<p>How does family emigration influence attitudes towards democracy in the Middle East and North Africa? Drawing on 63 interviews with migrants’ families in Jordan and Tunisia, I argue that ‘democratic benchmarking’ plays an important role in influencing the nature and content of political remittances. Families of migrants make comparisons between political systems in their own country and their relatives’ emigration destination, which may reflect either positively or negatively on the political system under which they are governed. Comparing migrant families who have relatives in more democratically-governed countries with those who have relatives in more autocratically-governed Gulf monarchies, I find a positive effect of the former on support for key democratic principles including the rule of law and electoral competition. This effect is driven by positive comparisons that migrants’ families make between domestic and emigration destination political systems. While there is no corresponding pro-autocratic effect of positive comparison with Gulf political systems, families with emigrants in authoritarian countries rate their own country’s political system as relatively more democratic and are less likely to favour political change. The findings suggest that migration to relatively more democratically-governed countries can increase support for democratic political reform, while migration to comparatively more autocratically-governed countries can have the opposite effect.</p>