The Electoral Buzz: Rational Prospective Voting and the Politics of the Zika Epidemic in Brazil

Abstract

This article reevaluates often-made assumptions of retrospective voting and voter irrationality in studies of voting behavior in political contexts colored by haphazard, apolitical events. To do so, it leverages the quasi-random 2015–2016 Zika epidemic in Brazil and the accompanying priming of “women’s issues” relating to infant health to empirically assess whether exposure to the virus increased political support for female candidates in the 2016 Brazilian local elections. Results of difference-in-difference analyses suggest that high incidences of the virus in the months immediately preceding the election increased female candidates’ vote shares. Conflicting with theories of irrational retrospective voting, the results are consistent with an understudied theory of rational prospective voting. Robustness and falsification tests and dubious support for alternative explanations lend additional support to the argument. The research contributes to an elucidation of both the complex calculations underlying voting behavior and the conditions favorable to female candidates’ electoral prospects.

Natural Hazards, Social Policy, and Electoral Performance: Evidence from the 2017 Earthquake in Mexico City

“…Nonetheless, other authors point out that voters are also sensitive to events that their representatives cannot either anticipate or influence. Some examples of these include fluctuations in the international commodity markets (Campello and Zucco 2016), the occurrence of pandemics (Gutierrez, Meriläinen, and Rubli 2022; Piazza and Schneider 2021), exchange rate crises (Murillo and Visconti 2017), the timing of natural hazards (Healy and Malhotra 2009), and even shark attacks (Achen and Bartels 2004; Fowler and Hall 2018). In this article, we focus on natural hazards as a type of large-scale and unpredictable events.…”

Women prime ministers and COVID‐19: Within‐case examinations of New Zealand and Iceland

“…The gendered hierarchy typically places perceived masculine characteristics above stereotypically feminine ones in the political domain. Perceptions of women as being more consensus seeking and collaborative, however, may provide women an opportunity to excel, particularly during a public health crisis (Piazza & Schneider, 2021). A large literature regarding gendered issue stereotypes and traits finds that women political leaders are generally more supportive of social programs and health spending (Atchison, 2015; Atchison & Down, 2012; Jalalzai, 2016; Mavisakalyan, 2014; Ng & Muntaner, 2018; Quamruzzaman & Lange, 2016; Swiss et al, 2012; Wiliarty, 2011).…”

Disasters as Critical Junctures: State Building and Industrialization in Chile after the Chillán Earthquake of 1939

“…As disaster scholars have repeatedly shown, disasters are "all-encompassing occurrences" that sweep every aspect of human life: biological, social, economic, and cultural (Oliver-Smith and Hoffman 1999). Catastrophes can put institutions and social arrangements to the test, generating different types of social or political "aftershocks" (see also Martland 2007;Gawronski and Olson 2013;Zulawski 2018;Gil and Atria 2021;Piazza and Schneider 2021).…”