Climate Change and Democracy

Climate change will bring not just environmental change but political change as well, with extreme weather events and rising temperatures generating new and ever-stronger demands for government assistance. Yet we know surprisingly little about how our changing climate is affecting democratic governance, particularly in the Global South. Our research agenda is focused on addressing this gap by answering three questions. First, how is climate change altering citizens’ political behavior? Second, how responsive are democratic governments to these new accountability pressures? And finally, how does a state’s (in)ability to respond to these climate-driven accountability demands affect citizens’ evaluations of government performance and of the democratic process itself?