How mainstream political parties respond to the rise of anti-climate discourses.
P1-S23-1
Presented by: Malo Jan
How do political parties respond to the politicization of adversarial positions on previously consensual issues? While existing literature extensively examines how mainstream political parties react to the introduction of new issues by challengers, such as the Greens or the radical right, there is less evidence on how mainstream parties behave when another party opposes an issue they initially supported. This paper investigates how mainstream parties respond to the rise of anti-climate discourse promoted by radical right parties. Existing research shows that climate change was traditionally characterized by valence competition, where mainstream parties largely responded positively to green issues and maintained consensus. However, party competition on climate change is evolving as radical right parties politicize anti-climate discourse, raising questions about how this shift affects mainstream party behavior.
To address these questions, I introduce new measurements of political party stances on green issues using natural language processing methods applied to a large corpus of party communications on social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). The dataset includes 150 parties across 14 Western European countries from 2010 to 2023. Using this data, I descriptively examine the extent to which party competition on climate change has shifted from a valence to a positional dynamic—an area where systematic empirical evidence remains limited. Finally, I employ panel data at the weekly level to analyze how the radical right's politicization of climate change influences mainstream parties' behavior, while controlling for key drivers of political attention to climate change.
To address these questions, I introduce new measurements of political party stances on green issues using natural language processing methods applied to a large corpus of party communications on social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). The dataset includes 150 parties across 14 Western European countries from 2010 to 2023. Using this data, I descriptively examine the extent to which party competition on climate change has shifted from a valence to a positional dynamic—an area where systematic empirical evidence remains limited. Finally, I employ panel data at the weekly level to analyze how the radical right's politicization of climate change influences mainstream parties' behavior, while controlling for key drivers of political attention to climate change.
Keywords: climate politics, party competition, radical right, social media, polarisation