Democratic Consequences of Natural Disasters - Accidental Democratization? (Pre-Recorded)

• In Event: Disaster & Dictatorship: COVID-19 and Beyond

Abstract

As the environmental impacts of climate change become stronger ever year, the question of whether and how these environmental changes affect political and social processes is more and more important. In this paper we address this question and investigate the effect of natural disasters that are likely to increase in frequency and intensity with the climate change (IPCC2018), on political changes. In particular, we look at whether the frequency and intensity of natural disasters have a potential to influence democratization processes.

Most previous research has found positive associations between countries experiencing natural disasters and short-term increases in their democracy scores (Ahlerup 2013; Aidt and Leon 2016; Brückner and Ciccone 2011; Couttenier and Soubeyran 2014; Rahman et al. 2017). A major shortcoming in these studies is that they do not disentangle how disasters affect specific democratization processes and therefore we know little about how exactly they influence the regime change.

In this paper we argue that disasters create a window of opportunity for institutional changes towards democratization to unfold. Mobilization of civil society in disaster relief can help civil society activities to get more independence from the government and strengthen. Media, by exposing the disaster events, can get an opportunity to blame the government for (in)actions allowing for vulnerabilities that caused the disasters. Finally, opposition might seize the opportunity and criticize the elite in power for disaster mitigation efforts and get a chance to mobilize support from the populace.

We test these claims with time-series cross country data from the EM-DAT database on the occurrence and intensity of natural disasters around the globe and the Varieties of Democracy data on various aspects of democracy. Our sample covers 155 countries over 1950-2018. Our results show that an increase in disaster events is associated with at least a short-term increase in indices that measure different aspects of democratization – media freedom, freedom of organization, the extent of civil society participation, and the strength of political competition. The democratizing effect of disasters is especially large when we compare non-disaster and disaster years and it gets smaller as the number of disasters grows.

Our paper provides important food for thought with regards to how future climate change, without adequate adaptation to decrease vulnerability, may affect various aspects of democracy, as disasters interfere with the social and political status quo.

Authors

• Marina Povitkina, University of Oslo

• Sverker C. Jagers, University of Gothenburg

• Martin Sjöstedt, University of Gothenburg

• Oskar Rydén