There is something in the water: the effects of a bad government on voter turnout

Fil: López, Santiago. Universidad de San Andrés. Departamento de Economía; Argentina.

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Autor principal: López, Santiago
Otros Autores: Rossi, Martín A.
Formato: Tesis Tesis de maestría updatedVersion
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: Universidad de San Andrés. Departamento de Economía 2025
Acceso en línea:https://repositorio.udesa.edu.ar/handle/10908/25708
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Repositorio Digital - Universidad de San Andrés (UdeSa) de Universidad de San Andrés
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spelling I37-R143-10908-257082025-09-16T03:00:33Z There is something in the water: the effects of a bad government on voter turnout López, Santiago Rossi, Martín A. Fil: López, Santiago. Universidad de San Andrés. Departamento de Economía; Argentina. This thesis exploits the 2014–15 Flint Water Crisis as a natural experiment to examine how a severe public health and governance failure affects electoral participation. Leveraging precinct-level turnout data for gubernatorial and presidential elections in Genesee County (1998–2020), I employ an event-study difference-in-differences design with fixed effects and controls for population and partisan composition. I find that, relative to neighboring precincts, voter turnout in Flint City declined by approximately 30 percent in the elections immediately following the crisis, a pattern that persists but loses statistical significance under “honest” bounds (Rambachan & Roth 2023) and synthetic DiD (Arkhangelsky et al. 2021) robustness checks. A parallel analysis of Republican vote share fails the pre-trend test, suggesting greater volatility in party support. These results highlight how acute institutional failure can erode democratic engagement, even in voluntary voting systems. The findings contribute to the literature on political behavior by providing causal evidence that exogenous shocks to public trust and welfare can suppress turnout, with implications for debates on accountability and institutional resilience. 2025-09-15T17:32:57Z 2025-09-15T17:32:57Z 2025-07 Tesis info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis info:ar-repo/semantics/tesis de maestría info:eu-repo/semantics/updatedVersion https://repositorio.udesa.edu.ar/handle/10908/25708 eng info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ application/pdf application/pdf Universidad de San Andrés. Departamento de Economía
institution Universidad de San Andrés
institution_str I-37
repository_str R-143
collection Repositorio Digital - Universidad de San Andrés (UdeSa)
language Inglés
description Fil: López, Santiago. Universidad de San Andrés. Departamento de Economía; Argentina.
author2 Rossi, Martín A.
author_facet Rossi, Martín A.
López, Santiago
format Tesis
Tesis de maestría
Tesis de maestría
updatedVersion
author López, Santiago
spellingShingle López, Santiago
There is something in the water: the effects of a bad government on voter turnout
author_sort López, Santiago
title There is something in the water: the effects of a bad government on voter turnout
title_short There is something in the water: the effects of a bad government on voter turnout
title_full There is something in the water: the effects of a bad government on voter turnout
title_fullStr There is something in the water: the effects of a bad government on voter turnout
title_full_unstemmed There is something in the water: the effects of a bad government on voter turnout
title_sort there is something in the water: the effects of a bad government on voter turnout
publisher Universidad de San Andrés. Departamento de Economía
publishDate 2025
url https://repositorio.udesa.edu.ar/handle/10908/25708
work_keys_str_mv AT lopezsantiago thereissomethinginthewatertheeffectsofabadgovernmentonvoterturnout
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