Beyond Political Ideology: The Impact of Attitudes Towards Government and Corporations on Trust in Science

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Pechar ◽  
Thomas Bernauer ◽  
Frederick Mayer
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Genetically Modified ◽  
The United States ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Genetically Modified Foods ◽  
The Impact

Understanding public distrust of science is both theoretically and practically important. While previous research has focused on the association between political ideology and trust in science, it is at best an inconsistent predictor. This study demonstrates that two dimensions of political ideology—attitudes towards governments and corporations—can more precisely predict trust in science across issues. Using a survey in the United States and Germany on the science of climate change and genetically modified foods, we find that an individual’s trust in science varies across issues and that attitudes towards government and corporations are important predictors of this trust.

The Policy Opinions of British Political Activists

1983 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 604-619 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Welch ◽  
Donley T. Studlar
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
The United States ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Political Behaviour ◽  
Socioeconomic Characteristics ◽  
Activist Group ◽  
Policy Attitudes ◽  
Demographic Attributes ◽  
The Impact

This article employs the October 1974 British Election Study to examine the level and nature of political ideology among British political activists, the effects of socioeconomic characteristics on these attitudes, and the impact of the attitudes on political behaviour. On balance, the activist group closely resembles the nonactivist population. Activists are somewhat more ideological in their thinking than nonactivists, but the differences are quite small. Demographic attributes affect the policy attitudes of the élite slightly more than the nonactivists, but again differences are small. The influence of issue attitudes on voting is about the same for activists and nonactivists. These results stand in contrast to studies showing large élite-mass policy differences in the United States and other work documenting ideological orientations in higher levels of the Labour Party.

scholarly journals Taken by Storm: Hurricanes, Migrant Networks, and US Immigration

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 250-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Parag Mahajan ◽  
Dean Yang
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
International Migration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Migrant Networks ◽  
Disaster Impacts ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Natural Disaster Impacts ◽  
Us Immigration

Do negative shocks in origin countries encourage or inhibit international migration? What roles do networks play in modifying out-migration responses? The answers to these questions are not theoretically obvious, and past empirical findings are equivocal. We examine the impact of hurricanes on a quarter century of international migration to the United States. Hurricanes increase migration to the United States, with the effect’s magnitude increasing in the size of prior migrant stocks. We provide new insights into how networks facilitate legal, permanent US immigration in response to origin country shocks, a matter of growing importance as climate change increases natural disaster impacts. (JEL F22, J15, Q54, Z13)

scholarly journals Impact of the Climate Matters Program on Public Understanding of Climate Change

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 863-876
Author(s):  
Teresa A. Myers ◽  
Edward W. Maibach ◽  
Bernadette Woods Placky ◽  
Kimberly L. Henry ◽  
Michael D. Slater ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
The United States ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
American People ◽  
Significant Positive Association ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Media Market

AbstractClimate Matters is a localized climate change reporting resources program developed to support television (TV) weathercasters across the United States. Developed as a pilot test in one media market in 2010, it launched nationwide in 2013; in the autumn of 2019 more than 797 weathercasters were participating in the program. In this paper we present evidence of the impact of the Climate Matters program on Americans’ science-based understanding of climate change. We analyzed three sets of data in a multilevel model: 20 nationally representative surveys of American adults conducted biannually since 2010 (n = 23 635), data on when and how frequently Climate Matters stories were aired in each U.S. media market, and data describing the demographic, economic, and climatic conditions in each media market. We hypothesized that 1) reporting about climate change by TV weathercasters will increase science-based public understanding of climate change and 2) this effect will be stronger for people who pay more attention to local weather forecasts. Our results partially support the first hypothesis: controlling for market-level factors (population size, temperature, political ideology, and economic prosperity) and individual-level factors (age, education, income, gender, and political ideology), there is a significant positive association between the amount of Climate Matters reporting and some key indicators of science-based understanding (including that climate change is occurring, is primarily human caused, and causes harm). However, there was no evidence for the second hypothesis. These findings suggest that climate reporting by TV weathercasters, as enabled by the Climate Matters program, may be increasing the climate literacy of the American people.

The Polluter Pays Principle as an Instrument of Municipal and Global Environmental Governance in Climate Change Mitigation Law: Lessons from China, India, and the United States

Climate Law ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-93
Author(s):  
Paul A. Barresi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Polluter Pays Principle ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Change Mitigation

The disparate fates of the polluter pays principle (ppp) as an instrument of municipal environmental governance in the environmental law of China, India, and the United States illustrate how institutions and culture can shape its use. In China, essential elements of the Chinese legal tradition and an institutionalized devolution of power from the central government to local governments essentially neutralized the Chinese variant of the ppp in one important context by mobilizing certain culturally defined behavioural norms at the local level. In India, the Supreme Court has behaved in accordance with the socially revolutionary role intended for it by the framers of India’s Constitution by recognizing a maximalist conception of the ppp as part of Indian law, although other features of India’s unique legal culture and institutions have reduced the impact of this development. In the United States, the institutionalized fragmentation of the law-making process within the Federal Government has undermined even the implicit implementation of the ppp, to which US environmental statutes do not refer. The implications of these developments for the ppp as an instrument of municipal but also global environmental governance in climate change mitigation law flow less from the nominal status of the ppp in the laws of China, India, and the United States than from the unique institutional and cultural conditions that prevail there. The result is a case study in how institutions and culture can transform the implementation of a principle of environmental governance that at first glance might seem to be a simple exercise in economic rationality into a different exercise that is not simple at all.

scholarly journals “Liberate!” – Republicans Are More Willing to Get Back to Social Life Because They Are Less Scared of COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walid Briki ◽  
Lionel Dagot
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Social Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
Perceived Threat ◽  
Social Gathering ◽  
The Impact

Grounded in the COVID-19 pandemic context in the United States, the study aimed at examining whether political ideology and governor political belongingness could influence perceived threat of SARS-CoV-2 virus and perceived gathering acceptability, and whether perceived threat of SARS-CoV-2 virus could serve as a covariate. Native Americans, being either Republican or Democrat, living in a state governed by either a Republican or a Democrat, read a scenario about a banned social gathering. Results revealed that: (a) perceived threat of SARS-CoV-2 virus was lower in Republicans than in Democrats, while perceived gathering acceptability was higher in Republicans than in Democrats; and (b) perceived threat of SARS-CoV-2 virus mostly accounted for the impact of Republican ideology on perceived gathering acceptability. This research provides evidence that, relative to Democrats, Republicans are more willing to get back to the normal social life because they are less scared of being contaminated by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

scholarly journals The rise in climate change-induced federal fishery disasters in the United States

PeerJ ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. e11186
Author(s):  
Lyall Bellquist ◽  
Vienna Saccomanno ◽  
Brice X. Semmens ◽  
Mary Gleason ◽  
Jono Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Harmful Algal Blooms ◽  
Algal Blooms ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
The United States ◽  
Societal Benefit ◽  
Disaster Assistance ◽  
Environmental Events ◽  
The Impact

Commercial, recreational, and indigenous fisheries are critical to coastal economies and communities in the United States. For over three decades, the federal government has formally recognized the impact of fishery disasters via federal declarations. Despite these impacts, national syntheses of the dynamics, impacts, and causes of fishery disasters are lacking. We developed a nationwide Federal Fishery Disaster database using National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) fishery disaster declarations and fishery revenue data. From 1989-2020, there were 71 federally approved fishery disasters (eleven are pending), which spanned every federal fisheries management region and coastal state in the country. To date, we estimate fishery disasters resulted in $2B (2019 USD) in Congressional allocations, and an additional, conservative estimate of $3.2B (2019 USD) in direct revenue loss. Despite this scale of impact, the disaster assistance process is largely ad hoc and lacks sufficient detail to properly assess allocation fairness and benefit. Nonetheless, fishery disasters increased in frequency over time, and the causes of disasters included a broad range of anthropogenic and environmental factors, with a recent shift to disasters now almost exclusively caused by extreme environmental events (e.g., marine heatwaves, hurricanes, and harmful algal blooms). Nationwide, 84.5% of fishery disasters were either partially or entirely attributed to extreme environmental events. As climate change drives higher rates of such extreme events, and as natural disaster assistance requests reach an all-time high, the federal system for fisheries disaster declaration and mitigation must evolve in order to effectively protect both fisheries sustainability and societal benefit.

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