Research

Working Papers

Deindustrialization, Decarbonization and Climate Investment: A Green Bullet for a Rusty Belt?

Working Paper, 2025

Abstract: Market interventions are a frequent lever for governments to ease the costs of economic transformations. Green industrial policy (GIP) is a recent example of such policy, seeking to ease the costs of the ecological transition. It is an open question, however, if governments benefit from the provision of GIP. My central claim is that rather than GIP being a tool against climate change alone, it is better considered as one against deindustrialization. This broader conceptualization provides insights into the spatial variation of GIP’s electoral consequences: GIP is more likely to win the incumbent votes in places with increased risk and exposure to deindustrialization, namely along the dimensions of globalization and decarbonization. Hence in communities doubly-pressured by both dimensions, GIP implementation is an effective tool to win back voters ``left-behind’’ and at risk of further economic precarity. I test this argument using geo-located data from the Inflation Reduction Act, leveraging variation in investment status in November 2024 for identification in a difference-in-differences framework. The absence of general electoral impact masks substantial heterogeneity: doubly-pressured communities shifted 2-3 p.p. towards the Democrats after receiving investment. I complement these national level results with a case study of Michigan. Fine grained voting data, planning documents, candidate statements, and local news coverage corroborate the differential response to GIP in these doubly-pressured areas, but not elsewhere.

Recommended citation: Pike, Ryan. (2025). Deindustrialization, Decarbonization and Climate Investment: A Green Bullet for a Rusty Belt? Working Paper.
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Greening in Groups: Firm Concentration and Lobbying on Green Industrial Policy

Working Paper, 2025

Abstract: Productivity is key to the economic and political behavior of firms. Green industrial policy is an increasingly common intervention to improve domestic firms’ green productivity. Whereas existing explanations of firm political behavior take productivity as given, I argue that inter-firm geographic concentration provides insights into how firms have reacted to this increasing green interventionism to shape future productivity. Concentrated firms receive more proximate policy benefits, those that cannot be limited to a single firm but are shared among neighbors. Expansions to green industrial assistance funding enable transformational decarbonization innovations, such as infrastructure projects, laden with proximate benefits, leading concentrated firms to lobby more during implementation. Using French lobbying data, I assess how manufacturing firms responded to an expansion of green assistance in the COVID-19 stimulus package: France Relance. Using this exogenous funding shock in a difference-in-differences design, I find that more concentrated firms increasingly lobby on green industrial policy. This holds when I consider intra-industry trends, suggesting concentrated firms lobby alongside their sector associations. Qualitative evidence of policy developments provide further evidence of a geographic cleavage shaping the politics of industrial decarbonization.

Recommended citation: Pike, Ryan. (2025). Greening in Groups: Firm Concentration and Lobbying on Green Industrial Policy. Working Paper.
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Flooding Feeds: Elite Issue Attention and Competition after a Natural Disaster

Revise & Resubmit at World Politics, 2025

Abstract: Two rhetorical strategies dominate the party issue competition literature: issue ownership and wave-riding. Relaxing the assumption of parties as unitary actors, I theorize and empirically assess the extent to which candidates use these strategies following a salience shock. Rather than treat the two strategies as mutually exclusive, for candidates I argue they are synergistic. Concerns about opportunism both between and within parties suggest that increases in issue attention are driven by issue-owning candidates representing affected constituents. Using original candidate communication data from the 2021 German election, I leverage longitudinal and geographic variation in exposure to a natural disaster as a shock to climate salience to assess this conditional wave-riding hypothesis. Using an event study, I find that floodaffected Green candidates increase their climate issue attention compared to their unaffected partisans. Considering electoral returns to rhetoric, I find that increased climate attention was a vote-winning strategy for Green candidates.

Recommended citation: Pike, Ryan. (2025). Flooding Feeds: Elite Issue Attention and Competition after a Natural Disasters. Working Paper.
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Words of Warcraft: Experimental evidence on state’s normative principle invocation following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Working Paper, 2024

Abstract: How do states communicate with the public – especially foreign audiences – about ongoing geopolitical crises? And how does a state’s invocation of normative principles affect individual engagement and political opinions? During geopolitical crises – including outbreaks of interstate war – states can use social media to sway public opinion both domestically and abroad. These irregular informational tactics may affect major conflicts by influencing key domestic populations in third-party states. We assess the effectiveness of such informational campaigns by rival geopolitical powers in the context of the ongoing War in Ukraine. Using a novel survey experiment design with interactive mock social media posts – and motivated by our analysis of 2.1 million tweets collected directly before and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – we show how rival geopolitical powers’ framing of the Ukraine crisis with normative principles affects political beliefs in Hungary. Pilot results (N = 620) suggest those least in favor of liberal democracy at home are most persuaded by Russia’s subversive use of norms, despite these principles being central tenets of the liberal democratic international order. Our project sheds light on how social media influence operations can take advantage of democratic disillusionment across borders, and affect strategic success in the digital age – especially where foreign policy is central to domestic election campaigns.

Recommended citation: Melissa Pavlik and Ryan Pike. (2024). Words of Warcraft: Experimental evidence on state’s normative principle invocation following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Working Paper.

Conditional Humanitarianism: Citizen Preferences for Economic Sanctions in Democratic Sender States

Revise & Resubmit at Government and Opposition, 2024

Abstract: Economic sanctions are a critical tool of international diplomacy. Existing scholarship shows that citizens in democratic sender states value sanctions which are effective in producing policy concessions. However, citizens also seek to limit the adverse humanitarian consequences of sanction imposition. How do citizens trade off between these objectives? We develop a theory of sanctions preferences where citizens (i) value policy concessions, (ii) hold humanitarian motivations, and (iii) hold beliefs about how policy change occurs in autocracies. We argue that citizens are conditional humanitarians – humanitarian concerns dominate effectiveness considerations only if policy concessions are unlikely. Results from a preregistered willingness-to-pay experiment examining the preferences of German citizens on sanctions against Russia after its invasion of Ukraine confirm the predictions of our theory.

Recommended citation: Moritz Bondeli, Isabela Mares and Ryan Pike. (2024). Conditional Humanitarianism: Citizen Preferences for Economic Sanctions in Democratic Sender States. Working Paper.