Local Economic Conditions and Attitudes Toward Cross-Border Movement: Evidence from South Africa’s Municipalities

By Zack Zimbalist

Why do individual attitudes towards cross-border movement vary dramatically within countries? Drawing on data from South Africa, this is the first study in the Global South to examine the importance of the local economic context in which individuals reside. Surprisingly, I find that people living in municipalities with higher unemployment and lower service provision are more supportive of free cross-border movement.

I posit a few mechanisms that are potentially underpinning this result, including residents’ anticipating immigrants’ positive economic contributions as well as higher levels of interpersonal contact with immigrants, which may counter xenophobic views spread by South African political elites and media outlets. While existing qualitative studies and additional surveys provide suggestive evidence supporting the posited mechanisms, future research using novel survey designs or survey and field experiments is needed to evaluate them more rigorously. Still, the findings are encouraging and have broader implications for developing and middle-income countries that are decentralized with unequal rates of development.

The article is published online inthe Journal of Development Studies here.

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