Sectoral Characteristics, National Institutions, and Climate Change Attitudes

• In Event: Poster Session: Constitutional Law and Jurisprudence; Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations & Science, Technology and Environmental Politics
  In Poster Session: Science, Technology and Environmental Policy Posters

Abstract

One source of populist discontent is anxiety among workers about industrial decline. These concerns often come into conflict with efforts to regulate the emissions of greenhouse gasses. And yet there has been little work to date on how sector of employment shapes public attitudes about climate change action (Bechtel, Genovese, and Scheve 2017, Tvinnereim and Ivarsflaten 2016). Both of the efforts so far have focused on the role of sectoral emissions in promoting opposition to climate action. Using data from the European Social Survey, the Life in Transition Survey, and the Congressional Cooperative Election Study, I bring a more comparative approach to this issue. I show how emissions intensity is not the only sectoral factor that matters: trade exposure, embedded emissions, and factor compensation all play a role as well. I also show that more protective and coordinating national institutions can mediate the effects of sector-level characteristics by shielding workers from the threat of job losses.

Author

• Alexander Sayer Gard-Murray, Harvard University