Flood Damage and Victims' Perceptions About Political Leadership

Abstract

To understand the extent to which material damage suffered by the flood victims correlated with views on political leadership. Using original data on 450 residents affected by the 2010 Pakistan floods collected through surveys, we carried out multiple regression analysis to understand the connections between flood damage, gender, annual income and education on the flood victims' perception of political leadership. We use open ended questions to allow for qualitative analysis along with a quantitative analysis of patterns across the sample. Our analyses revealed that material damage suffered by the flood victims serves as a robust predictor of their faith in the political leadership. Other important correlates of feelings about leadership included annual income, educational level, family size and perceived fairness in the distribution of disaster assistance. Past research has suggested that efficient and responsive leadership has the potential to minimize the impact of disaster. Our data suggest that disasters influence the attitudes of people regarding their leadership. We theorize that residents envision higher levels of disaster damage as a result of ineffective leadership; most broadly, damage erodes peoples' faith in their leaders.