Research

How does relief spending affect support for an incumbent politician? I argue that in contexts with low state capacity, where patrons (such as traditional leaders) wield significant influence in local politics, and where international donors visibly empower these patrons in the implementation of relief aid, such aid is likely to have a negative effect on political support for the incumbent government. This occurs because the national government receives little credit for the relief efforts, while being blamed if the patron under-performs in delivering the aid. I test this argument in the case of Sierra Leone during the Ebola epidemic, where international donors funded community care centers (CCCs) that heavily relied on the support of Sierra Leone’s paramount chiefs. Using geo-referenced Afrobarometer survey data from 2012 and 2015, I implement a difference-in-differences research design and find that CCCs reduced support for the incumbent president’s party by approximately 62.7 percentage points. These findings call for a reconsideration of the political consequences of relief aid and highlight the need for a nuanced understanding of its implementation dynamics.

This paper investigates the impact of natural disasters on policymakers’ behavior, focusing on whether such events prompt a pro-environmental policy shift. Analyzing the voting behavior of all members of U.S. House of Representatives from 1973 to 2021, this study finds that exposure to natural disasters does not directly affect the volume of environmental legislation passed post-disaster. Instead, the influence of natural disasters on politicians’ support for pro-environmental legislation is conditioned by political affiliation. Specifically, Democratic representatives are more likely to endorse green legislation as disaster frequency increases, whereas Republican representatives show decreased support in disaster-affected districts compared to disaster-free districts. These findings highlight significant partisan divides in environmental policymaking and suggest that, even in the face of catastrophic events, certain politicians may resist endorsing climate change mitigation policies. This research has important implications for the capacity of democratic institutions to address climate change effectively amidst polarized political landscapes.

Can naming and shaming reduce domestic public support for a government that fails to comply with an international court ruling? We explore this question through a conjoint survey experiment conducted in China—a setting that represents a least likely case for such an effect. In our experiment, respondents were informed about a ruling by the International Court of Justice against China. While we found that citizens generally favored non-compliance with the ruling, shaming by the United Nations significantly reduced public support for non-compliance. In contrast, shaming by the United States had no significant effect. These results suggest that naming and shaming may bolster domestic support for compliance with international court rulings, even in restrictive environments like China.

The European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR), implemented in 2013 to combat illegal logging and promote sustainable forest management, mandates stringent due diligence for timber imports into the EU. This study assesses the EUTR’s impact on global deforestation rates using a difference-in-differences approach. Analyzing data from 145 countries between 2001 and 2020, we find a 66.1% increase in deforestation in EU trade-dependent countries post-EUTR implementation, equating to an additional 27,539 km² of forest loss annually. Contrary to its objectives, the EUTR has inadvertently accelerated deforestation. These findings raise concerns about the efficacy of trade-based environmental regulations and highlight the need for more adaptive policy frameworks to align environmental goals with economic realities.

Why do some foreign aid and foreign direct investment (FDI) projects cause political backlash from voters for politicians? Existing work attributes backlash to people’s dissatisfaction with project outcomes. However, these explanations cannot explain why sometimes even objectively successful projects can become a political liability for politicians. To explain this phenomenon, I argue that outcomes reveal new information about the quality of a development project that allows voter to assess whether their politician’s provided financial support to high-quality projects. I formalize this idea in a political accountability model. The model demonstrates that there are equilibria where outcomes are not necessary to cause political backlash. In fact, if the value of holding office is large enough, politicians can separate themselves from bad-type politicians by supporting every project. Negative outcomes only explain backlash if there is uncertainty about the quality of a project or a lack of information about the presence of financial support. These results are replicated in an extension with endogenous investment decisions. The paper further discusses what factors within the theoretical framework will influence the behavior of politicians to provide financial support to development projects and how accountability can affect the inflow of FDI and aid.

Can transparency mitigate the excessive use of investment incentives to attract new foreign direct investment (FDI) projects by elected officials? I argue that transparency does not necessarily discourage the use of investment incentives, but it forces politicians to focus them on attracting high-quality FDI projects. These are projects that have a high perceived effectiveness in increasing a community’s living standards. Voters prefer their representatives to emphasize high-quality over low-quality projects. Through transparency, voters can discern which projects receive incentives, thus incentivizing politicians to favor high-quality ones. I examined this using US greenfield FDI and incentive data from 2010 to 2019. My analysis indicates that high-quality projects are more likely to get incentives, especially in counties with a daily newspaper. Furthermore, counties with daily newspapers attract fewer, but higher quality, FDI projects. This implies transparency prompts politicians to prioritize project quality over quantity.