Environmental Politics: the Structuring of Partisan and Ideological Cleavages in Mass Environmental Attitudes

Abstract

This paper explores the impacts of political party identification and political ideology on two dimensions of mass environmental beliefs—awareness of environmental problems and support for environmental reform. We argue that while the environmental movement's mobilization of public awareness of environmental problems was essentially non-partisan, more recent movement efforts to achieve environmental reforms have taken a discernible “reform liberal” stance of advocating state regulation of the private sector. Neither political party identification nor political ideology has a substantial effect on awareness of environmental problems. Anti-laissez-faire political liberalism proves to be highly correlated with support for environmental reform, particularly among the middle class. Despite the major impact of political liberalism on support for environmental reform, there are no partisan differences in such support. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the notion that political-ideological differences in support for environmental reform exist despite political parties.