PhD Candidate · Ohio State University
Jack Fernandes
Comparative Politics & International Relations
I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at Ohio State University, specializing in the politics of natural disasters and climate change. My research examines how exposure to tropical cyclones, floods, and other climate hazards shapes political trust, electoral competition, and government accountability — with a regional focus on Southern Africa and cross-national comparative work.
My dissertation investigates how climate shocks reshape political behavior and policy, drawing on original fieldwork in Malawi, geolocated survey data, and novel cross-national datasets on climate adaptation governance.
Working Papers
Storms and Ballots: Electoral Consequences of Natural Disasters in Malawi
Incumbent resource access has long been considered a key driver of re-election success, yet not all incumbents enjoy equal access. I argue that natural disasters make an otherwise invisible asymmetry visible to voters: co-partisans of the executive can credibly claim credit for centrally distributed relief. Using Malawi's parliamentary elections (2004–2019) matched to geocoded disaster records and a Gelman-King incumbency advantage design, I establish a novel three-tier classification of disaster salience by merging domestic administrative records with an international disaster database. Disasters that triggered confirmed international resource mobilization produce a significant electoral advantage for ruling party candidates in affected constituencies, while lower-salience disasters — those that raise expectations of relief without mobilizing the resources to meet them — impose a significant vote-share penalty on ruling-party-aligned incumbents: the same alignment that pays above the salience threshold costs votes below it. These results contribute to our understanding of electoral accountability by demonstrating how disaster exposure shapes electoral outcomes through perceived resource access rather than performance evaluation, and by showing how incumbency advantage operates in developing democracies where party control of executive resources determines credit attribution.
After the Storm: Why Some Disasters Build Political Trust and Others Erode It
Most scholarship on natural disasters in political science has focused either on their electoral or security consequences. However, the causal linkages between natural disasters and these consequences remain weakly defined. This paper argues that political trust — given its associations with regime legitimacy and incumbent support — is well-positioned to fill that gap. The proposed information shock theory provides a framework for understanding how state capacity and disaster response quality interact with disaster exposure. Based on geolocated Afrobarometer survey responses in Malawi, Mozambique, Madagascar, and Tanzania, this paper analyses the impact of hazard exposure on trust in the executive.
Deliberation and Adaptation Quality: Does Public Consultation Produce Better Climate Outcomes?
International climate frameworks from the Cancun Adaptation Framework to National Adaptation Plan guidelines mandate public participation in adaptation planning, yet we know remarkably little about whether the quality of that participation actually improves adaptation outcomes. Existing comparative research conflates the presence of consultation with its quality, recording whether governments consult the public but unable to distinguish one-way information provision from genuine deliberation. This paper investigates whether deeper and more deliberative adaptation governance predicts stronger and more equitable policy outcomes across approximately 100 countries, using data from the forthcoming CLIPPS expert survey fielded in late 2026. Drawing on deliberative democracy theory and adaptive co-management frameworks, I develop a measurement approach that captures key dimensions of consultation quality — including who participates, how deeply their input shapes decisions, and at what stage of the policy cycle engagement occurs. A central analytical focus is the distinction between consultation on national adaptation strategies and consultation on specific adaptation projects, and whether local deliberative inputs feed vertically into national planning. Submitted as part of a Special Issue proposal to Global Environmental Politics.
Emerging Governance of Climate Loss and Damage
This paper focuses on loss and damage — a relatively new issue in international climate politics — and proposes a theory of multilateral agenda setting that synthesises existing arguments regarding power relations, epistemic communities, and coalitional politics, drawing on evidence from COP negotiations and national-level speeches.
Beyond Risk and Resources: Media Independence, International Aid, and the Political Economy of Climate Adaptation
Why do some countries invest heavily in climate adaptation while others lag behind? This project examines whether objective vulnerability and state capacity drive adaptation policy, and what explains the gap when they fail to do so. Utilizing a novel, fine-grained dataset of adaptation policies, the analysis tests whether risk and capacity alone predict investment, then evaluates whether deviations can be explained by media independence — which enables citizens to hold governments accountable for climate inaction — and international aid, which may supplement domestic capacity or distort local incentives. We argue that climate risk only translates into policy when an independent media incentivizes state action, and that international aid can inadvertently distort these domestic political dynamics. With Sarah Brooks (Ohio State University).
'Dousing the Torchbearer': The Consequences of Electoral Manipulation in Primaries
This paper explores how the quality of primary elections affects candidates' vote share in general elections, assessing the comparative value of the party label in a Malawian context and arguing that primary electoral manipulation shapes downstream general election performance.
Pre-Registered Studies
These studies have detailed pre-analysis plans with artificial data used to pre-specify data cleaning, hypothesis testing, and robustness checks prior to data collection.
Deliberation and Adaptation Quality: Does Public Consultation Produce Better Climate Outcomes?
Pre-analysis plan with simulated data. Submitted as part of a Special Issue proposal to Global Environmental Politics.
View on OSF →Beyond Risk and Resources: Media Independence, International Aid, and the Political Economy of Climate Adaptation
Pre-analysis plan with simulated data. Co-authored with Sarah Brooks (Ohio State University).
View on OSF →Deliberative Development and Climate Adaptation: The Capacity of Deliberative Town Halls to Increase Resilience Prioritization
Experimental study on how deliberation between MPs and Village Development Committees shapes preferences for short- vs. long-term investments in disaster risk reduction.
View on OSF →Curriculum Vitae
Ohio State University
Occidental College
Best Paper Presented at Conference
RISC-RISE Mobility Grant — €1,000
Decision Sciences Collaborative Small Pilot Grant — $2,965
Mershon Center Graduate Research Grant — $4,950
AGGRS Award — $5,000
Mershon Center Graduate Research Grant — $5,000
Political Science Department Grant — $1,000
Armed Conflict and Im/mobilities Grant — $1,500
Southern Political Science Association
Midwest Political Science Association
Armed Conflict and Im/mobilities Grant
Comparative Politics Workshop
Institute of Public Opinion and Research in Malawi
International Studies Association
Comparative Politics Workshop
Teaching
Teaching Experience
Political Crisis and Reform
Affecting the lives of over 185 million individuals in 2022, natural disasters stand out as a recurrent challenge around the globe. Governments around the world adopt policies and emergency plans to cope with these crises. Despite hopes that politics be set aside when disaster strikes, the potential political consequences of disaster management make politics more relevant than ever. In this class, students learn how to conceptualise disasters and disaster management, explore what incentives drive politicians' actions, and examine when policy change is most likely to occur. Examples spanning flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes, and pandemics highlight common challenges and important differences across disaster types.
Designed Courses
Comparative Environmental Politics
This course introduces undergraduate students to the politics of the environment through a comparative lens. We ask: why do some countries protect their environments while others do not? How do states, social movements, corporations, and international institutions shape environmental outcomes? What does politics have to do with climate change, energy transitions, and environmental justice? No background in political science or environmental studies is required. The first third of the course builds foundational concepts in political science and the comparative method; the middle sections apply those concepts to major substantive areas; the final unit synthesizes and looks toward the future. Students will engage with cases from Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America.
Introduction to African Politics
This course introduces students to the politics of sub-Saharan Africa. Beginning with the historical legacies of colonialism, we examine the institutions, actors, and processes that have shaped African states since independence. Students will engage with core political science concepts — legitimacy, authority, sovereignty, ethnicity, democracy, and civil society — as they apply to one of the world's most politically diverse regions. The course draws on Alex Thomson's An Introduction to African Politics and African Political Systems Revisited, supplemented by additional scholarship and case studies each week.
Advanced Topics in Environmental Politics
This course builds directly on the foundations of comparative environmental politics to engage with cutting-edge theoretical debates, contested methodological questions, and emerging substantive domains. Rather than surveying the field broadly, it goes deep into six analytically rich areas: research methods and epistemology; the political economy of markets and firms; environmental justice and rights; natural resources and violence; energy transitions and supply chains; and cities and the circular economy. The course is organized around the Oxford Handbook of Comparative Environmental Politics (2023), supplemented by Vig & Kraft's Environmental Policy (2019) and a rigorous empirical case study of climate adaptation governance in the Global South.
Contact
Get in Touch
Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio
References
Dr. Amanda Robinson
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
Ohio State University
Dr. Jan Pierskalla
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
Ohio State University