Temperature Shocks and Protest Voting

Sarthak Agarwal, Somdeep Chatterjee and Manhar Manchanda

No 1789, GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO)

Abstract: How do voters respond to adverse climatic shocks? We study this question in India, where voters can cast a formal "None of the Above" (NOTA) ballot, allowing us to distinguish pure protest voting from directed electoral sanctioning. We combine assembly-constituency election data from 2013-2023 with highfrequency satellite-based data on temperature, precipitation, and agricultural productivity. We first show that high temperature exposure is negatively associated with satellite-measured agricultural productivity. Further, temperature shocks increase turnout, but do not increase NOTA vote shares. Instead, they reduce the vote shares of recontesting incumbents and ruling-party candidates. Regular degree days reduce both turnout and NOTA vote shares. Heterogeneity analyses show that agricultural dependence shapes the participation response, while unirrigated agriculture mediates NOTA responses. Overall, the results suggest that climate shocks mobilize voters and produce targeted electoral punishment, rather than leading voters to express generalized dissatisfaction through pure protest voting.

Keywords: Elections; Protest Voting; Temperature Shocks; NOTA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 O13 P48 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/342088/1/GLO-DP-1789.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:glodps:1789

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().