Environmentalism as an independent dimension of political preferences

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Kenny, John and Langsæther, Peter Egge (2023) Environmentalism as an independent dimension of political preferences. European Journal of Political Research, 62 (4). pp. 1031-1053. ISSN 0304-4130

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Abstract

Environmental issues are an important aspect of party competition and voters’ political preferences. Yet political behaviour research often considers environmental attitudes as a component of a broader ‘second-dimension’ and either subsumes it into this or omits it. Using data from the fifth wave of the European Values Study, we demonstrate through factor analysis that environmentalism loads as a separate dimension across Western Europe, that environmentalism has somewhat different social predictors and that it has important associations with party preference that differ from those of other second dimension issues. Our findings have crucial implications. Firstly, not accounting for environmentalism in studies of political behaviour misses an important part of the picture. Secondly, subsuming environmentalism into a broader ‘cultural’ dimension may lead to incomplete conclusions about both social predictors and the electoral consequences of political attitudes and values. Thus, allowing for a separate environmental dimension opens up novel perspectives on political representation in Western democracies.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: political dimensions,environmental attitudes,political values,western europe,political parties,political dimensions,political values,environmental attitudes,sociology and political science ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3312
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups: University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 26 Aug 2022 09:30
Last Modified: 24 Oct 2023 01:36
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/87637
DOI: 10.1111/1475-6765.12549

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