The Mobilizing Effect of Inconspicuous Migration: Evidence from China

Abstract Existing research suggests that migration undermines an individual's political participation due to migrants' disadvantaged position in their new living environment. Challenging this conventional view, we argue that frequent relocations in an inconspicuous migration context, characterized by minimal perceived differences in social and demographic conditions between migrants' origins and destinations, can, conversely, foster patriotism and incentivize political participation. We examine this argument using data from the China Migrants Dynamic Survey. We analyzed responses from more than 160,000 internal migrants in China, a context predominantly marked by inconspicuous migration. We found that increased migration frequency is positively associated with heightened political participation, notwithstanding the barriers conventionally conceived to disengage migrants from politics. The mobilizing effect remains robust to the instrumental variable strategy and several additional tests, and is not accounted for by alternative explanations. Our study underscores the significance of contextual nuances in migration in understanding the dynamics of migrant political participation. The mechanism we identified, which we call “migration–patriotism–political participation,” offers valuable insights into the scholarship on patriotic political participation and state building.