ZIETSMA & LAWRENCE (2010)
The name of the distinctions that establish categories
What is:
boundaries
The main channels through which public opinion shapes climate policy
What is:
Policymaker incentives
Electoral selection
Technology adoption
Sources of information that congressional staffers rely on most to understand constituent opinion
What is:
What is: Direct contact with lobbyists and interest groups
Constituent mail and phone calls (filtered through staff)
Campaign donors and fundraising conversations
Their own personal political views
Addressing the poor responsiveness of representative democracy through deliberation
What is:
deliberative mini-publics
deliberative methods that can create “recursive” representation
The distinctions that establish categories
What is:
practice(s)
The top reasons a climate policy loses public support
What is:
Costs are visible and traceable (gas pump, energy bills)
Perceived losers outnumber perceived winners
No connection to other issues people care about (jobs, healthcare)
Public sees a high economic cost
Compensation for harmed workers isn't credible
Reasons why staffers consistently underestimate public support for progressive policies
What is:
They project their own (more conservative) views
Business letters are seen as more representative than ordinary mail
Campaign contributions & lobbying contact shift their perception
They have no systematic way to measure actual constituent opinion
Current poor track record of democracies failing to reach the commitments they made as part of the Paris Agreement
What is:
the challenges that democracies face in acting on climate change
a challenge that some suggest eco-authoritarianism could solve
a challenge some suggest earth systems governance could solve
The reconfiguration of boundaries produces experimental practice
What is:
the innovation stage of institutional change
the process that happens as a system moves from conflict to innovation
Strategies the IRA used to (try to) be politically survivable
What is:
Avoided a carbon tax — no visible price hike
Framed around jobs and manufacturing, not environment
Did not include 'climate' in name
Spread green investments geographically for broad coalition
Used diffuse subsidies instead of traceable mandates
Strategies that might increase accuracy of staffer estimation of constituent opinion
What is: More contact with mass-based, grassroots organizations
Less reliance on campaign donor networks
Direct constituent engagement mechanisms
Reducing the structural advantage of organized business interests
People are unable to properly consider evidence around climate change or understand its complexities
What is:
a similarity between people and politicians making policy decisions
the position of democratic realists
something that proponents of deliberative democracy suggest can be improved through deliberation