Understanding partisanship nuances may be the key to climate action

A new study finds that resistance to climate policy among Republicans is driven far more by negative partisanship than expressive partisanship

 By Sarah DeWeerdt, January 10, 2023

A major source of Republican opposition to climate policy is the desire of some—not all—Republicans to stick it to Democrats, according to a new study.

U.S. climate policy lags behind that of other similar nations, and political partisanship is known to be one of the major barriers to climate action, especially at the federal level. Republicans tend to oppose policies to mitigate climate change, while Democrats tend to support them.

But partisanship has nuances—and that has implications for climate policy, the study shows. “Not all partisans are created equal,” says study coauthor Adam Mayer, a postdoctoral researcher at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

 Some people are really attached to their partisan identity, while others are not, reflecting varying degrees of what researchers call ‘positive’ or ‘expressive’ partisanship. Meanwhile, some people are less invested in their own party’s policy success than in beating the other side, a phenomenon termed ‘negative’ partisanship.

To find out more about how those details affect support for climate action, Mayer and his collaborator, Keith Smith of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, analyzed responses to an online survey of 1,600 people in the United States.

Read on at Anthropocene

Source: Mayer A.P. and E.K. Smith “Multidimensional partisanship shapes climate policy support and behaviors.” Nature Climate Change 2023.