IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v60y1966i04p974-981_12.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Natural Disasters as a Political Variable: The Effect of a Hurricane on an Urban Election

Author

Listed:
  • Abney, F. Glenn
  • Hill, Larry B.

Abstract

Political scientists usually assume that physical environment helps determine political behavior. They would not, for example, expect a homogeneous political culture in a country sharply divided by mountains. Also, extreme variations in physical environment, such as droughts and floods, have been traditionally considered bad omens for governments. However, very little empirical research has been done on the relationship between natural disasters and attitudes toward government for three reasons. First, political activity seems more determined by social environment than physical. Also, since the individual is influenced by a greater number of social factors than physical factors, the former are more accessible for study and comparison. Finally, it is especially difficult to examine the effect of natural disasters, for they are rather uncommon and unpredictable. This research gap is unfortunate, since such catastrophes place great stress upon the social framework and thus test the adaptive capabilities of the political system.

Suggested Citation

  • Abney, F. Glenn & Hill, Larry B., 1966. "Natural Disasters as a Political Variable: The Effect of a Hurricane on an Urban Election," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(4), pages 974-981, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:60:y:1966:i:04:p:974-981_12
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055400128254/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Neugart, Michael & Rode, Johannes, 2021. "Voting after a major flood: Is there a link between democratic experience and retrospective voting?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    2. Jorge Gallego, 2015. "Natural Disasters and Clientelism: the Case of Floods and Landslides in Colombia," Documentos de Trabajo 12537, Universidad del Rosario.
    3. Arezki, Rabah & Djankov, Simeon & Nguyen, Ha & Yotzov, Ivan, 2020. "Reversal of fortune for political incumbents after oil shocks," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118898, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Yegor Lazarev & Anton Sobolev & Irina Soboleva & Boris Sokolov, 2012. "Trial by Fire: a Natural Disaster’s Impact on Attitudes toward the Government in Rural Russia," HSE Working papers WP BRP 04/PS/2012, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    5. Leonardo Baccini & Abel Brodeur & Stephen Weymouth, 2021. "The COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 US presidential election," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 739-767, April.
    6. Jeroen Klomp, 2020. "Election or Disaster Support?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(1), pages 205-220, January.
    7. Brodeur, Abel & Baccini, Leonardo & Weymouth, Stephen, 2020. "The COVID-19 Pandemic and US Presidential Elections," MetaArXiv sxajv, Center for Open Science.
    8. Dodlova, Marina & Zudenkova, Galina, 2021. "Incumbents’ performance and political extremism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    9. Morris Davis & Steven Thomas Seitz, 1982. "Disasters and Governments," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 26(3), pages 547-568, September.
    10. Arbatli, Cemal Eren & Gomtsyan, David, 2019. "Voting retrospectively: Critical junctures and party identification," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 356-390.
    11. Nick Obradovich, 2017. "Climate change may speed democratic turnover," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 140(2), pages 135-147, January.
    12. Roberto Ramos & Carlos Sanz, 2018. "Backing the incumbent in difficult times: the electoral impact of wildfires," Working Papers 1810, Banco de España.
    13. Cerqua, A. & Ferrante, C. & Letta, M., 2021. "Electoral Earthquake: Natural Disasters and the Geography of Discontent," GLO Discussion Paper Series 790, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    14. Ahlerup, Pelle, 2013. "Natural Disasters and Government Turnover," Working Papers in Economics 554, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    15. Michael M. Bechtel & Jens Hainmueller, 2011. "How Lasting Is Voter Gratitude? An Analysis of the Short‐ and Long‐Term Electoral Returns to Beneficial Policy," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(4), pages 852-868, October.
    16. Cavalcanti, Francisco, 2018. "Voters sometimes provide the wrong incentives. The lesson of the Brazilian drought industry," MPRA Paper 88317, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Marina Dodlova & Galina Zudenkova, 2016. "Incumbents' Performance and Political Polarization," CESifo Working Paper Series 5728, CESifo.
    18. Charles Cohen & Eric D. Werker, 2008. "The Political Economy of ``Natural'' Disasters," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 52(6), pages 795-819, December.
    19. Chun-Ping Chang & Aziz N. Berdiev, 2015. "Do natural disasters increase the likelihood that a government is replaced?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(17), pages 1788-1808, April.
    20. Peter T. Leeson & Russell S. Sobel, 2011. "Race, politics, and punishment," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 265-285, June.

    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:60:y:1966:i:04:p:974-981_12. 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.