Increasingly our climate conversations have shifted from urgency to crisis. As report after report emerges from the scientific community that our planet is reaching closer to the point of no return, inching closer to 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees higher atmospheric temperature, our ability to prevent the worst of the climate effects is slipping away. This study investigates how racial regimes function to shape Black environments. This research aims to illuminate the relationship between how society treats Black people and how it treats the environment. This research considers how Black people articulate their ecological relationships and the possibilities Western society has to learn from this relationship. There is no way to address the current climate crisis without understanding how Black people have constructed their relationships related to the environment, similar to movements made in Indigenous Studies and conversations about environmental stewardship. As liberal movements shift to focus on specific, impending climate disasters and building climate resilience, there is no way we can do better by the environment and not by Black people, as the assumptive logics of ecological degradation parallel racial logics of oppression and discrimination.

This dissertation establishes the presence of partisan political intolerance among the American public. This form of political intolerance specifically targets members of the opposing mainline party and the partisans aligned with it. Additionally, it demonstrates that partisan intolerance is a strong predictor of many of the most troublingly anti-democratic attitudes in the American public, including but not limited to support for political hardball, preference for authoritarian rule, and approval of political violence. While observational, these findings are strongly suggestive that partisan political intolerance lies at the root of many of the most troubling trends in American politics.

In addition to the empirical work on the presence and effects of partisan political tolerance, this dissertation also establishes a significant theoretical framework for new measures of political tolerance. These measures align more closely with Sullivan's conception of political intolerance, departing from the predominant yet less favored method used over the past 40 years. Moreover, this dissertation introduces a fresh concept of political tolerance itself: valuing the democratic rights of one’s political opponents above one's own political or policy preferences.

This dissertation builds off of literatures which emphasize the group-basis of public opinion. Here, I position age and youth as a key social identity and then present my theory of youth consciousness and intergenerational solidarity as a novel pathway to American political behavior. I argue that youth who hold more in-group favorability toward those inside of their own young age group as well as older adults who hold more favorability toward the young outside of their own age group increases the likelihood of supporting a youth-salient issue agenda. I then develop four measures of youth attitudes which gauge individuals’ affect toward young people, which ranges from more positive feelings to more negative feelings toward them. After validation of these measures, survey research demonstrates how youth attitudes are related to support for a youth-salient issue agenda. I find that those with more positive affect toward the young are more likely to support policies that have a youth-centered focus including issues of the environment, healthcare, and immigration. In addition to examining the relationship between youth attitudes and partisanship, I find that individuals with more positive feelings toward young people are more likely to support elected officials, particularly those who specifically advocate for the interests of the young. Further, in a series of survey experiments, I find that youth attitudes can become an even stronger predictor of youth-salient public opinion when policy issues are framed around their disproportionate impact on young people. The dissertation closes with a discussion of how this theory and evidence for youth consciousness and intergenerational solidarity informs recent event such as youth-led political movements which include older adults who have come to advocate with the young. The dissertation, overall, makes contributions to studies revolving around social identity theory, identity politics, public opinion, and political behavior in American Politics.

Objective

Design

Setting

Participants

Measurements

Results

Conclusion