About

Dr. Isabella Alcañiz is a Professor in the Department of Government and Politics and serves as the Associate Dean of Graduate Education at the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Maryland. Her research focuses on the politics of climate change, social inequality, disaster policy, and gender, with particular emphasis on Latin America and Latinx residents of the United States. She has published extensively in academic journals such as PS: Political Science & Politics, Environmental Politics, Global Environmental Politics, and others, and has authored two books: 'The Distributive Politics of Environmental Protection in Latin America and the Caribbean' (2022) and 'The Environmental and Nuclear Networks in the Global South: How Skills Shape International Cooperation' (2016), both published by Cambridge University Press. Dr. Alcañiz serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of Environmental Politics and Global Environmental Politics. She holds a PhD from the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University and a Licenciatura in International Relations from the Universidad de Belgrano in Argentina. Her areas of interest include Latin American Politics, Gender Politics, Climate Inequality, Social Network Analysis, Latinx Politics, and Climate Disaster Politics.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Economics
• Ecology
• Sociology
• Computer Science
• Business
• Geography
• Natural resource economics
• Political economy
• Medicine
• Environmental economics
• Socioeconomics
• Finance
• Environmental protection
• Law
• Development economics
• Environmental ethics
• Engineering

Selected publications

• Who Is Perceived as Deserving? How Social Identities Shape Attitudes about Disaster Assistance in the United States

  PS Political Science & Politics · 2024-10-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  ABSTRACT Research has shown that as the size of government assistance programs grow, and the recipients of such programs are increasingly non-white and/or non-citizen, public support for them declines. Our study examines this phenomenon on the question of deservingness in federal disaster assistance. Using a 2018 survey experiment that leverages two devastating hurricanes—Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Harvey—that hit different parts of the United States in 2017, we explore how the social identities of race/ethnicity and partisanship affect attitudes about disaster deservingness. Our results demonstrate that although federal disaster assistance has broad support, it is contingent on perceptions about the disaster victim and the type of assistance. Respondents were less likely to support disaster assistance to Hurricane Maria–affected people than those affected by Hurricane Harvey. Moreover, white and Republican respondents were more likely to favor market-based assistance whereas race-/ethnic-minority and Democratic respondents were more likely to support more generous forms of disaster assistance. These findings have important implications for the allocation of disaster funds as climate change intensifies and the frequency of billion-dollar disaster events increases. This is exacerbated by political polarization and heightened social vulnerability due to changing population demographics.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• From international organizations to local governments: how foreign environmental aid reaches subnational beneficiaries in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico

  Environmental Politics · 2022-09-28 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The fight against climate change increasingly connects International Organizations (IOs), national governments, and subnational governments. How are international funds to fight climate change and environmental degradation distributed to subnational beneficiaries? We develop a novel multilevel theory that poses that tension between the preferences of the IO and national governments helps explain the subnational distribution of environmental aid – even more than pure environmental or social need. Simply put, whomever contributes more to IO-sponsored green projects determines who gets funds at the subnational level. While we understand that both actors have multiple preferences associated with green aid allocation, our theory of multilevel fund allocation expects the IO to prioritize provinces and states with low-development. Conversely, national governments will prioritize domestic electoral interests. We test this theory with a new data from the largest international donor of environmental aid, the Global Environment Facility. Empirically, we focus on Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico between 1997 and 2017.

  PublisherDOI

• The Distributive Politics of Environmental Protection in Latin America and the Caribbean

  2022 · 37 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  The study of environmental politics in Latin America and the Caribbean expands as conflicts stemming from the deterioration of the natural world increase. Yet this scholarship has not generated a broad research agenda similar to the ones that emerged around other key political phenomena. This Element seeks to address the lack of a comprehensive research agenda in Latin American and Caribbean environmental politics and helps integrate the existing, disparate literatures. Drawing from distributive politics, this Element asks who benefits from the appropriation and pollution of the environment, who pays the costs of climate change and environmental degradation, and who gains from the allocation of state protections.

  PublisherDOI

• The Politics of Climate Disasters, Social Inequality, and Perceptions of Government Assistance

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2021-08-11 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This chapter addresses a central research question of the politics of climate disaster: Who do citizens believe responsible for aftermath relief? The authors examine the issue of responsibility attribution in federal disaster assistance—and the related question of who voters believe deserves government disaster relief—against three devastating 2017 hurricanes, with a special focus on the impact of Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico. The authors begin to answer the questions of responsibility and deservingness with survey data collected by them in a pilot study on the Island of Puerto Rico in 2019. They conclude by identifying fruitful links of comparative analysis between climate disaster politics and distributive and welfare politics.

  PublisherDOI

• Closing the climate inequality gap

  Journal of Cleaner Production · 2021 · 4 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Environmental economics
  • Natural resource economics
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Gender, land distribution, and who gets state funds to stop deforestation in Argentina

  Journal of Environmental Management · 2020 · 4 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Business
  • Geography
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A Survey Experiment on “Bad Bosses”: The Effect of Social Networks on Gender Solidarity

  Latin American Research Review · 2020-12-22 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st author

  Are women and men in positions of authority judged differently? If a gender evaluation gap exists, is it due to persistent stereotypes or notions of gender solidarity? We explore gender differences in judgement through a survey experiment in Argentina with a national sample of 4,068 employees. Respondents were asked to recommend a salary increase for a “bad boss” whose behavior was characterized as aggressive and at the limit of what is fair and appropriate. The survey experiment measures the extent to which respondents punish and reward female and male managers differently. The main finding is that women are more likely to punish male bad bosses, and men are more likely to punish female bad bosses. We explain variation as a function of respondents’ social and personal networks. Study findings carry significant implications for the study of the gender pay gap.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Mavericks versus Party Insiders: A Survey Experiment on Candidate- and Partycentric Attitudes of Voters

  Latin American Politics and Society · 2019-08-28

  article1st authorCorresponding

  ABSTRACT This study examines the extent to which priming voters on the trustworthiness of candidates or that of their parties elicits candidatecentric or partycentric attitudes. The analysis provides evidence of the trade-off for voters between mavericks and party insiders in presidential elections. It shows that voters are sensitized to the risks of electing a candidate with no party support, but in the particular case of Argentina, they still consider the candidates’ qualities to be more important than those of their parties. The results show that priming on the trustworthiness of candidates elicits stronger responses from low-income voters, who already have prior candidatecentric inclinations. The findings also reveal statistical differences in vote choice when respondents are primed with party- or candidatecentric frames.

  PublisherDOI

• Transnational networks and the adoption of model forests in Argentina

  REVISTA SAAP · 2019-05-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  How are international environmental ideas adopted locally? We an- swer this question by examining the adoption and development of the model forest idea in Argentina since the late 1990s. The concept of model forest was born in Canada in 1991 as the brand name of a new national program aimed at promoting the building of local-level governance processes and arrangements for sustainable forest management. The idea soon started trav- elling worldwide thanks to the Canadian international cooperation agen cies initiatives and became a benchmark of UN programs. Argentina was an early adopter of the model forest idea: in 1996 the Argentine Secretaria for the Environment signed a letter of intent with the International Model For est Network. As a result, six model forests formed throughout the country between 1998 and 2008. We argue that transnational networks of bureau- crats, advocates, and stakeholders help explain how natural resources gover- nance programs travel across countries. We distinguish more technical-driven adoptions from societal-driven ones, as a function of existing levels of con- flict. We expect technical-driven adoptions to take place in contexts of lower levels of conflict and societal-driven adoptions in contexts of higher levels of conflict. This paper is a first step in a broader project that compares the adoption and evolution of community-based forests in Latin America.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Between the Global Commodity Boom and Subnational State Capacities: Payment for Environmental Services to Fight Deforestation in Argentina

  Global Environmental Politics · 2019-11-12 · 38 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Does subnational state capacity stop deforestation? The commodity boom of the 2000s significantly expanded the agriculture frontier in most provinces of Argentina, with devastating effects on native forests. Interestingly, some of the subnational governments that presided over the commodities supercycle also sought to reform the forestry sector to reduce rampant deforestation, despite promoting and benefiting from agricultural expansion. A national program to protect native forests through payment for environmental services (PES) was created to be implemented in local districts. We argue that the success of new forest protections is contingent on the capacity of subnational governments to implement the law. In our study, we find that changes in provincial deforestation rates are explained by the interaction of state capacity, on one hand, and high land prices driven by commodity pressures, on the other. Our research carries implications for students and practitioners of forest PES. Our findings underscore the fundamental role subnational state governments play in climate change mitigation and adaptation.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Ricardo A. Gutiérrez

  22 shared

• Mónica Gabay

  16 shared

• Ernesto Calvo

  University of Maryland, College Park

  3 shared

• Andrés Malamud

  University of Lisbon

  3 shared

• Marcelo Escolar

  Martin University

  2 shared

• Ramiro Berardo

  The Ohio State University

  2 shared

• Timothy Hellwig

  University at Buffalo, State University of New York

  1 shared

• Lorien Jasny

  University of Exeter

  1 shared