance of considering resistance to oppressive power structures in political engagement, and the limitations of system justification, are discussed.