Lauren  Duquette-Rury

Assistant Professor
Department: Sociology
290 Haines Hall
BOX 951551,
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1551
Campus mailcode: 155103
Tel: 310-267-4965
duquette@soc.ucla.edu
Website
Keywords: Latin America, Mexico

Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, her work examines the consequences of international migration on democracy, development and state-society relations in migrant countries of origin and destination.
In a book length project, Dr. Duquette-Rury studies the conditions under which organized migrant groups located in destination countries participate in the provision of social welfare in their places of origin and how this transnational participation enhances or stymies the quality of local democratic governance. In related projects, I show 1) how migrant family and collective remittances improve the provision of public goods and services in Mexico through transnational public-private partnerships (Studies in Comparative International Development, 2014) 2) how and when the social spending program overseeing these public-private partnerships in Mexico (the 3x1 Program for Migrants) is more likely to be manipulated by local governments for political gain (Latin American Research Review, forthcoming) 3) the origin, structure and dynamics of migrant organizations using an original nationally representative survey instrument of Mexican hometown associations in the U.S. (Migraciones Internacionales, 2013 with Xochitl Bada) and 4) how international migration shapes the political preferences and attitudes of non-migrants in Mexico using survey data and novel estimation techniques (two working papers with Roger Waldinger and Nelson Lim).

While the primary focus of her research agenda investigates the impact of migration on sending countries, she is equally interested in the other side of the migratory circuit: destination countries. Dr. Duquette-Rury explores the following in several additional working papers: How does immigration affect meanings and practices of political membership and citizenship? To what degree does the influx of diverse immigrant groups transform trajectories of democratic inclusion and participation in host societies? And, how do historical-institutional legacies of the sending country shape immigrant and ethnic organizational genesis and change in the host country?

Dr. Duquette-Rury received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2011 and her B.A. in International Studies (with honors) from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She also worked as an economic analyst for the Economic Research Service at the USDA and Nathan Associates, an economic consulting firm in Washington, D.C. Most recently, she was a University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellow. Dr. Duquette-Rury research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the National Academies, the Tinker Foundation and the University of Chicago.