Democratic Decline and Highly-Skilled (Im)Mobility: Beyond Exile and Forced Migration

This project inquires how democratic decline has affected highly-skilled (im)mobility beyond exile and forced migration in the last decade. Acknowledging that migration is a multi-causal phenomenon and autocratization is only one of numerous (e)migration drivers it will scrutinize voluntary highly-skilled (im)mobility in two of the top four autocratizing countries worldwide in the last decade: Turkey and Hungary. Via a multi-layered, multi-country approach that employs in-depth interviews and historical institutional analysis the project aims to expand academic knowledge on democratic decline and highly-skilled (im)mobility by forging a theoretical framework that inquires beyond micro-level drivers and synthesizes them with macro-level structural changes.