Could climate change be fuelling dictatorships?

Professors Nejat Anbarci and Habib Rahman share their research on the impact of extreme weather conditions on political systems.

In recent decades we’ve witnessed a significant increase in extreme weather and natural disasters, both of which can be attributed to climate change. Despite growing calls to curb the toll that humanity is putting on our planet at a quicker and more effective rate, there’s unfortunately been little progress. From devastating floods in Pakistan to wildfires across Australia and droughts throughout East Africa, we’re seeing more and more countries, and their inhabitants, suffer untold damage due to climate change.

With the likelihood and frequency of such disasters set to continue rising, we, alongside Mehmet Ulubasoglu, Deakin University, Australia, undertook research into the impact of such extreme weather conditions on political systems across the world.

We found that following sizeable natural disasters – such as tornados, cyclones and hurricanes – not only are people’s lives and homes at risk, but their democratic freedoms are too. This is because governments, particularly in small island nations, become more oppressive in their rule following a natural disaster event.

Reviewing data from 1950-2009 that measured every country’s polity score – which evaluates the strength of a nation’s democratic system, from autocratic to democratic – we compared each country’s democratic score at the time of natural disasters and in the years following.

From our analysis we saw that the disruption to communities caused by severe storm – e.g. breakdown in day-to-day routines and business, the need for government intervention to support storm recovery – presents regimes with an opportunity to exploit their citizens’ vulnerability and tighten their control. This is more common in smaller island nations than larger landlocked states, simply because of their size. For larger countries, natural disasters represent a local or regional issue, but for small island communities these disasters can have country-wide effects on their social and political system. Along with this, following island-wide natural disasters, a macrolevel relief effort is required alongside macro-level policies, rendering the government the primary source of financial and medical assistance.

We found that following sizeable natural disasters, not only are people’s lives and homes at risk, but their democratic freedoms are too.

More specifically, we found that democratic conditions deteriorated significantly following natural disasters, with small island countries’ polity scores dropping by an average of 3.26% within a year and plummeting by around 10.1% over the subsequent five years. Along with this, governments increased their political oppressiveness by around 2.5% within one year of storm-related disasters.

We observed that the incumbents in islands tend to secure their citizens’ support through providing post-disaster relief expenditure. Furthermore, more frequent storms offer more opportunities to governments in allocating relief assistance in exchange of restricting their citizens’ democratic rights. The ultimate outcome turns out to be authoritarian populism.

3.26% Polity scores dropped by an average of WITHIN A YEAR and plummeted by around 10.1% OVER THE SUBSEQUENT FIVE YEARS

Recent examples of oppressive governments in countries such as Fiji, Haiti and more notably the Philippines, offer existing examples of the clear relationship between extreme weather and the rise of populist authoritarian governments. Exploring the case of the Philippines in particular, we can see how Hurricane Haiyan offered then presidential-hopeful, Rodrigo Duterte, an avenue to exploit people’s helplessness as a means of securing support for his presidential bid, which proved successful.

While countries such as the UK have generally been storm-free, the ever-worsening climate crisis could bring about unforeseen vulnerabilities which could give way to the possibility of more authoritarian tendencies within political regimes across the globe, as more frequent and extreme natural disasters drive greater uncertainty both in weather patterns and political systems.

Scan or click for more information on Professor Anbarci and his research interests.

Scan or click for more information on Dr Rahman and his research interests.