Support for militarization from abroad: how Latinos in the United States respond to criminal violence in Latin America

Abstract Immigrants and the children of immigrants routinely receive information about the politics of both their country of origin and country of residence. While existing research emphasizes how diasporas absorb political ideas from the residence country and transmit them back to the origin country through social remittances, less attention has been given to how ongoing political conditions in the origin country shape these processes. This paper advances a circular perspective on social remittances, showing how information about the origin country influences political attitudes in the diaspora with implications for the content of attitudes transmitted back to the origin country. Focusing on information about criminal violence in Latin America, we examine how exposure to such information shapes support for the militarization of public security in Latin America among U.S. Latinos, including both foreign-born and U.S.-born individuals. Using a conjoint experiment with a national sample of U.S. Latinos, we randomize information about perpetrators, the scope of violence, and state capacity to assess their causal effects on public opinion. We show that higher levels of violence, greater organizational capacity of criminal actors, and ineffective policing increase support for military involvement in public security. These findings highlight the significant role of origin country conditions in shaping social remittances.