The Fight for the Climate: Social Identities, Grievances, and Authoritarianism Drive Support for Climate Activism and Radicalism

The combination of increased political authoritarianism and an accelerating climate emergency has led to worries of an uptick in political violence among activists. This paper takes a social psychological approach to develop hypotheses around the role of social identities, personal grievances, and authoritarianism in driving support for more radical climate activism. It tests these hypotheses in a conjoint experiment across the US, the UK, and Denmark (total N = 2,447). The experiment varies characteristics of activists and asks respondents to indicate their support for and willingness to join conventional and transgressive protest groups. Results show that identification with the climate movement and left-wing political alignment constitute protective factors against, rather than accelerators of, radical action. Rather, left-wing authoritarianism emerges as a core driver of more radical responses. The more left-wing authoritarian the respondent, the more open to sympathizing with and willing to join radical protest groups. The paper contributes to our causal understanding of group processes involved in protest and reintroduces conjoint experiments to this domain.