Rewarding performance in disaster response: Evidence from local governments in Latin America

Abstract

Given the increasing frequency of large-scale disasters, managing such emergencies is becoming an important domain of politicians’ responsibilities in office. Models of electoral accountability posit that voter reward and sanctioning in re-elections incentivizes good performance. Yet little accountability research considers how electoral incentives impact this new type of public sector responsibility. Most studies of electoral responses to disasters tend to study voter reactions to the existence of the disaster itself, rather than how politicians perform in responding to it after the fact. Those that do incorporate performance use metrics like disaster declarations or allocating relief aid, which may be relevant for national actors, but not local-level politicians whose main role in disaster response is spending the funds they receive from the central level to manage recovery efforts. Furthermore, most research studies only one disaster at a time and focuses on economically advanced countries. Our approach addresses each of these gaps by combining local-level electoral returns in Chile and Peru with detailed data on how mayors perform in responding to a variety of natural catastrophes. We find that voters do in fact reward local politicians that effectively manage disasters, providing a blueprint for how to best incentivize disaster responsiveness going forward.