Presented By: Department of Economics Seminars
How Climate Shocks Produce Armed Rebellion: The 1970 Bhola Cyclone and the Birth of Bangladesh & Universities As Incubators Of Mass Uprising
Mushfiq Mobarak, Yale University
Mushfiq Mobarak will be presenting two papers related to each other.
Title: How Climate Shocks Produce Armed Rebellion: The 1970 Bhola Cyclone and the Birth of Bangladesh
Abstract: Why do climate shocks produce conflict (Hsiang et al., 2013)? We study the 1970 Bhola cyclone in East Pakistan, one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history, which killed an estimated 350,000 people. Using satellite imagery, archival records, electoral returns, and insurgent biographies, we show that cyclone exposure amplified pre-existing separatist sentiment at the ballot box and increased citizens’ subsequent participation in guerrilla warfare against the state. Our estimates imply that exposure to the cyclone’s devastation induced an additional 48,613 insurgents to join the guerrilla war effort. Effects are larger in areas with pre-existing political and economic grievances and weaker relief provision. Our analysis reveals the step-by-step mechanisms through which environmental shocks can produce conflict: they shift voting behavior, expose state indifference, and convert grievance into armed mobilization.
Title: Universities As Incubators Of Mass Uprising
Abstract: We link high-frequency geocoded protest data during Bangladesh’s 2024 Monsoon Revolution, Facebook measures of protest activity and social connectivity, university enrollment and demographics to establish: (1) campus protest precedes off-campus mobilization; (2) student concentration predicts both on- and off-campus protest, while non-student youth, educated adults, urbanization, and locations of “placebo” universities authorized but not yet operating do not; and (3) social connectivity to campus protests predicts off-campus diffusion one week later. Universities appear to incubate mass uprising by making dissent visible, coordinated, and capable of spreading beyond campus. Such patterns are also evident in U.S. Vietnam War protests and in global data. These results can rationalize why governments in Hungary, Turkey, Iran, India, Russia, Bangladesh, Israel, and the United States have targeted campuses to suppress dissent.
Title: How Climate Shocks Produce Armed Rebellion: The 1970 Bhola Cyclone and the Birth of Bangladesh
Abstract: Why do climate shocks produce conflict (Hsiang et al., 2013)? We study the 1970 Bhola cyclone in East Pakistan, one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history, which killed an estimated 350,000 people. Using satellite imagery, archival records, electoral returns, and insurgent biographies, we show that cyclone exposure amplified pre-existing separatist sentiment at the ballot box and increased citizens’ subsequent participation in guerrilla warfare against the state. Our estimates imply that exposure to the cyclone’s devastation induced an additional 48,613 insurgents to join the guerrilla war effort. Effects are larger in areas with pre-existing political and economic grievances and weaker relief provision. Our analysis reveals the step-by-step mechanisms through which environmental shocks can produce conflict: they shift voting behavior, expose state indifference, and convert grievance into armed mobilization.
Title: Universities As Incubators Of Mass Uprising
Abstract: We link high-frequency geocoded protest data during Bangladesh’s 2024 Monsoon Revolution, Facebook measures of protest activity and social connectivity, university enrollment and demographics to establish: (1) campus protest precedes off-campus mobilization; (2) student concentration predicts both on- and off-campus protest, while non-student youth, educated adults, urbanization, and locations of “placebo” universities authorized but not yet operating do not; and (3) social connectivity to campus protests predicts off-campus diffusion one week later. Universities appear to incubate mass uprising by making dissent visible, coordinated, and capable of spreading beyond campus. Such patterns are also evident in U.S. Vietnam War protests and in global data. These results can rationalize why governments in Hungary, Turkey, Iran, India, Russia, Bangladesh, Israel, and the United States have targeted campuses to suppress dissent.
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