Which actors drive the populist radical right’s opposition to climate policy?

Previous research has demonstrated the influence of corporate interests in organizing climate denial, particularly in the USA (McCright, 2016; McCright and Dunlap, 2011; McCright et al, 2016). On the other hand, as outlined in the panel abstract, the populism literature points to the marginalized ‘losers of modernization’ as being as being a core constituency behind the rise of the populist radical right (PRR). This paper seeks to shed light on whether the connection between climate policy opposition and the PRR is mainly reflecting a demand from marginalized groups of voters or is driven by party elites and industrial interests. It presents three complementary analyses using data from a survey conducted in Australia, Germany, Norway, and the USA. First, we compare the income, education, subjective social status, and fear of job and status loss of individuals with PRR attitudes who are strongly hostile to climate policy with individuals who score high on PRR attitudes but are less hostile to climate policy, and to the general population. If marginalized groups are an important driver of PRR climate opposition, we would expect them to compare unfavorably both to both groups. Second, we analyze the predictive strength of climate opposition on the probability of voting for PRR parties, compared with the predictive strength of attitudes on other policy issues that are central to PRR parties’ manifestos, including immigration, international trade, gun control, LGBTQ rights and economic left-right stance. If the predictive strength of climate opposition is low compared to other policy attitudes, it may suggest that the centrality of climate opposition is driven by party elites more than by voter preferences, for example due to demand from fossil-fuel related business interest groups. The opposite result would indicate voters, including marginalized ones, are in fact important drivers of PRR parties’ opposition to climate policy. The third analysis draws on McCright et al’s (2016) anti-reflexivity-based framework, which posits that across countries, the predictive strength of ideology-based variables on climate views varies by the mobilization and strength of the climate denial countermovement, and that this countermovement is most influential in the USA, but also relatively strong in Australia. From this, we derive the expectation that the correlation between PRR attitudes and climate opposition is strongest in the USA, followed by Australia, and weaker in Germany and Norway. The extent to which these predictions hold would indicate the importance of the fossil-fuel business community in driving PRR supporters’ opposition to climate policy.