Disasters associated with climate change—floods, hurricanes, wildfires—now affect every country in the world. In the face of such emergencies, state assistance should focus on the consequences of the event. Where there is more damage—where more populations are affected—there should be more aid. However, in times of intense political polarization, public assistance to disaster victims has also become politicized. Increasingly, the allocation of assistance and public support for that aid depend not only on the magnitude of the damage, but also on nationalist, ethnic, racial, and political prejudices. As the frequency and severity of climate disasters increase, so too does the number of people demanding assistance. This growing demand emerges at a moment when the state is retrenching and, in many cases, abandoning its functions.
In this context, which victims are worthy of immediate assistance? Whom should the state prioritize? Citizens over foreign residents or migrants? This debate has affected the provision of social protection policies, where politicians (and voters) often argue over who are the ‘deserving’ recipients of public aid and who, by contrast, are considered responsible for their own situation and therefore unworthy of state assistance.
It has been shown that support for the distribution of state resources varies according to how beneficiaries are characterized. This logic has extended to the environmental arena and, in particular, to disaster assistance policy. As the climate emergency becomes more intense and costly, disaster aid takes on redistributive features similar to those of other social policies and becomes subject to social and political evaluations. Instead of public policy functioning as insurance that covers the costs faced by different populations, the allocation of public funds comes to depend on who the victim is and what their relationship is with political actors.
In a study we recently published, based on a survey in the United States with an oversample of Latino respondents, we analyzed attitudes toward state assistance following Hurricanes Harvey and Maria. The findings show that people affected by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico are perceived as less deserving of public spending than victims of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. This difference persists even when the level of damage was greater in Puerto Rico. Our analysis indicates that perceptions of citizenship, partisanship, and racial identity influence preferences regarding the type and amount of assistance. All of this suggests that who is seen as deserving of aid depends not only on a category imposed by the majority group, but is also mediated by social and political identities.
Latin America shows similar dynamics. In another study, together with expert Juan David Gelvez, we documented how in Colombia, municipalities with Afro-Colombian populations systematically receive less government assistance per capita than comparable municipalities without that racial composition.
The logic of who deserves assistance also appears strongly in public opinion. In two recent surveys conducted in Colombia, right-wing voters show less willingness to support assistance schemes that benefit Afro-descendant communities affected by natural disasters. Those same voters have no problem being generous toward other affected communities. Afro-Colombian communities are perceived as less deserving of public resources among voters opposed to the government of Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez. This demonstrates that in Colombia, perceptions of deservingness function as a filter that conditions public support for state assistance.
We found similar results in another survey we conducted in Brazil. Support for state assistance for environmental disasters varies according to the social group affected. In particular, we show that migrants affected by natural disasters are seen as less deserving of receiving any assistance from the Brazilian government. As in Colombia and the United States, factors such as the respondent’s political identification shape these attitudes. Those who identify with the left tend to show greater generosity toward all disaster victims, while right-wing sectors are more inclined to support minimal state assistance and only when beneficiaries are non-racialized citizens.
These different studies show that disaster assistance is embedded in social structures that prioritize affected populations according to citizenship, racial identity, and political alignment. In a context of climate emergency, where natural disasters are increasingly frequent, these perceptions carry growing weight: aid ceases to be exceptional and comes to occupy a permanent place in public spending. Understanding whom politicians and voters see as deserving of help is necessary to analyze both the distribution of resources and the political limits of state action.
Autor
Professor of Government and Politics, and vice-dean of Postgraduate Education at the University of Maryland, United States. PhD in the Department of Political Sciences at Northwestern University. Member of the Network of Political Scientists #NoSinMujeres.
