IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v119y2025i3p1479-1496_28.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When Migrants Mobilize against Labor Exploitation: Evidence from the Italian Farmlands

Author

Listed:
  • DIPOPPA, GEMMA

Abstract

Migrant labor exploitation is widespread in developed countries, which host growing populations of undocumented migrants. While denouncing by migrants is essential to prosecute exploitative employers, an undocumented community actively hiding from the state is unlikely to whistleblow. I consider an intervention providing migrant farmworkers in Italy information and incentives to report on their racketeers. I leverage the staggered rollout of the intervention to study its effects in a difference-in-differences framework. The intervention empowered migrants to whistleblow, increased the prosecution of criminal organizations responsible for racketeering migrants, and raised awareness among natives, who became more favorable toward immigration and parties supporting it. These findings highlight the conditions under which undocumented migrants can take political action for their socioeconomic advancement. Unlike other integration policies which have been shown to backlash, highlighting migrants’ vulnerability to exploitation might foster solidarity and more liberal immigration attitudes among natives.

Suggested Citation

  • Dipoppa, Gemma, 2025. "When Migrants Mobilize against Labor Exploitation: Evidence from the Italian Farmlands," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 119(3), pages 1479-1496, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:119:y:2025:i:3:p:1479-1496_28
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055424001138/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:119:y:2025:i:3:p:1479-1496_28. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/psr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.