GVPT Professor Isabella Alcañiz and her coauthors Ashley D. Ross, Stella M. Rouse, and Alejandra Marchevsky have published a new study examining how social identities influence public attitudes toward disaster assistance in the United States. Published in PS: Political Science & Politics, the study analyzes responses to a 2018 survey experiment comparing attitudes toward federal disaster relief for victims of Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Harvey.

The research finds that while disaster assistance enjoys broad public support, perceptions of who deserves aid vary based on race, ethnicity, partisanship, and the type of assistance offered. Respondents were less likely to support relief efforts for Hurricane Maria victims—who were predominantly in Puerto Rico—than for those affected by Hurricane Harvey in Texas. White and Republican respondents were more inclined to favor market-based assistance, while racial/ethnic minorities and Democratic respondents tended to support more generous forms of aid.

These findings highlight the role of political and racial biases in disaster relief policy and suggest that as climate change intensifies the frequency and cost of natural disasters, the allocation of federal disaster aid will become increasingly contested.

Read the full publication here