Local News and the Electoral Incentive to Invest in Infrastructure

• In Event: Natural Disasters and the Politics of Infrastructure

Abstract

Reducing population risk from natural hazards requires infrastructure that is resilient to both
rapid-onset events and slow-moving changes in natural conditions. Yet even though
infrastructure is one of the few government priorities on which Americans widely agree, analyses consistently conclude that public officials underinvest in infrastructure, accruing costs over the long term from lost economic productivity, regulatory penalties, and impacts on public health and safety from infrastructure failure. Political science research shows that many barriers to public investments intended to prevent future harm are rooted in politicians’ electoral incentives. The motivation to be reelected or to pursue higher office can cause politicians to be wary of imposing short-term, visible costs without short-term, visible benefits. These barriers are particularly high for water infrastructure. Vulnerabilities in water infrastructure are often less visible than for roads or the electricity grid, making it more difficult for voters to see the benefits of infrastructure investment, while the local, fee-based model for funding water infrastructure makes the costs of investment highly visible.

This study investigates whether increasing the public visibility of water infrastructure failure
shifts this balance in a way that motivates politicians to invest. The research focuses on the role
of local newspapers in fostering electoral accountability. Even as their budgets and audiences
shrink, local newspapers remain a key resource for information about community conditions and events. We hypothesized that local officials are more likely to support infrastructure investment when the present benefits of that investment are made visible to their constituents through news coverage of infrastructure failure, and that the impact of news coverage would be particularly strong for politicians experiencing more electoral pressure. To test the effects of news coverage on support for infrastructure investment, we conducted a survey in March-April 2020 with over 500 elected U.S. city and county officials. An experiment embedded in the survey tested whether respondents were more likely to support a drinking water rate increase to fund a pipe replacement project if recent water main breaks in the community had been featured in the local newspaper. We find that news coverage of infrastructure failure increases politicians’ support for investment, but only for politicians in competitive electoral environments. When motivated by reelection, politicians need the benefits of infrastructure
investment to be visible to constituents in order to justify its costs. Current research underway is testing implications of this finding using observational data from North Carolina cities. The study advances understanding about how local political conditions shape public investments
in infrastructure needed to maintain reliable water service in the face of rising hazards from
drought, flood, and contamination. It also adds to a growing literature about the harmful
consequences of the decline in local news.

Authors

• Katy Hansen, Duke University

• Megan Mullin, Duke University