This study was conducted to examine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on conservation issues among adults with different political affiliations, as well as to determine the relative importance of these issues across the political spectrum. Additionally, it looked to understand how these issues coalesced during the 2020 US general election. It is crucial to determine the changes in the polarization on this broad category of issues because out of 14 major policy issues listed to voters in the study, conservation issues such as endangered species conservation and control of zoonotic disease ranked very low; Even lower than climate change.
The researchers used Qualtrics surveys and distributed them to 1,560 residents in August 2020. The study had quotas for how many respondents they used by state, age, and political affiliation. These political affiliations were assigned the following strata: Conservative Republican, Liberal/Moderate Republican, Independent/Other, Moderate/Conservative Democrat, and Liberal Democrat. Respondents were asked a series of 14 policy questions, with 12 being “standard” policies such as immigration and abortion, and 2 environmental questions. Their answers were on a 5-point scale, with answers ranging from “Not important at all” to “Very important to my vote”.
Researchers found that polarization was highest among the farthest fringes of political ideologies, with the most drastic differences between those who considered themselves furthest right and furthest left. The study found that Democrats experienced positive changes in their opinions (the pandemic made them more favorable to conservation), while Republicans had an adverse change in their views (the pandemic made them less favorable to conservation).
To improve this study, I would have liked to see the changes over a temporal scale represented. For example, the study could have sent Qualtrics surveys to respondents once in 2019 and compared the changes in the resurvey conducted in August 2020. This would have allowed researchers to directly compare individual changes as well as changes in self-reported political affiliations over the course of time. Overall, however, the results showed substantial management implications for state agency workers creating policy as well as lawmakers looking to represent their constituents better.
Casola WR, Beall JM, Nils Peterson M, Larson LR, Brent Jackson S, Stevenson KT. Political polarization of conservation issues in the era of COVID-19: An examination of partisan perspectives and priorities in the United States. J Nat Conserv. 2022 Jun;67:126176. doi: 10.1016/j.jnc.2022.126176. Epub 2022 Mar 26. PMID: 35370533; PMCID: PMC8957370.