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Natural Disasters as a Political Variable: The Effect of a Hurricane on an Urban Election*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

F. Glenn Abney  and
Larry B. Hill
F. Glenn Abney
Affiliation:
Tulane University
Larry B. Hill
Affiliation:
Tulane University
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Extract

Political scientists usually assume that physical environment helps determine political behavior. They would not, for example, expect a homogeneous political culture in a country sharply divided by mountains. Also, extreme variations in physical environment, such as droughts and floods, have been traditionally considered bad omens for governments. However, very little empirical research has been done on the relationship between natural disasters and attitudes toward government for three reasons. First, political activity seems more determined by social environment than physical. Also, since the individual is influenced by a greater number of social factors than physical factors, the former are more accessible for study and comparison. Finally, it is especially difficult to examine the effect of natural disasters, for they are rather uncommon and unpredictable. This research gap is unfortunate, since such catastrophes place great stress upon the social framework and thus test the adaptive capabilities of the political system.

Type
Research Notes and Comment
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 60 , Issue 4 , December 1966 , pp. 974 - 981
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1966

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References

1 See Barnhart, John D., “Rainfall and the Populist Party in Nebraska,” this Review, 19 (08, 1925), pp. 527–540Google Scholar, for a discussion of the effect of drought on the election of 1890. See also Walker, Herman Jr., and Hansen, Peter L., “Local Government and Rainfall: The Problem of Local Government in the Northern Great Plains,” this Review, 40 (12, 1946), pp. 1113–1123Google Scholar, for a description of the problems encountered in transplanting local governmental institutions from the humid and densely populated East to an area of extremely variable rainfall and thus sparse population.

2 For an extensive review of the available literature dealing with the psychological and sociological aspects of disasters, see Rayner, Jeanette, “Annotated Bibliography on Disaster Research,” Human Organization, 16 (Summer, 1957), pp. 30–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Baker, George W. and Chapman, Dwight W. (eds.), Man and Society in Disaster (New York: Basic Books, 1962), for a summary of much of the literature concerning disastersGoogle Scholar.

3 Janis, Irving L., “Problems of Theory in the Analysis of Stress Behavior,” The Journal of Social Issues, 10 (1954), p. 19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Cited from Gross, Edward, Form, William H., and Loomis, Charles, “The Persistence and Emergence of Social and Cultural Systems in Disasters,” American Sociological Review, 21 (04, 1956), p. 183Google Scholar. They have summarized the findings of Clifford, Roy, “Informal Group Actions in the Rio Grande Flood,” First Report to the National Research Council, Committee on Disaster Research, 1955Google Scholar.

5 See Fritz, Charles E., “Disasters Compared in Six American Communities,” Human Organization, 16 (Summer, 1957), p. 9CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See Also Fritz, Charles E. and Williams, Harry B., “The Human Being in Disasters: A Research Perspective,” The Annals, 39 (01, 1957), p. 49Google Scholar.

6 See, for example, The New Orleans Times Picayune, September 22, 1965.

7 The New Orleans Times Picayune, October 21, 1964.

8 Politics in New Orleans centers around two major factions within the Democratic party. These factions are often ill-defined and are shaped around personalities. For this reason it is preferable to talk in terms of the candidates' names rather than in terms of parties.

9 A possible explanation for these results is that the Schiro campaign in 1965, unlike that in 1962, was not based on racist appeals. In 1962 Schiro received less than 15% of the Negro vote; but in 1965 some of the Negro leaders supported Schiro, and he got approximately 40% of the vote from Negro precincts, which seems to indicate how short political memories can be. Schiro, by actively soliciting Negro votes, apparently won the enmity of at least some of the white lower economic group (which tends to be more segregationist), such as that found in our surveyed areas.

10 Though it is not within the scope of this paper to discuss in detail the partisan history of New Orleans and electoral divisions within the 1965 election, the evidence available suggests that the divisions in 1965 followed, though not as closely as in the past, the historical divisions within the city. Since at least the 1940's, New Orleans partisanship can be defined in terms of two city-wide factions, the de Lesseps Morrison following and the Regular Democratic Association. The bulk of the support of the latter comes from precincts with a high percentage of whites, a low percentage of white collar workers, and low median family incomes. The Morrison faction has drawn its support from precincts with high Negro populations and from white precincts with high median family incomes and a high percentage of white collar workers. Though the pattern held in 1965, for the first time it was considerably weakened. However, the hurricane does not seem to explain the deviation.

11 Though Hurricane Betsy and the resulting flooding are logically separable, our respondents viewed the hurricane-flood experience as a unified whole and did not differentiate between them in their replies.

12 Among the governmental agencies involved in flood control are the Army Corps of Engineers, the Louisiana Department of Public Works, and the Orleans Levee Board (a special district government with taxing authority set up for overseeing the levees). Since their jurisdictions often overlap, their relationships are quite complicated. For example, the mayor is an exofficio member of the Levee Board which has numerous ties with the city government. For an account of this complex allocation of powers see Howard, L. Vaughn and Friedman, Robert S., Government in Metropolitan New Orleans (Tulan Studies in Political Science, VI, New Orleans: Tulane University, 1959), pp. 63, 67Google Scholar.

13 See Almond, Gabriel and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963), Chapter 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Greenstein, Fred I., “The Benevolent Leader: Children's Images of Political Authority,” this Review, 54 (12, 1960), pp. 934–943Google Scholar.

14 For a discussion of the individual‘s constant striving for consistency in his opinions see Festinger, Leon, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Evanston: Row, Peterson, and Co., 1957)Google Scholar.

15 When the computer cards for each universe were divided into Schiro and Fitzmorris supporters, the logical result appeared: Schiro supporters were more likely to rate the city's hurricane protection and flood warning higher and to praise the mayor more often than Fitzmorris adherents, who criticized more freely. None of the flooded Fitzmorris supporters praised the mayor, and none of the Schiro followers in either area criticized him. In this immediate aspect of political culture, various voting studies have supported this theory of cognitive dissonance. For example, Berelson, et al., reported a striving for consistency in perceptions of Truman as President and of his policy position on the Taft-Hartley Act in the 1948 campaign. See Berelson, Bernard, Lazarsfeld, Paul, and McPhee, William, Voting (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1954), pp. 215–233Google Scholar.

Though our data is somewhat inconclusive, it suggests a reinforcement tendency. This was also apparent in the remarks of many of the respondents. Schiro's proponents would say, “During the hurricane he has again proven to me that he's the man for the job.” Alternatively, Fitzmorris backers were equally certain that “this proves what I have always known—that Schiro is no good.”

16 Of course, criticizing no one was also a means of avoiding any danger of becoming publicly committed in a political controversy.

17 This finding contrasts with the observations of Martha Wolferstein who reports a tendency among disaster victims to view their losses as a punishment for their sins. See Disaster: A Psychological Essay (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957), pp. 201–221Google Scholar.

18 Supporting this observation, Lewis M. Killian notes, “When formal leaders fail to function in a leadership capacity in early stages they still tend to reassert their prestige in later stages.” See “Some Accomplishments and Some Needs in Disaster Study,” The Journal of Social Issues, 10 (1954), pp. 66–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Charles E. Fritz and Harry B. Williams who report that officials can minimize blame assessment if they are politically sensitive to their dangerous position. “The Human Being in Disasters,” p. 43.

19 John P. Spiegel found such alienation in a case in which officials refused to take advantage of all the disaster relief funds available. See “The English Flood of 1963,” Human Organization, 16 (Summer, 1957), p. 5Google Scholar.

20 David Eastern maintains that in most political systems the government has built up a storehouse of “reserve support” which can act as a buffer to partially insulate the government against sudden reverses. “An Approach to the Analysis of Political Systems,” World Politics, 9 (04, 1957), pp. 396–397Google Scholar.

21 The research of David M. Schneider in a primitive society indicates that the interpretation of the causes of a natural disaster is a cultural variable. In discussing the “meaning” of a typhoon on the island of Yap, he concludes,“A typhoon is, therefore, a punishment meted out to the people by some chief whom they have neglected to heed.” “Typhoons on Yap,” Human Organization, 16 (Summer, 1957), p. 12Google Scholar.

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