When zodiac year and disaster echoes meet accountability: Dual moderators in emergency management prioritization

Accountability pressure is pivotal for prioritizing emergency management, yet its effectiveness in authoritarian systems is critically moderated by understudied non-institutional factors. Analyzing 2007–2023 panel data from 248 Chinese cities using two-way fixed effects models, this study reveals how cultural zodiac year (“Ben Ming Nian”) beliefs and contextual disaster exposure shape municipal leaders’ accountability pressure. First, zodiac year culturally amplifies accountability pressure through heightened risk sensitivity, significantly strengthening emergency prioritization. Second, historical disaster frequency paradoxically induces risk normalization that attenuates accountability responsiveness by embedding hazards into bureaucratic routines. Third, city-level heterogeneities moderate outcomes as city cluster membership dilutes emergency focus due to competing mandates, megacities show institutional inertia versus ordinary cities’ vulnerability, and high industrial risk exposure triggers adaptive desensitization. Finally, leader-level heterogeneities reveal that longer career horizons intensify promotion - driven emergency vigilance, deputy provincial rank causes goal diversion, and leaders' tenure phases lead to temporal prioritization shifts between development and safety objectives. These findings constitute a significant theoretical advance, demonstrating the critical interplay of non-Western temporal beliefs, localized hazard memory, and authoritarian accountability systems in risk governance. The study offers crucial practical implications for designing more effective and culturally resonant emergency management mechanisms within similar governance contexts.