A connection between disasters and political unrest has often been suggested, but only case studies/anecdotes have been offered as evidence. To test statistically for a disaster-political unrest relationship, a causal model is developed that posits a direct and positive linkage between disaster severity and ensuing levels of political unrest. The model further specifies that increased levels of development, income equality, and regime repressiveness dampen post-disaster political unrest. Using a time-series between 1966 and 1980, Poisson regression results strongly corroborate the model. The exception is income equality, which has the opposite of the originally hypothesized effect.
