Disaster Management, Blame Attribution, and Collective Trauma: Evidence from the 2023 Turkish Earthquakes

How do polarization and emotions associated with collective trauma influence individuals' perceptions of government and disaster management? We argue that individuals residing in polarized environments evaluate the incumbent's disaster management based on their political affiliation and emotional state, irrespective of the impact of the disaster on their personal lives, such as loss of family members and homes. Drawing on a nationally representative face-to-face survey conducted two months after the major earthquakes in Turkey, this paper finds that individuals supporting the incumbent party were more likely to show higher levels of satisfaction with government-led disaster management and less like to blame the government. Conversely, individuals supporting opposition parties were more likely to demonstrate lower levels of contentment with government-led disaster management and more likely to blame the government. Furthermore, our findings highlight a significant relation between individuals' emotional states and their perceptions of government disaster management. More precisely, individuals, who experienced the disaster as a traumatic event, and felt anger and anxiety more frequently, were more likely to have negative perceptions of the government. In contrast individuals, who felt happy and hopeful more frequently, were more likely to have positive perceptions of the incumbent. Notably, earthquake-related losses did not exhibit a statistically significant association with individuals’ views on government. In conclusion, this research corroborates previous analyses in the literature that individuals entrenched in persistent polarization primarily base their assessments of government performance after a major natural disaster on their party identity and emotional state.