The Dynamics of Climate Change: How Issue Position, Salience, and Competence Interact with Voting Behavior over Time

Climate change was the most dominant issue in the 2021 German federal election, alongside the COVID-19 pandemic. Although other issues, such as the energy crisis, have since taken center stage, climate change remains a topic of public debate, particularly in the wake of natural disasters like the flood in 2023 and the protest actions of groups like "Letzte Generation". During the previous federal election of 2017, the issue of climate change was less salient and the need for more climate mitigation was more controversial. Nowadays, there is less doubt about the existence of human-made climate change, but there is still large skepticism regarding concrete climate policies and their implementation (Douenne & Fabre, 2020; Maestre et al., 2019). Taking all this into account, it appears that there are a lot of dynamics in the perception of climate change and its mitigation over time. This raises the question of whether and how the issue of climate change affects voting behavior. Some studies have already shown that specific circumstances related to climate change, such as changes in weather or supporting the construction of wind turbines, can have a positive impact on voting for Green Parties (Hoffmann et al., 2022; Ottini & Weisskircher, 2022). However, there is currently a lack of comprehensive research on the relationship between the perception of climate change and voting behavior. This paper aims to address this research gap, by building on the concept of issue voting. Empirical findings regarding the interaction of subjective issue importance and issue preference in its influence on voting behavior are mixed (Leeper and Robinson 2020; Walgrave 2020). This paper aims to test prior findings by analyzing how issue position, issue salience, and issue competence regarding climate change interact in their influence on voting behavior. To study this, time-series cross-sectional data from the GLES Tracking, which is conducted regularly up to three times a year in Germany, is used. These data offer the possibility to study the potential influence on voting over a certain period, which enables to consider the dynamics of the issue. By using data from 2017 to 2023, both periods before and after the beginning of the global protest movement “Fridays for Future" and the German federal elections in 2021 are included. This paper will contribute to a better understanding of the role of climate change in voting behavior by providing insights into its dynamic over time and thus connects to research on issue voting in general and climate change-related voting, as well as the issue's salience in society.