A Drizzle, Not a Storm: Polarization Around Climate Change in Dutch Political and Media Debates

Abstract

Presenter: Edwin Jans, Wageningen University Chair: Mariken van der Velden, VU Amsterdam Despite the vastly increasing scientific attention for political polarisation, effective conceptualisations and measures of different forms of polarisation in parliamentary records and news media are still lacking. Employing a longitudinal manual content analysis of parliamentary debates and newspaper articles on climate change, this study aims to accurately assess the development of polarisation in the Dutch political and media debate on climate change between 2010-2021, analysing three distinct forms of polarisation: ideological, affective, and factual belief. Preliminary results suggest that the levels of ideological polarisation have remained stable across this period, while affective and factual belief polarisation remain low, though are modestly increasing in recent years. In the political realm, these increases in climate change polarisation are mostly attributed to the increased presence of ecological and populist radical right parties, while the increases in the media realm are mostly observed in popular newspapers. More detailed results, including interactions between polarisation levels in the political and media realms, are planned for a future version.