Is the political divide on climate change narrower for people of color? Evidence from a decade of U.S. polling

Conservatives appear more skeptical about climate change and global warming and less willing to act against it than liberals. We propose that this unwillingness could result from fundamental differences in conservatives’ and liberals’ temporal focus. Conservatives tend to focus more on the past than do liberals. Across six studies, we rely on this notion to demonstrate that conservatives are positively affected by past- but not by future-focused environmental comparisons. Past comparisons largely eliminated the political divide that separated liberal and conservative respondents’ attitudes toward and behavior regarding climate change, so that across these studies conservatives and liberals were nearly equally likely to fight climate change. This research demonstrates how psychological processes, such as temporal comparison, underlie the prevalent ideological gap in addressing climate change. It opens up a promising avenue to convince conservatives effectively of the need to address climate change and global warming.

Download Full-text

Leveraging cognitive consistency to nudge conservative climate change beliefs

10.31234/osf.io/s8a7z ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Hunter Gehlbach ◽

Carly D Robinson ◽

Christine Vriesema

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

United States ◽

Climate Science ◽

The United States ◽

The Political ◽

Proof Of Concept ◽

Cognitive Consistency ◽

Climate Skepticism ◽

Change Beliefs ◽

Political Divide

People feel motivated to maintain consistency across many domains in life. When it comes to climate change, many find themselves motivated to maintain consistency with others, e.g., by doubting climate change to cohere with friends’ and neighbors’ beliefs. The resulting climate skepticism has derailed discussions to address the issue collectively in the United States. To counteract these social consistency pressures, we developed a cognitive consistency intervention for climate skeptics. We first demonstrated that most people share substantial faith in a variety of scientific findings, across disciplines ranging from medicine to astronomy. Next, we show that conservative participants who first acknowledge several general contributions of science subsequently report significantly stronger beliefs in climate science (as compared to conservatives who are asked only about their climate science beliefs). These findings provide an encouraging proof-of-concept for how an inclusive climate conversation might be initiated across the political divide.

Download Full-text

Hastings Donnan and Pnina Werbner (eds). Economy and Culture in Pakistan: Migrants and Cities in a Muslim Society. London: Macmillan. 1991. 268 pp.

The Pakistan Development Review ◽

10.30541/v31i3pp.325-328 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 31 (3) ◽

pp. 325-328

Author(s):

Ziaul Haque

Keyword(s):

Urban Areas ◽

Political System ◽

Direct Result ◽

The Political ◽

Economic Factors ◽

Population Movements ◽

Social Fabric ◽

History Of ◽

Political Divide ◽

Different Parts

Modem economic factors and forces are rapidly transforming the world into a single society and economy in which the migration of people at the national and international levels plays an important role. Pakistan, as a modem nation, has characteristically been deeply influenced by such migrations, both national and international. The first great exodus occurred in 1947 when over eight million Indian Muslims migrated from different parts of India to Pakistan. Thus, from the very beginning mass population movements and migrations have been woven into Pakistan's social fabric through its history, culture and religion. These migrations have greatly influenced the form and substance of the national economy, the contours of the political system, patterns of urbanisation and the physiognomy of the overall culture and history of the country. The recent political divide of Sindh on rural/Sindhi, and urban/non-Sindhi, ethnic and linguistic lines is the direct result of these earlier settlements of these migrants in the urban areas of Sindh.

Download Full-text

Political Inclusion Reduces Political Prejudice

10.31234/osf.io/dxwpu ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jan G. Voelkel ◽

Dongning Ren ◽

Mark John Brandt

Keyword(s):

The Political ◽

Political Discussion ◽

Total N ◽

Cohen’S D ◽

Promising Strategy ◽

Political Inclusion ◽

Cohen's D ◽

Political Divide ◽

Scenario Study ◽

Fair Chance

The political divide is characterized by liberals and conservatives who hold strong prejudice against each other. Here we introduce one possible strategy for reducing political prejudice: political inclusion. We define political inclusion as receiving a fair chance to voice one’s opinions in a discussion of political topics with political outgroup members. This strategy may reduce political prejudice by inducing perceptions of the political outgroup as fair and respectful; however, such a strategy may also highlight conflicting attitudes and worldviews, thereby further exacerbating prejudice. In three preregistered studies (total N = 799), we test if political inclusion reduces or increases prejudice toward the political outgroup. Specifically, political inclusion was manipulated with either an imagined scenario (Study 1) or a concurrent experience in an ostensible online political discussion (Studies 2 & 3). Across all studies, participants who were politically included by political outgroup members reported reduced prejudice toward their outgroup compared to participants in a neutral control condition (Cohen’s d [-0.27, -0.50]). This effect was mediated by perceptions of the political outgroup as fairer and less dissimilar in their worldviews. Our results indicate that political discussions that are politically inclusive do not cause additional prejudice via worldview conflict, but instead give others a feeling of being heard. It is a promising strategy to reduce political prejudice.

Download Full-text

Partisanship and Autocratization: Polarization, Power Asymmetry, and Partisan Social Identities in Turkey

Comparative Political Studies ◽

10.1177/0010414020926199 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 54 (2) ◽

pp. 245-279 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Melis G. Laebens ◽

Aykut Öztürk

Keyword(s):

Survey Data ◽

Political Action ◽

Political Attitudes ◽

Well Being ◽

Social Identities ◽

The Political ◽

Power Asymmetry ◽

Partisan Identity ◽

Political Divide ◽

Ruling Party

Although theories of partisanship were developed for the democratic context, partisanship can be important in electoral autocracies as well. We use survey data to analyze partisanship in an electoral autocracy, Turkey, and find that partisanship is pervasive, strong, and consequential. Using the Partisan Identity Scale to measure partisanship, we show that, like in democracies, partisanship strength is associated with political attitudes and action. Unlike in democracies, however, the ruling party’s superior ability to mobilize supporters through clientelistic linkages makes the association between partisanship and political action weaker for ruling party partisans. We find that partisan identities are tightly connected to the perception that other parties may threaten one’s well-being, and that such fears are widespread on both sides of the political divide. We interpret our findings in light of the autocratization process Turkey went through. Our contribution highlights the potential of integrating regime dynamics in studies of partisanship.

Download Full-text

Rethinking Climate, Climate Change, and Their Relationship with Water

Water ◽

10.3390/w13060849 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (6) ◽

pp. 849

Author(s):

Demetris Koutsoyiannis

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climatic Variability ◽

Main Element ◽

The Political ◽

Real World Data ◽

Modern Times ◽

External Agent ◽

Historical Investigation ◽

Definition Of ◽

Water Issues

We revisit the notion of climate, along with its historical evolution, tracing the origin of the modern concerns about climate. The notion (and the scientific term) of climate was established during the Greek antiquity in a geographical context and it acquired its statistical content (average weather) in modern times after meteorological measurements had become common. Yet the modern definitions of climate are seriously affected by the wrong perception of the previous two centuries that climate should regularly be constant, unless an external agent acts upon it. Therefore, we attempt to give a more rigorous definition of climate, consistent with the modern body of stochastics. We illustrate the definition by real-world data, which also exemplify the large climatic variability. Given this variability, the term “climate change” turns out to be scientifically unjustified. Specifically, it is a pleonasm as climate, like weather, has been ever-changing. Indeed, a historical investigation reveals that the aim in using that term is not scientific but political. Within the political aims, water issues have been greatly promoted by projecting future catastrophes while reversing true roles and causality directions. For this reason, we provide arguments that water is the main element that drives climate, and not the opposite.

Download Full-text

Umstrittene Expertise

10.5771/9783748911418 ◽

2021 ◽

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Civil Society ◽

Political Theory ◽

Global Dimension ◽

The Political ◽

Special Issue ◽

Political Consequences ◽

Political Debates ◽

Controversial Nature

The current political debates about climate change or the coronavirus pandemic reveal the fundamental controversial nature of expertise in politics and society. The contributions in this volume analyse various facets, actors and dynamics of the current conflicts about knowledge and expertise. In addition to examining the contradictions of expertise in politics, the book discusses the political consequences of its controversial nature, the forms and extent of policy advice, expert conflicts in civil society and culture, and the global dimension of expertise. This special issue also contains a forum including reflections on the role of expertise during the coronavirus pandemic. The volume includes perspectives from sociology, political theory, political science and law.

Download Full-text