Who decides who gets in? Diplomats, bureaucrats, and visa issuance

Abstract

Does resident diplomacy influence international outcomes? Theoretically, I argue that resident diplomats tend to adopt uniquely cooperative stances toward their hosts. I test this expectation using a natural experiment involving British visa issuance. Starting in 2007, the UK transferred visa decision making from local diplomatic posts to centralized hubs, located either at third country diplomatic posts or domestically. I study this rollout to credibly estimate the causal effects of visa adjudication by local posts. I find that resident diplomats implement a much more lenient visa policy—transferring adjudication to an outside hub reduces issuance by about fifteen percent. There is a robust difference between the behavior of local and third-country posts, showing that this cooperative effect of diplomacy is relationship-specific.