Survey research in environmental politics: why it is important and what the challenges are

(Excerpt from the article) In the remainder of this introductory article, the scholars first reflect on the status of public opinion research in the environmental politics field, sketch the main lines of research, and highlight the methodological and other challenges that are being or should be addressed. They then provide a road map to the four articles that showcase innovative approaches to measuring and explaining public opinion on environmental issues. Some of these articles illustrate the progress made in recent years in addressing key environmental politics questions based on experimental or quasi-experimental study designs. Others illustrate why observational approaches remain important. The authors see this symposium as providing additional motivation to environmental politics and policy scholars to employ surveys in novel ways for exploring substantive theoretical and policy questions. Furthermore, it will hopefully motivate social scientists outside the environmental policy field to use findings from environmental scholarship in their work.