RAPID: Collaborative Research: The Political Costs of Natural Disasters: Democratic Support, Authoritarian Attitudes, and Blame Attribution after Chile's 2010 Earthquake

2010年2月27日，智利发生里氏8.8级地震，随后发生海啸，肆虐海岸。虽然首都圣地亚哥的损失相对较小，但距离震中较近的康塞普西翁和塔尔卡等人口中心以及智利广阔海岸线沿线的村庄和城镇都遭到了破坏。与2005年卡特里娜飓风后引发的担忧类似，这些可怕的事件引发了人们对智利政府反应迟缓和笨拙的政治余震以及随之而来的人道主义危机的质疑。该项目调查了最近的个人和社区层面的破坏对智利人的政治观念和态度的影响。危机状况会影响政治，但主要调查人员辩称，在不那么成熟的民主国家，这些制度成本的广度和深度可能尤其严重，因为在这些国家，对民主价值观和制度本身的支持不那么根深蒂固。根据现有文献，研究人员假设，随着受危机影响的个人应对危机，他们会表现出对现任总统不太有利的态度，但在智利等较新的民主国家，他们也会表达民主制度。与此同时，PI预计个人的归咎归因将有所不同，并影响对系统的反应。此外，私人投资机构认为，受危机影响的个人将表现出较低的信任和宽容水平。为了评估这些预期，并揭示智利地震对公众舆论和民主态度的影响，该项目在美国晴雨表调查(Vanderbilt University的拉丁美洲舆论项目[LAPOP]于2010年4月进行)中增加了额外样本和一系列问题，利用关键国家行为者和机构对个人和社区造成的损害和责任(调查问卷中已经包含了威权态度)。此外，研究人员在面谈过程中增加了地理标记功能，主要是通过GPS单元，这将使他们能够开发一个数据集，其中包括关于每次面谈附近区域受损情况的背景、客观数据。最后，PIs利用多层次模型和匹配技术(以及2008年美国对智利的晴雨表调查)来评估受地震影响的人和受影响较轻和/或未受影响的人的民意差异。该项目做出了几项贡献。首先，在民主制度不那么根深蒂固的国家，目前对自然灾害的政治后果的了解相当薄弱。现有的研究表明，长期民主国家的危机状况往往伴随着态度和倾向的转变，这可能会影响公民对民选官员、政治制度和他们的同胞的行为。在智利等新民主国家的背景下，政治和社会风险甚至更高，在这些国家，公众对民主的支持令人惊讶地矛盾。这项研究将有助于更好地理解自然灾害与民主之间的相互作用。其次，到2010年底，这些数据以及2010年美国气压计的所有数据将以多种形式提供，包括LAPOP的免费在线互动网站。第三，使用全球定位系统进行地理标记访谈，以及由此产生的分析，将为今后的类似研究提供基础，例如2011年在海地的一个项目。

On February 27, 2010, Chile was rocked by an earthquake registering 8.8 on the Richter scale, followed by a tsunami that ravaged the coast. While the capital, Santiago, experienced comparatively little damage, population centers closer to the epicenter, such as Concepción and Talca, as well as villages and towns along Chile's vast coastline, were devastated. Similar to concerns brought up in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, these horrific events raise questions about the political aftershocks of the Chilean state's slow and fumbled response and the ensuing humanitarian crisis. This project investigates the effects of the recent personal- and community-level damage on Chileans' political perceptions and attitudes. Conditions of crisis affect politics, but the principal investigators argue that the breadth and depth of these costs to the system can be particularly severe in less established democracies where support for democratic values and the system itself is less entrenched. Drawing on extant literature, the researchers hypothesize that, as crisis-affected individuals cope they will express attitudes that are less favorable toward the incumbent, but in newer democracies like Chile, also democratic institutions. At the same time, the PIs expect blame attribution will differ across individuals and affect responses toward the system. Further, the PIs argue that crisis-affected individuals will display lower levels of trust and tolerance. To assess these expectations and uncover the ways in which the earthquake in Chile has affected public opinion and democratic attitudes, this project adds an oversample and a battery of questions to the AmericasBarometer survey (conducted by Vanderbilt University's Latin American Public Opinion Project [LAPOP] in April 2010) that tap perceived personal and community damage and blame across key state actors and institutions (authoritarian attitudes are already on the questionnaire). In addition, the researchers add a geo-tagging feature, principally through GPS units, to the interview process, which will allow them to develop a dataset that includes contextual, objective data on damage to the area proximate to each interview. Finally, the PIs make use of both multi-level models and matching techniques (along with the 2008 AmericasBarometer survey of Chile) to assess variation in public opinion across those who were affected by the earthquake and those who were either less affected and/or not affected. The project makes several contributions. First, current knowledge of the political fallout of natural disasters in countries with less firmly entrenched democratic institutions is quite thin. Extant studies indicate that crisis conditions in long-standing democracies are often accompanied by shifts in attitudes and dispositions that can influence how citizens behave towards elected officials, the political system, and their fellow citizens. The political and social stakes are even higher in the context of new democracies such as Chile, where public support for democracy is strikingly ambivalent. This research will contribute to a better understanding of the interaction between natural disasters and democracy. Second, the data, along with all AmericasBarometer 2010 data, will be made accessible in numerous forms, including LAPOP's free online interactive website, by the end of 2010. Third, the use of GPS units to geo-tag interviews, and the resulting analyses, will provide a foundation for similar future research, such as a project in Haiti in 2011.