Complete Thesis_double spaced abstract.pdf

Cornelius 2001; Crush 2002; Fitzgerald 2006). Cornelius (2001) believes that at times receiving
states have very liberal immigration policies towards highly skilled migrants and low skilled
migrants making it nearly impossible for a sending state to control or influence emigration. A
second related issue is the relatively less examined ‘brain push.’ Brain push is the emigration of
highly skilled workers due to political instability, restrictions on individual liberties, or lack of
opportunities provided by the source country (Baldwin 1970; Campos and Lien 1995; Torbat
2002).
Theories of Economic Modernization and Violence
While the migration literature does not have a common unifying theory of migration, the
literature does offer several distinct theories, frameworks, and approaches that are
complimentary; these frameworks, approaches and theories can be combined and utilized to
examine migration in a variety of settings. Theories and frameworks describing the processes of
economic development, political violence and intra and interstate migration are presented in the
following sections. Theories, frameworks, and approaches from Paige (1975), McCreery (1994),
Morrison and May (1994) and Hamilton and Chinchilla (1991) are used to assemble a
comprehensive framework for examining Guatemalan migration.
Theories of economic modernization and violence are abundant in the literature; most
often the theories and case studies focus on the modernization of a society’s agricultural sector
and the probability or the occurrence of revolution or rebellion (violence) from the peasant
classes directed at the elites or the state. Theories and case studies describing economic
modernization and violence perpetrated by the state, prior to revolution or rebellion, are less
common in the literature. Jeffery Paige (1975) in Agrarian Revolution offers a simplified theory
of agrarian revolution with a role for the state. He explains that agricultural development, or the
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