Environmental Initiatives are working to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in communities and cities around
the United States. Through this project, I will be able to evaluate the connections (and disconnections) between
climate change policy-making processes at different scales in the United States.
Collective Action around Climate Change: At the same time, I have expanded my work on collective action and
protest to look at how individual citizens mobilize around the issue of climate change (for information about this
on-going project, see Fisher et al. 2005; Fisher 2006b). So far, data have been collected in the United States, the
United Kingdom, and Germany to understand mobilization and recruitment around this particular issue. Because
I am applying a methodology that I have used to study protests that target issues as diverse as globalization,
anti-war, and domestic politics, I am able to compare how climate change protesters are similar and different
from others activists. As part of this project, I am analyzing the connections among climate change protesters.
Preliminary findings of this research, which are based on data collected during the Step It Up Day of Action
Against Climate Change in November 2007, include:
- Climate change activists tend to participate in actions in their own communities, and do not tend to travel
internationally to protest; - Most climate change activists have participated in collective action around the issue between two and five
times in the past five years; - More than two-thirds of climate change activists have also participated in demonstrations about peace;
- Most climate change activists are not involved in labor unions or groups;
- About three-quarters of climate change activists identify themselves as being politically left-of-center;
and - More than three-quarters of climate change activists have a university degree and more than a third have
an advanced degree.
In addition, climate change activists are extremely civically engaged. In the past year: 99% reported
signing a petition; 89% had contacted an elected government official; 74% had contacted an organization or
association; 65% attended a public, town, or school meeting; and 65% voted in an election (during the non-
midterm and non-presidential election year). I will continue to analyze these data (and the comparable data from
protests in the UK and Germany) in the coming months.
Advocacy Networks and Climate Change Politics: Also, I hope to work with Jeff Broadbent on the Comparing
Climate Change Policy Networks (COMPON) Project in the coming years. If funded, I will direct the United
States case study for the project, which aims to analyze transnational comparisons of national policy responses to
global climate change. The project will focus on the role of advocacy and civil society networks. It will build on
much of my current research, incorporating quantitative and qualitative methods that explore multiple scales of
governance. Because the US case will be conducted in conjunction with studies taking place in countries around
the world, it has the potential to contribute significantly to our overall understanding of climate change policy
making and the ways that domestic politics affect international politics (as well as vice versa).