s In many regions of the world, liberal politics is on the retreat. This development is usually explained with reference to inherently political phenomena. We propose an alternative explanation, linking democratic backsliding to deep-reaching demographic change caused by mass emigration. We argue that because migrants tend to be more politically liberal, their departure, if quantitatively significant, can hurt liberal democracy. Empirically, we focus on Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Since 2004, the region has lost about 9 percent of its population due to migration to Western Europe. Drawing on data from 430,000 individuals and a panel analysis, we show that CEE migrants systematically hold more liberal values than non-migrants and that their exit went along with a deterioration of democracy in their home countries. Further analyses show that the mechanism we describe generalizes to various other world regions. Mass emigration may pose a challenge to democratic development in migrant-sending countries around the globe.

中文翻译：

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大规模移民与自由民主的侵蚀

在世界许多地区，自由主义政治正在退却。这种发展通常是参照固有的政治现象来解释的。我们提出了另一种解释，将民主倒退与大规模移民造成的深刻的人口变化联系起来。我们认为，由于移民往往在政治上更加自由，他们的离开如果在数量上很重要，可能会损害自由民主。根据经验，我们重点关注中欧和东欧 (CEE)。自 2004 年以来，由于移民到西欧，该地区已损失约 9% 的人口。根据 430,000 人的数据和小组分析，我们发现中东欧移民比非移民系统地持有更多自由主义价值观，而且他们的退出伴随着祖国民主的恶化。进一步的分析表明，我们描述的机制可以推广到世界其他各个地区。大规模移民可能对全球移民输出国的民主发展构成挑战。