GLD Virtual Annual Conference - Panel 2c: Climate Change

Chair: 

Anna-Lena Hönig (University of Konstanz)

Presenters: 

Christopher Carter (University of Virginia): Does Patriotism Inspire Environmentalism? Experimental Evidence from Bolivia

Does patriotism cross-cut societal cleavages? Scholars often argue that patriotism---in contrast to the related concept of nationalism—invokes positive sentiments toward one’s country without asserting superiority to others. If so, patriotism may foster an inclusive national identity, bridging societal divisions and promoting concerted action on policy issues for which costs are concentrated among a narrowly defined set of residents. In this paper, we use environmental crises in Bolivia as a case to test whether patriotism may transcend regional cleavages on such issues. In a survey experiment with novel measures of patriotism and environmentalism in the department of Cochabamba, we find that patriotism is less inclusive than traditionally thought. While patriotism increases environmental concern through mechanisms of shared solidarity and ties to national symbols, patriotic individuals show this heightened concern only when environmental crises are present in their home region. Instead of being an inclusive identity, patriotism may instead reinforce existing regional cleavages.

Preeti Nambiar (Vanderbilt University): Natural Hazards, Bureaucrats, and the Transformation of the State

This study draws on accountability and disaster studies that suggest  governments respond positively to pressure, to derive an original hypothesis: local government exhibits a sustained increase in output levels in response to dealing with a natural disaster. My theory holds that occurrence of a disaster leads to local bureaucrats facing a sustained increase in pressure to perform, leading to changes in local bureaucratic functioning. These changes in local bureaucratic operations endure beyond the disaster phase to power a sustained shift in local government output levels. I test this hypothesis using India - a middle-income democratic country. I find results that support the core hypothesis using Indian government performance data, in-person politician and bureaucrat surveys, and in-person bureaucrat interviews across flooded and non-flooded regions in multiple Indian states. This paper contributes to literature on local governments, post-crisis development in democracies, and addresses a gap in literature on natural disasters and their long-term effects.