Climate Impacts, Political Institutions, and LeaderSurvival: Effects of Droughts and Flooding Precipitation

摘要

We explore how the political survival of leaders in different political regimes isaffected by drought and flooding precipitation, which are the two major anticipated impacts ofanthropogenic climate change. Using georeferenced climate data for the entire world and theArchigos dataset for the period of 1950–2010, we find that irregular political exits, such ascoups or revolutions, are not significantly affected by climate impacts. Similarly, drought has apositive but insignificant effect on all types of political exits. On the other hand, we find thatfloods increase political turnover through the regular means such as elections or term limits.Democracies are better able to withstand the pressures arising from the economic and socialdisruptions associated with high precipitation than other institutional arrangements. Our resultsfurther suggest that, in the context of floods, political institutions play a more important rolethan economic development for the leaders’ political survival.