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Cited by 211Climate Change Communication and PerceptionClimate Change Policy and EconomicsElectoral Systems and Political Participation

Where Does Political Polarization Come From? Locating Polarization Within the U.S. Climate Change Debate

Open access
Fisher, Dana R., Waggle, Joseph, Leifeld, Philip·2013·American Behavioral Scientist
DOI 10.1177/0002764212463360
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Abstract

How do we understand political polarization within the U.S. climate change debate? This article unpacks the different components of the debate to determine the source of the political divide that is so noted in the mainstream media and academic literatures. Through analysis of the content of congressional hearings on the issue of climate change, we are able to explain political polarization of the issue more fully. In particular, our results show that, contrary to representations in the mainstream media, there is increasing consensus over the science of the issue. Discussions of the type of policy instrument and the economic implications of regulating carbon dioxide emissions, however, continue to polarize opinion. This article concludes by exploring how these findings help us understand more recent political events around climate change.

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  • In rare instances of intergroup communication in online climate change discussions, more negative frames tended to prevail, including dismissal of climate change information as hoaxes, derailment of conversations to heated issues of identity, and overall higher levels of sarcasm and incivility.

    “Qualitative analysis further showed that in rare instances of intergroup communication, more negative frames tended to prevail, featuring dismissal of climate change information as hoaxes, derailment of conversations to heated issues of identity, as well as overall higher levels of sarcasm and incivility [8], [17], [18].”

    From Affective Polarization in Online Climate Change Discourse on Twitter (2020) · cites this paper as [18]

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  • Existing scholarship on climate change discourse has relied on manually annotated corpora and datasets of limited size, facing barriers to measuring the emotional component of climate change discussions in a generalizable fashion.

    “Relying consistently on manually annotated corpora and datasets of limited size, existing scholarship has faced barriers to measuring the emotional component of climate change discussions in a generalizable fashion [8], [17], [18].”

    From Affective Polarization in Online Climate Change Discourse on Twitter (2020) · cites this paper as [18]

    The Data and Method section describes qualitative coding of testimony from 71 U.S. congressional hearings, supporting this paper as an example of a manually coded, bounded dataset. The Network Analysis Technique section says finer-grained judgments would have had low reliability and validity. Neither section establishes that existing scholarship consistently used small datasets or that this prevented generalizable measurement of emotion; this study coded policy stances, not emotion. Page numbers were not supplied in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.85)

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Research works printed but not linked: 5

  1. America's Climate Choices: Panel on Advancing the Science of Climate Change; National Research Council. 2011. Advancing the Science of Climate Change. National Academies Press.
  2. Cicerone, Ralph J. and the Committee on the Science of Climate Change. 2001. Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
  3. Laumann, Edward O. and David Knoke. 1987. The Organizational State: Social Change in National Policy Domains. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
  4. Park, Hyung Sam, Xinsheng Liu, and Arnold Vedlitz. 2010. "Framing Climate Policy Debates: science, network, and U.S. Congress, 1976-2007." Conference Proceedings of the Policy Networks Conference 2010. Available at http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/pnconfs_2010/41 (Accessed 22 March 2011).
  5. Parry, M.L, O.F. Canziani, J.P. Palutikof, P.J. van der Linden, and C.E. Hanson (eds). 2007. Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptations, and Vulnerability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Authors
Fisher, D. R., Waggle, J., & Leifeld, P.
Affiliations
  • University of Maryland, College Park (US)
  • Max Planck Society (DE)
ORCID
Venue
American Behavioral Scientist
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2012-11-02
Volume
57
Issue
1
Pages
70-92
ISSN
  • 0002-7642 (ISSN-L)
  • 1552-3381
DOI
10.1177/0002764212463360
OpenAlex
W2018045098
Cited by
211
References
45
Citations by year
2026: 10 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 25 · 2020: 39 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 2
FWCI
25.32
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • American Behavioral Scientist (publishedVersion)
  • ENLIGHTEN (Jurnal Bimbingan dan Konseling Islam) (acceptedVersion)
  • DORA Eawag (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag)) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion)
  • MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
Funders
National Science Foundation (0826892)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change Communication and Perception
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Climate Change Policy and Economics
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
Keywords
political polarization, climate change debate, congressional hearings, policy instruments, mainstream media coverage, United States climate policy

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