Abstract

What are the implications of global warming for global political stability? Climate change creates new economic, physiological, and social pressures each of which can lead citizens to update beliefs about their political environment. We argue that climate pressures shape citizens’ views on 1) the loyalty of political leaders; 2) the security capacity of the state; and 3) their ability to rely on one another. As a result, successful political mobilization – both peaceful and otherwise – will be increasingly likely. We provide causal evidence for our claims using household panel survey data from India (2005-2012). An increase in temperature of 3◦ Celsius reduces trust in relevant political leaders – and domestic police – by 2 percentage points (PP) while increasing the likelihood of intra-community cooperation by 3PP. We provide evidence consistent with the mechanisms we hypothesize for each of these findings and show that the results are driven by rural communities where climate shocks have greatest impact on agricultural incomes. We also show that climate extremes lead to both higher voter turnout and greater anti-incumbent voting.