TY - JOUR
T1 - A matter of life or death
T2 - How racial representation shapes compliance with city disaster preparedness orders
AU - Lucero, Eddie
AU - Trounstine, Jessica
AU - Connolly, Jennifer M.
AU - Klofstad, Casey
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Urban Affairs Association.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - To effectively govern, elected and appointed municipal officials rely on the cooperation and compliance of individuals and private actors. Particularly when policy directives lack strong enforcement mechanisms, many citizens choose not to comply. We investigate the extent to which shared ethnic/racial identity between residents and municipal political leaders increases residents’ willingness to comply with government issued evacuation orders in the context of an impending natural disaster. Drawing on a large-scale embedded survey experiment of Florida residents who lived through Hurricane Irma in 2017, we provide evidence that descriptive representation increases the likelihood of individual compliance with local government evacuation orders. Additionally, we find that if non-governmental partners encourage evacuation, then resident compliance increases, particularly among people of color who do not share the race of their city official. The results speak to the importance of descriptive representation at the local level, especially in settings that can mean the difference between life and death.
AB - To effectively govern, elected and appointed municipal officials rely on the cooperation and compliance of individuals and private actors. Particularly when policy directives lack strong enforcement mechanisms, many citizens choose not to comply. We investigate the extent to which shared ethnic/racial identity between residents and municipal political leaders increases residents’ willingness to comply with government issued evacuation orders in the context of an impending natural disaster. Drawing on a large-scale embedded survey experiment of Florida residents who lived through Hurricane Irma in 2017, we provide evidence that descriptive representation increases the likelihood of individual compliance with local government evacuation orders. Additionally, we find that if non-governmental partners encourage evacuation, then resident compliance increases, particularly among people of color who do not share the race of their city official. The results speak to the importance of descriptive representation at the local level, especially in settings that can mean the difference between life and death.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85089175595&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85089175595&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/07352166.2020.1785303
DO - 10.1080/07352166.2020.1785303
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85089175595
JO - Journal of Urban Affairs
JF - Journal of Urban Affairs
SN - 0735-2166
ER -