[Data Analysis]

Abstract: How does exposure to natural disasters shape citizen-state relations? Although disasters can erode political trust and undermine civic engagement, they also create incentives and opportunities for citizens to renegotiate their relationship with the state. Drawing on an original face-to-face survey of over 2,000 households, 18 focus groups, and 75 in-depth interviews with citizens, community workers, and local government officials in Bihar and Gujarat—two Indian states facing acute climate risks, this project examines how exposure to slow-onset disasters shapes collective action and government responses in weak institutional contexts. Our findings suggest that disaster exposure stimulates claim-making over state institutions: households exposed to slow-onset events are significantly more likely to engage in protests, attend community meetings, and participate in campaign activities during local elections compared to unexposed households. These associations remain robust across multiple model specifications, including household and individual-level controls for socioeconomic status, ethnic identity, and migration incidence, as well as unobserved differences in local political and institutional conditions. Using evidence from focus groups and interviews, we further demonstrate that disasters can reveal to states their own capacity deficits, encouraging local governments to invest in building institutional capacities across a range of administrative and policy domains. These findings reveal how climate risk intersects with household political strategies to shape accountability mechanisms in contexts marked by weak state presence.