Dear GEPers,
Colleagues and I have a new article out that examines political polarization over environmental protection in the US from 1974 to 2012, employing the NORC spending item. While it focuses on the US, obviously, it may help shed slight on our odd situation relative to most of the rest of the industrialized world when it comes to polarization over environmental issues. It also provides support for the argument that Peter Jacques and I and several others have made that the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 and the rise of global environmentalism (symbolized by the 1992 Rio Summit) stimulated the Conservative Movement (especially elites) to substitute a "green scare" for the declining red one. Below is the title/abstract. SSR is widely available in libraries so if you're interested you should be able to find it. Riley Dunlap "Political polarization on support for government spending on environmental protection in the USA, 1974-2012," Social Science Research 48 (2014):251-260. Aaron M. McCright, Chenyang Xiao and Riley E. Dunlap ABSTRACT: Since the early 1990s, the American conservative movement has become increasingly hostile toward environmental protection and Congressional Republicans have become increasingly anti-environmental in their voting records. Party sorting theory holds that such political polarization among elites will likely extend to the general public. Analyzing General Social Survey data from 1974 to 2012, we examine whether political polarization has occurred on support for government spending on environmental protection over this time period in the US general public. We find that there has been significant partisan and ideological polarization on support for environmental spending since 1992--consistent with the expectations of party sorting theory. This political polarization on environmental concern in the general public will likely endure save for political convergence on environmental concern among elites in the near future. Such polarization likely will inhibit the further development and implementation of environmental policy and the diffusion of environmentally friendly behaviors. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "gep-ed" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
