In the APSA Public Scholarship Program, graduate students in political science produce summaries of new research in the American Political Science Review. This piece, written by Sienna Nordquist, covers the new article by Gemma Dipoppa, “When Migrants Mobilize against Labor Exploitation: Evidence from the Italian Farmlands”.
Labor exploitation is the most widespread type of human trafficking in the world. Besides being a pervasive form of modern slavery, labor exploitation affects native, documented, and undocumented workers by shaping advanced economies’ labor markets. Because of the illicit nature of trafficking for the purpose of labor exploitation, in some cases those who exploit undocumented workers are part of or use criminal organizations. Labor racketeering— or the illegal recruitment and control of workers—relies on recruiting migrants through criminal organizations or using the criminal groups to transport and control the migrants. Dipoppa finds that efforts to politically mobilize undocumented migrants can change their work situation and public opinion about them. In her recent APSR publication “When Migrants Mobilize against Labor Exploitation: Evidence from the Italian Farmlands,” Dipoppa finds that an intervention by an Italian labor union to inform migrants about their rights increased migrant whistleblowing against racketeers, increased the state’s seizures of criminal assets, and improved support for far-left parties in affected municipalities. These results are incredibly important because they suggest undocumented migrants themselves can take political action which affects the political behavior of the native population.
Agriculture in Italy is highly dependent upon undocumented laborers. This can result in reduced wages and work opportunities for those who are documented and coercion for those who are undocumented. Beginning in 2007, Cgil—the major trade union in Italy, and a far-left political entity—started a campaign to empower undocumented workers facing exploitation on farmlands in an attempt to undermine widespread labor racketeering. The awareness campaign informed undocumented migrants of their rights, offered support to those who reported the racketeers to police, and shared information on how migrants could receive a separate, legally protected work visa for helping authorities.
In exploring the effect of Cgil’s activities on migrant behavior, Dipoppa views the awareness campaign as a “treatment” in municipalities that saw Cgil engage with undocumented migrants over time. She then takes advantage of the fact that some municipalities were exposed to the awareness campaign and others were not, and that this treatment occurred at different points in time, to compare several political outcomes between treated and untreated Italian municipalities. First, she finds that the campaigns increased undocumented migrants’ reporting of racketeering to the police. Dipoppa measures whistleblowing by web scraping articles on labor racketeering from Italy’s seven largest newspapers. The reports of racketeering in the newspapers closely track with the number of firms identified to be hiring workers informally by Italy’s Ministry of the Interior.
“The findings also show that, contrary to what might be expected, providing locals with information about how undocumented workers are exploited improves public opinion of migrants.”After establishing that the campaign affected migrant behavior directly, Dipoppa turns to how the campaign affected criminal intermediaries controlling the labor of migrant workers. She discovers that, as a result of the reported racketeering and media coverage, the Italian state seized the assets of more criminal organizations. And they were not seizing just any assets, but agricultural ones, which suggests the windfall from seized assets was predominantly the result of brave efforts by undocumented migrants on farmlands to report their racketeers.
In examining electoral data and public opinion surveys, Dipoppa then determines that the awareness campaigns reduced anti-immigrant attitudes and increased votes for far-left parties. Dipoppa finds the same results on support for the far-left when considering the closeness of the union’s campaigns to the election dates. She finds that there is a greater increase in support for the far-left parties in municipalities that experienced the Cgil campaigns closer to the election date. This further suggests that it is the awareness campaign and subsequent mobilization of undocumented migrants that is driving support for the far-left, not solely the presence of the union.
After a year which saw major electoral gains for the far-right parties across the world, many of which campaigned on tougher stances towards undocumented populations, understanding how civil society organizations can increase reporting of labor exploitation and change public opinion on undocumented migrants is vital. Dipoppa’s work suggests undocumented migrants themselves play an important role in democratic politics and processes around migration and anti-criminality. The findings also show that, contrary to what might be expected, providing locals with information about how undocumented workers are exploited improves public opinion of migrants.
- Sienna Nordquist is a 3rd year PhD Student in Social and Political Science at Bocconi University, Italy. She is also a visiting researcher at the WZB’s Transformations of Democracy Unit in Berlin, Germany. Originally from the US, Sienna was a Robert W. Woodruff Scholar at Emory University, received her Master’s degree from the LSE’s European Institute, and has been a Fellow at the Atlantic Council.
- DIPOPPA, GEMMA. 2024. “When Migrants Mobilize against Labor Exploitation: Evidence from the Italian Farmlands.” American Political Science Review, 1–18.
- About the APSA Public Scholarship Program.