Environment and Natural Disasters

Environment, Natural Resources, and Disaster Politics

Binici, Simal, Jeongho Choi, Sara Mitchell, and Elise Pizzi. 2025. “A Text Analysis of News Media Framing of Government Response to the 2023 Türkiye-Syria Earthquake.” Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management.

The February 2023 Türkiye-Syria Earthquake had a profound impact on political, economic, and social life in Türkiye. Despite criticism about government disaster response, the government of Türkiye won an election three months later. We examine variance in media coverage of government disaster responses with Structural Topic Modeling of 12,268 articles in five pro- and anti-government newspapers in Türkiye (Anadolu Ajansi, Hurriyet, Sozcu, Cumhuriyet, and Posta) between the February earthquake and the May election. We identify five general topical themes in the data: emotion, science, information provision, government response, and the economy. We conduct sentiment analysis and find little direct criticism of the government’s responses, although anti-government newspapers are more negative on topics related to building structures and /damage. The general pattern of positive sentiment among all newspapers regarding government responses to the earthquake may help us understand why the disaster was not as consequential for the election outcome as some observers expected.

Mitchell, Sara, Elise Pizzi, Carly Millerd, and Jeongho Choi. 2024. “Does Government Response to Natural Disasters Explain Violence? The Case of the Sendero Luminoso and Conflict in Peru.” Social Science Quarterly.

Objective: We consider how the Peruvian government’s responses to natural disaster events shape political violence patterns from 1989 to 2020.
Methods: We gather data on government disaster response and compare the effect of positive disaster responses, such as reconstruction and regulation of domestic/international aid, and negative disaster responses, such as neglect or placing restrictions on movement near the affected areas, on violent conflict. To address the endogeneity between armed conflict and disaster responses, we estimate a structural equation model where we allow armed conflicts and disaster responses to be fully endogenous.
Results: Using a structural equation model at the province year level, we show that negative disaster responses increase the risks for political violence, while positive disaster responses do not affect the risks for armed conflict. Armed conflict in turn makes negative policy responses more likely following disasters but has no effect on positive disaster responses.
Conclusions: The results suggest that the failure by a government to respond to disasters can foster grievances and aid rebel recruitment, increasing the risks for armed conflicts in areas with poor response.

Mitchell, Sara and Elise Pizzi. 2024. "Patterns of Government Disaster Policy Response in Peru." World Development.

Our study introduces a new quantitative dataset of government disaster responses for 183 disasters in Peru from 1900 to 2020. We examine disaster responses in the form of relocation of affected individuals, restrictions on movement, reconstruction of damaged areas, and regulations of third-party disaster relief. Prior analyses of large earthquakes and El Niño events in Peru reveal that government response to hazards shapes the outcomes for social, conflict, and economic outcomes. Our dataset contributes quantitative coding of a much larger sample of disasters to identify useful patterns in disaster response. We show that the Peruvian government is the most active actor in disaster response, although international organizations and nongovernmental organizations are active in nearly a third of all disasters. Restrictions and relocation of affected populations occur, but this tends to be temporary, rather than long-term solutions to mitigate risks from future disasters. Relocation of affected people occurs more often for floods and landslides, while regulation of third-party activities occurs more frequently with floods and extreme temperature events; other disaster response policies do not vary across disaster types. Disaster responses have also shifted over time, with the government providing more funds for post-disaster reconstruction and coordinating with outside aid groups more actively in recent decades. The results demonstrate the feasibility and importance of tracking patterns of response across hazard events to fully understand the role of government in disaster response. Our larger data collection project will provide similar data for all countries over time, which will help us situate Peru’s patterns of disaster response in the larger disaster management landscape and understand how government policy choices influence political violence, migration, and other political dynamics.

Pizzi, Elise, Kylah Hedding, Kajsa Dalrymple, and Sam Harper. 2024. “Preparing for Flexibility in Response to Extreme Weather Events in Iowa.” State and Local Government Review.

As natural hazards increase in frequency and severity, local governments play a crucial role in responding, minimizing damage, and hastening recovery. Local preparation is critical, but formal plans and real time actions do not always align. Through interviews with stakeholders and emergency management personnel in Iowa, this article explains the creativity and agility demonstrated in disaster response. Effective response requires in-the-moment innovation. When disasters strike, emergency responders regularly deviate from prepared plans and draw on networks and relationships to respond. The findings highlight the need for careful planning and the flexibility to innovate when disasters occur.

Mitchell, Sara and Elise Pizzi. 2021. "Natural Disasters, Forced Migration, and Civil Conflict: The Importance of Government Policy Responses." International Studies Review.

Understanding the connections between environmental change, migration, and conflict is urgent as natural disasters increase in frequency and intensity. Migration is one response to these environmental changes. Existing literature suggests that this environmental migration can cause violent conflict as migrants lose livelihoods, move to new areas, or compete over scarce resources. However, the path through which migration leads to conflict—and the policy responses that either fuel conflict or promote stability—are not well understood. Some countries develop adequate proactive (e.g. infrastructure) and reactive post-disaster (e.g. reconstruction) policies to mitigate grievances and conflict risks from forced migration. Other countries fail to respond adequately to disasters, opening the door for insurgent groups to garner support. We argue that we must collect better data on government policies related to relocation programs, restrictions on movement, and post-disaster reconstruction to identify trigger situations where disasters and migration are most likely to produce violence.

Burch, Michael and Elise Pizzi. 2020. "Strategic Targeting: The Islamic State and Use of Violence in Iraq and Syria." Terrorism and Political Violence.

What explains the specific location of Islamic State attacks in Syria and Iraq? We consider previous arguments that emphasize either ethnic or economic endowments shape a group’s use of violence throughout conflict. We explore these competing motivations using a spatial analysis of the Islamic State’s individual acts of violence from 2011-2017. We find that both areas with ethnic heterogeneity and valuable economic rents are associated with more individual Islamic State violent events. By examining the micro-foundations of the Islamic State’s conflict decisions, we provide further nuance to understanding the strategic logic of rebel groups during wartime.

L. Dilling, E. Pizzi, J. Berggren, A. Ravikumar, K. Andersson. 2017. "Drivers of Adaptation: Responses to weather- and climate-related hazards in 60 local governments in the Intermountain Western U.S." Environment and Planning A. [online]

Cities are key sites of action for adaptation to climate change. However, there are a wide variety of responses to hazards at the municipal level. Why do communities take adaptive action in the face of weather- and climate-related risk? We study what cities are doing in response to existing natural hazards, such as floods, droughts, and blizzards as an analog for understanding the drivers of adaptive behavior toward climate change risks. We conducted a survey of 60 U.S. municipalities and 6 in-depth case studies in the intermountain west states of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah that regularly experience weather and climate extreme events. Our analysis shows that perception of risk and external drivers such as planning requirements or availability of funding stand out as important drivers, although a combination of factors is likely important for taking action. Other important factors include the presence of a policy champion, perceived vulnerability to extreme weather and climate events, and previous experience with a range of types of extreme events. Overall, our results suggest that multiple factors interact or act in combination to produce an enabling environment for action in the face of weather- and climate-related risk.

Burch, Michael, and Elise Pizzi. 2014. "Local Fights in National Conflicts: Understanding the Location of Conflict Events during Intrastate Conflict." Civil Wars. 16(1): 24-45. [PDF]

How do rebel groups determine their targets during intrastate conflict? We build upon two competing theories in conflict studies that emphasize either the social or economic determinants of violence during war and use geographic information systems (GIS) analysis to explore these competing theories. To do this, we utilize a subnational analysis of the most likely case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to understand whether ethnicity or natural resources motivates the location of conflict events. Accounting for geography, we find that economic endowments in the form of natural resources are highly related with the number of violent attacks, while the presence of competing ethnic groups does not offer much help in understanding the location of conflict events.