Security in Climate Change Discourse: Analyzing the Divergence between US and EU Approaches to Policy

Jarrod Hayes and Janelle Knox-Hayes
Additional contact information
Jarrod Hayes: Jarrod Hayes is an assistant professor of international relations in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Janelle Knox-Hayes: Janelle Knox-Hayes is an assistant professor of environmental policy in the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Global Environmental Politics, 2014, vol. 14, issue 2, 82-101

Abstract: Why has Europe implemented a quite-proactive climate policy while the US has adopted a far less ambitious climate strategy? Does variation in security concerns or other factors better explain this difference in policy? Using a multimethod case study approach, the authors find that in the US, constructions of climate change as a security threat play an important role in developing public support. In Europe, leadership and opportunity discourses predominate. Other factors including centralization of governance, trust in the technocratic elite, and cultural norms contribute to the variation in policy construction. © 2014 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Keywords: climate change; climate policy; European Union; United States (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q54 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GLEP_a_00230 link to full text PDF (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:14:y:2014:i:2:p:82-101

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://mitpressjour ... rnal/?issn=1526-3800

Access Statistics for this article

Global Environmental Politics is currently edited by Steven Bernstein, Matthew Hoffmann and Erika Weinthal

More articles in Global Environmental Politics from MIT Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The MIT Press ().