Three Essays on Africa
type: CreativeWork
description: Part 1: Climate Change, Urbanization, and Government Responses in Sub-Saharan Africa This paper examines the relationship between climate change, rising urbanization rates, and regime types in the countries of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This project uses the national-level ND-GAIN (Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative) score and a selection of its sub-variables. The ND-GAIN score is a composite index that grades a country’s vulnerability to climatic disruptions (exogenous) as well as its readiness in terms of adaptation investment (endogenous); sub-variables used here include Governance Readiness, Vulnerability, and Adaptive Capacity. Data are used for all 49 SSA countries, over the years 1995-2016, in a set of panel regression analyses to empirically support the literature that links climate change to decreased agricultural viability and, as a result, increased urban growth rates. This paper also offers the unique finding that democratic regimes (measured by Polity IV) tend to be more responsive to climate change compared to their autocratic counterparts. Competing explanations are offered. One possible explanation follows the democratic rural bias theory, whereby democratic governments are expected to be more responsive to rural, agrarian constituents (Lipton 1977; Bates 1981) who are suffering from climate change. The second potential explanation suggests that as democratic leaders seek to collect votes by expanding their winning coalition (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2001) of local patrons in exchange for patronage, these local patrons are sometimes required to funnel down targeted benefits that address problems brought about by climate change (Poulton 2014). This project presents a series of interaction terms that explore the nuances and dynamics of ND-GAIN climate scores, agricultural productivity, urbanization, and regime type. Findings suggest that democratic regimes are especially incentivized to address climate change when agriculture is very important to t…
abstract: Part 1: Climate Change, Urbanization, and Government Responses in Sub-Saharan Africa This paper examines the relationship between climate change, rising urbanization rates, and regime types in the countries of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This project uses the national-level ND-GAIN (Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative) score and a selection of its sub-variables. The ND-GAIN score is a composite index that grades a country’s vulnerability to climatic disruptions (exogenous) as well as its readiness in terms of adaptation investment (endogenous); sub-variables used here include Governance Readiness, Vulnerability, and Adaptive Capacity. Data are used for all 49 SSA countries, over the years 1995-2016, in a set of panel regression analyses to empirically support the literature that links climate change to decreased agricultural viability and, as a result, increased urban growth rates. This paper also offers the unique finding that democratic regimes (measured by Polity IV) tend to be more responsive to climate change compared to their autocratic counterparts. Competing explanations are offered. One possible explanation follows the democratic rural bias theory, whereby democratic governments are expected to be more responsive to rural, agrarian constituents (Lipton 1977; Bates 1981) who are suffering from climate change. The second potential explanation suggests that as democratic leaders seek to collect votes by expanding their winning coalition (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2001) of local patrons in exchange for patronage, these local patrons are sometimes required to funnel down targeted benefits that address problems brought about by climate change (Poulton 2014). This project presents a series of interaction terms that explore the nuances and dynamics of ND-GAIN climate scores, agricultural productivity, urbanization, and regime type. Findings suggest that democratic regimes are especially incentivized to address climate change when agriculture is very important to t…
author: Jené, Lisa
keywords: Africa, Congo, DRC, Energy, Environment, Patronage, Political Science
date published: 2019-01-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:40:36Z
provider: Claremont Graduate University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Claremont Graduate University