Unpacking the relationship between climate change response and party responsiveness towards voters and interest groups: Is the call for urgent climate change evident in voter-party-group relations across countries?

While the call for climate action is strong among voters and interest groups in many countries, political parties are often accused of giving more attention to short-term problems. Given the urgency of climate change and the magnitude of its implications, the climate policy field is a particularly good case for testing whether parties respond to voters and interest groups, and whether they do so to a larger extent in this field, compared to other policy fields across countries. In this paper, we thus ask: Is party responsiveness towards voters and interest groups, over time, across parties, and countries, particular strong on climate and environmental policies as compared to other political domains? We answer this question by combining data from voter and interest group surveys with expert surveys on parties’ policy positions over time. Our preliminary analysis shows: Compared to other policy fields, if a party’s voters are particularly pro-environment at t1, the party is especially responsive towards its voters at t2 by updating their policy position and by maintaining contact with interest groups within this policy field.