We use data from the new and nationally representative National Survey of Religious Leaders, supplemented with the 2018 General Social Survey, to examine the extent to which clergy are politically aligned with people in their congregations. Two assessments of alignment—clergy reports of how their political views compare to the political views held by most people in their congregations, and comparisons between clergy and lay voting preferences in the 2016 election—yield the same findings. Clergy in Black Protestant and predominantly white evangelical churches are much more likely to be politically aligned with their people than are Catholic or, especially, white mainline Protestant clergy, who often are more liberal than their people. Contrary to media reports suggesting that evangelical clergy are now likely to be less conservative than their people, the vast majority are either politically aligned with, or more conservative than, their members.

Research has shown that presidents tend to benefit local level copartisans when distributing resources, which can improve the provision of public goods, such as security. Considering that fear of crime is among the main concerns of citizens worldwide, we examine whether alignment affects criminality. Drawing on rich administrative data from Chile and a regression discontinuity design in close electoral races, we study the impact of alignment on a broad set of crimes against the person and property-related. We show that aligned municipalities experience a significant reduction in crimes that both affect property and occur in public. As a potential mechanism, we find that aligned municipalities receive more projects to improve urban infrastructure, thus making public spaces less vulnerable to crime.

We examine the impact of economic development and the role of political alignment on the fatalities and damages due to floods using state-level panel data for 19 Indian states over the period 1980–2011. The empirical results confirm that economic development leads to a decline in flood fatalities and damages due to floods across Indian states. This study also examines the role of politics in the prevention of flood fatalities. We find that both state election years and political alignment influence the extent of flood fatalities. The results suggest that not only economic development but also healthy political coordination between the central government and the states is essential to mitigate the impact of floods.