Search for: All records

ABSTRACT The February 2023 Türkiye–Syria Earthquake had a profound impact on political, economic, and social life in Türkiye. Despite criticism about government disaster response, the government of Türkiye won an election 3 months later. We examine variance in media coverage of government disaster responses with Structural Topic Modeling of 12,268 articles in five pro‐ and anti‐government newspapers in Türkiye (Anadolu Ajansi, Hurriyet, Sozcu, Cumhuriyet, and Posta) between the February earthquake and the May election. We identify five general topical themes in the data: emotion, science, information provision, government response, and the economy. We conduct sentiment analysis and find little direct criticism of the government's responses, although anti‐government newspapers are more negative on topics related to building structures and damage. The general pattern of positive sentiment among all newspapers regarding government responses to the earthquake may help us understand why the disaster was not as consequential for the election outcome as some observers expected. 

Our study introduces a new quantitative dataset of government disaster responses for 183 disasters in Peru from 1900 to 2020. We examine disaster responses in the form of relocation of affected individuals, restrictions on movement, reconstruction of damaged areas, and regulations of third-party disaster relief. Prior analyses of large earthquakes and El Niño events in Peru reveal that government response to hazards shapes the outcomes for social, conflict, and economic outcomes. Our dataset contributes quantitative coding of a much larger sample of disasters to identify useful patterns in disaster response. We show that the Peruvian government is the most active actor in disaster response, although international organizations and non-governmental organizations are active in nearly a third of all disasters. Restrictions and relocation of affected populations occur, but this tends to be temporary, rather than long-term solutions to mitigate risks from future disasters. Relocation of affected people occurs more often for floods and landslides, while regulation of third-party activities occurs more frequently with floods and extreme temperature events; other disaster response policies do not vary across disaster types. Disaster responses have also shifted over time, with the government providing more funds for post-disaster reconstruction and coordinating with outside aid groups more actively in recent decades. The results demonstrate the feasibility and importance of tracking patterns of response across hazard events to fully understand the role of government in disaster response. Our larger data collection project will provide similar data for all countries over time, which will help us situate Peru’s patterns of disaster response in the larger disaster management landscape and understand how government policy choices influence political violence, migration, and other political dynamics. 

Abstract ObjectiveWe consider how the Peruvian government's responses to natural disaster events shaped political violence patterns from 1989 to 2020. MethodsWe gather data on government disaster response and compare the effect of positive disaster responses, such as reconstruction and regulation of domestic/international aid, and negative disaster responses, such as neglect or placing restrictions on movement near the affected areas, on violent conflict. To address the endogeneity between armed conflict and disaster responses, we estimate a structural equation model where we allow armed conflicts and disaster responses to be fully endogenous. ResultsUsing a structural equation model at the province‐year level, we show that negative disaster responses increase the risks for political violence, while positive disaster responses do not affect the risks for armed conflict. Armed conflict in turn makes negative policy responses to disasters more likely but has no effect on positive disaster responses. ConclusionsThe results suggest that poor government response to natural disasters can foster grievances and aid rebel recruitment, increasing the risks for armed conflicts.