Multidimensional partisanship shapes climate policy support and behaviours

Partisanship has long been identified as one of the greatest barriers to comprehensive climate action in the United States. Yet, not all partisans are created equal - rather many partisans have a multi-dimensional identity. Some partisans have a strong partisan identity, while for others, partisan identity is not a major part of how they define themselves. For those were partisanship is an important part of their social identity, we explore two forms of identity: (i) expressive (‘positive’) partisanship- where people define themselves as being part of the party in-groups and are driven by the desire to remain aligned with other like-minded partisans, and (ii) negative partisanship - where partisans hold hostile views of other partisan groups, making their primary political objective towards defeating the policy goals of the other group. While expressive partisans will pursue the goals of their own ‘in-group’, negative partisans don’t necessarily have a set of coherent policy goals or a clear ideology and rather, seek to “win” by impeding the objectives of other partisan groups.

We suggest that Democrats and Republicans do not constitute uniform groups holding homogenous beliefs and preferences. Rather, the expressive and negative aspects of partisanship might account for variation within partisan groups. We find that much of the resistance to climate policy among Republicans is driven by negative partisanship, while Republicans who do not have negative partisan identities are much closer to Democrats in their degree of support for climate policy. However, we also find that negative Democrats are more supportive of climate policy, suggesting that a considerable foundation of climate policy support amongst Democrats is driven by the desire to defeat the goals of Republicans.

One promising finding is that the strength of expressive partisan identity does not appear to have a strong association with climate policy preferences, implying that a strong “Republican” identity can coexist with climate policy support. Furthermore, we find limited evidence of considerable partisan differences in willingness to engage in climate behaviors.

In sum, our findings suggest that we should not assume that Republicans, as a whole, strongly resist climate change policy measures. Rather, it is certain types of Republicans, those with more ‘negative’ social identities, that are more strongly resistant to climate change policies, while those with more ‘expressive’ identities can potentially be motivated towards support – particularly if climate-relevant policy measures are seen as being part of Republican ‘in-group’ goals.