Keywords

Environmentalism, voting decision, tea party, party identification, florida constitutional amendments, florida environmentalism, "big sort"

Abstract

Americans express support for “the environment” with environmental support cutting across political and demographic differences and cleavages. In the past 15 years, however, period effects, political sorting, and the emergence of a powerful anti-environmental movement have lessened the generalized levels of environmental support. Using the 2012 CCES survey, the expressed attitudes regarding multiple environmental issues found significant differences in levels of environmental support nationally by party, Tea Party attitudes, ideology, and certain demographic characteristics. For Floridians, the differences between the most pro-environmental respondents and the most anti-environmental are narrower; partisan identification itself is not significant in environmental attitudes; but ideology, Tea party support, and to a lesser degree, gender and race are associated in explaining variances in environmental attitudes. Voting decision behavior previously observed only for certain environmental issues appears to be influenced by multiple environmental positions. The significance of age on environmental attitudes remains perplexing with evidence for both younger and older respondents' support for environmentalism, as compared to the support expressed by persons aged 40-59. Support and opposition for a specific Florida constitutional ballot proposition on environmental land conservative acquisition reflect partisan and gender divides, and the impact of attitudes regarding an unpopular elected national official. Environmentalism appears to be further evidence of the “Big Sort” in American politics, increasingly likely to be used as an interparty wedge issue and for intraparty base mobilizations. The need for further research and the implications for environmental activists conclude this thesis.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2015

Semester

Fall

Advisor

Jacques, Peter

Degree

Master of Arts (M.A.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

Political Science

Degree Program

Political Science; Environmental Politics

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0005960

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0005960

Language

English

Release Date

December 2015

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

Subjects

Dissertations, Academic -- Sciences; Sciences -- Dissertations, Academic

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