IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/now/jlqjps/100.00015075.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Natural Disasters and Political Engagement: Evidence from the 2010-11 Pakistani Floods

Author

Listed:
  • Fair, C. Christine
  • Kuhn, Patrick M.
  • Malhotra, Neil
  • Shapiro, Jacob N.

Abstract

How natural disasters affect politics in developing countries is an important question, given the fragility of fledgling democratic institutions in some of these countries as well as likely increased exposure to natural disasters over time due to climate change. Research in sociology and psychology suggests traumatic events can inspire pro-social behavior and therefore might increase political engagement. Research in political science argues that economic resources are critical for political engagement and thus the economic dislocation from disasters may dampen participation. We argue that when the government and civil society response effectively blunts a disaster's economic impacts, then political engagement may increase as citizens learn about government capacity. Using diverse data from the massive 2010–11 Pakistan floods, we find that Pakistanis in highly flood-affected areas turned out to vote at substantially higher rates three years later than those less exposed. We also provide speculative evidence on the mechanism. The increase in turnout was higher in areas with lower ex ante flood risk, which is consistent with a learning process. These results suggest that natural disasters may not necessarily undermine civil society in emerging developing democracies.

Suggested Citation

  • Fair, C. Christine & Kuhn, Patrick M. & Malhotra, Neil & Shapiro, Jacob N., 2017. "Natural Disasters and Political Engagement: Evidence from the 2010-11 Pakistani Floods," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 12(1), pages 99-141, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:now:jlqjps:100.00015075
    DOI: 10.1561/100.00015075
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/100.00015075
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1561/100.00015075?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Marco Frank & David Stadelmann & Benno Torgler, 2020. "Electoral Turnout During States of Emergency and Effects on Incumbent Vote Share," CREMA Working Paper Series 2020-10, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    2. Haseeb, Muhammad & Vyborny, Kate, 2022. "Data, discretion and institutional capacity: Evidence from cash transfers in Pakistan," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    3. Maffioli, Elisa M., 2021. "The political economy of health epidemics: Evidence from the Ebola outbreak," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    4. Klomp, Jeroen, 2019. "Does government ideology shake or shape the public finances? Empirical evidence of disaster assistance," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 118-127.
    5. Petrova, Kristina & Rosvold, Elisabeth L., 2024. "Mitigating the legacy of violence: Can flood relief improve people’s trust in government in conflict-affected areas? Evidence from Pakistan," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    6. Matthias Flückiger & Markus Ludwig & Ali Sina Önder, 2019. "Ebola and State Legitimacy," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(621), pages 2064-2089.
    7. Marco Frank & David Stadelmann & Benno Torgler, 2023. "Higher turnout increases incumbency advantages: Evidence from mayoral elections," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 529-555, July.
    8. Roberto Ramos & Carlos Sanz, 2018. "Backing the incumbent in difficult times: the electoral impact of wildfires," Working Papers 1810, Banco de España.
    9. Muhammad Waqas Idrees & Muhammad Bashir Khan, 2018. "Institutional Mapping and Political Economy of DRR: A Case Study of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK)," Global Social Sciences Review, Humanity Only, vol. 3(3), pages 395-409, September.
    10. Bai, Yu & Li, Yanjun, 2021. "More suffering, more involvement? The causal effects of seismic disasters on social capital," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    11. Allison Carnegie & Lindsay R. Dolan, 2021. "The effects of rejecting aid on recipients’ reputations: Evidence from natural disaster responses," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 495-519, July.

    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:now:jlqjps:100.00015075. 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: Lucy Wiseman (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nowpublishers.com/ .

    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.