Research Example #5 (Politics and the Environment)

Dunlap, R. E., & McCright, A. M. (2008). A Widening Gap: Republican and Democratic Views on Climate Change. Environment, 50(5), 26-35.

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It has been assumed time and time again that individuals with a Democratic view will usually be more environmental. This article is taking that idea with a specific example, global warming. They are asking whether Democrats and Republicans see Global Warming in different views.

The article begins with a history of environmental awareness as it relates to politics. Environmental policies use to be nonpartisan, but this changed in the 1980s when the Reagan (Republican) administration called environmental regulations a financial burden. Since then, these researchers believe, there has been a growing divide between parties about environmental regulation, with the Democrats being more for it and the Republicans being more against it.

The article does note that the views on Climate Change, which they are measuring in the article, are the most noticeable environmental gap between the two parties. So using this to see if Democrats and Republicans are different on willingness to consider environmental problems might be a bit bias.

This research article looked at the Gallup poles from 1997 all the way to 2008 and it showed indeed a widening gap between Republicans and Democrats. Less Republicans in 2008 believe that the effects of Global Warming have already begun than in 1997, while more Democrats believe it. This trend is also true for who believes that Global Warming is exaggerated in the news and who believes that humans are the cause. Also, even though not a lesser amount of Republicans in 2008 believe that scientists agree about Global Warming and that Global Warming might pose a threat to them, the amount is not rising as much as Democrats.

The report ended on the note that Republicans and Democrats were definitely making a gap in their views about Global Warming and it seems to be getting wider.

I did have some criticisms of this article. I had to double-check that it was peer-reviewed because it is more of a flashy article and seemed to be trying to grab attention more than clearly state facts. Some of the correlations seemed a bit low to use as evidence that can be graphed as well. However, this was very informative to me and a surprisingly little amount of research has been done on politics in the United States and environmental views.