Climate change may speed democratic turnover

Climatic Change (2017) 140:135–147 DOI 10.1007/s10584-016-1833-8 Climate change may speed democratic turnover Nick Obradovich1,2 Received: 27 April 2016 / Accepted: 6 October 2016 / Published online: 26 October 2016 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016 Abstract The electoral fate of incumbent politicians depends heavily upon voters’ wellbeing. Might climate change – by amplifying threats to human well-being – cause incumbent democratic politicians and parties to lose office more frequently? Here I conduct the first-ever investigation of the relationship between temperature, electoral returns, and future climate change. Using data from over 1.5 billion votes in over 4,800 electoral contests held in 19 countries between 1925 and 2011, coupled with meteorological data, I show that increases in annual temperatures above 21◦ C (70◦ F) markedly decrease officeholders’ vote share. I combine these empirical estimates with an ensemble of climate models to project the impact of climate change on the fate of future officeholders. Resulting forecasts indicate that by 2099 climate change may reduce average incumbent party vote share across all nations in the sample, with the most acute worsening occurring in poorer countries. If realized, these predictions indicate that climate change could amplify future rates of democratic turnover by causing incumbent parties and their politicians to lose office with increasing frequency. Keywords Elections · Democracy · Political instability · Climate change impacts Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10584-016-1833-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.  Nick Obradovich nick 1 Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA 2 Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA 136 Climatic Change (2017) 140:135–147 1 Introduction Reductions in voter well-being regularly cause democratic politicians to lose office. This is because voters consider their own well-being and the well-being of those around them when deciding how to cast their ballots (Fiorina 1981). When voters are doing well they more frequently vote for their incumbent politicians (Healy and Malhotra 2013). When voters are doing poorly, whether economically or psychologically, they vote for political challengers at higher rates (Lewis-Beck and Stegmaier 2000). Importantly, scholars have determined that climate change is likely to undermine future economic (Burke et al. 2015) and psychological (Doherty and Clayton 2011) well-being. Might climate change – by reducing citizens’ wellbeing – induce voters to cast out their incumbent politicians at increasing rates in the future? That diminished voter well-being can produce electoral losses for incumbent politicians is one of the most extensively documented findings in political science (Lewis-Beck 2006). Most studies focus on the ways that economic outcomes can affect ballot choices, with the conclusion that reductions in macroeconomic performance often precede incumbent politicians’ electoral losses (Duch and Stevenson 2010; 2008; Erikson 1989; Fair 1978; Kramer 1971; Lewis-Beck and Stegmaier 2008). Tufte (1978) articulated this relationship as a basic principle of politics: “When you think of economics, think elections; when you think of elections, think economics” (Tufte 1978). Yet, alterations in well-being not directly tied to the formal economy can also shape voter behaviors. Harmful events such as hurricanes (Abney and Hill 1966; Malhotra and Kuo 2008), tornadoes (Healy and Malhotra 2010), floods (Arceneaux and Stein 2006; Barry 2007; Gasper and Reeves 2011), and droughts (Barnhart 1925; Walker Jr. H and Hansen 1946; Cole et al. 2012) have also shaped the outcome of historical electoral contests. Even more minor reductions in psychological wellbeing, such as the loss of a favored sports team, have been linked to fewer ballots cast for incumbent politicians (Healy et al. 2010).1 Climate change induced warming is likely to reduce future economic well-being (Nordhaus 1991; Stern 2006; Weitzman 2009) in both rich (Burke et al. 2015; Deryugina 2014) and poor (Dell et al. 2012) countries, in part by reducing individual productivity (Graff Zivin and Neidell 2014), and is likely to amplify the incidence and severity of extreme weather events (Hansen et al. 2012; Min et al. 2011; Rahmstorf and Coumou 2011). Future warming may also undermine human psychological well-being through mechanisms directly tied to increases in temperature extremes, such as worsened emotional states (Klimstra et al. 2011; Connolly 2013). These projected impacts of global climate change include many of the exact weather and climate-induced stressors that have historically caused incumbent democratic politicians to lose votes. Thus, a changing climate may indeed induce citizens to cast out their incumbent politicians at increasing rates. Yet, while this hypothesis flows readily from over a century of literature, this study is the first to explore it. Here I conduct a multi-national investigation of the relationship between historical temperatures and constituency-level electoral outcomes and link these findings to predictions 1 Numerous studies directly link perceptions and personal experience of climate change related events to changes in political attitudes and behaviors regarding climate change. One topic includes literature on the “local warming effect”, or the propensity of individuals to report greater belief in and political concern about climate change when they experience warmer temperatures (Egan and Mullin 2012; Lang 2014; Zaval et al. 2014). Other studies directly examine the underpinnings for political behaviors regarding climate change (Krosnick et al. 2006; Gifford 2011; Myers et al. 2012; Roser-Renouf et al. 2014; Brügger et al. 2015; Linden 2015; Obradovich and Guenther 2016). Here I do not focus on climate change related political attitudes or behaviors themselves but instead on the potential for climatic changes to alter broader political behaviors. Climatic Change (2017) 140:135–147 137 of future climatic changes. I examine four questions. First, have exogenous increases in temperature harmed the historical vote share of incumbent democratic parties? Second, do the effects of hotter temperatures vary by level of economic development or by density of agriculture? Third, might climate change alter vote shares in the future? Finally, which countries may see the highest future increases in warming-induced democratic turnover? 2 Temperature and changes to incumbent vote share To investigate if hotter temperatures have indeed reduced historical incumbent party vote share, I employ a dataset of national lower house electoral returns based on over 1.5 billion votes cast in over 4,800 constituency-level electoral contests held in 19 countries vario (...truncated)