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Climate whataboutism and rightwing populism: how emissions blame-shifting translates nationalist attitudes into climate policy opposition
Umeå University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Sociology.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7610-9104
2024 (English)In: Environmental Politics, ISSN 0964-4016, E-ISSN 1743-8934Article in journal (Refereed) Epub ahead of print
Abstract [en]

In the evolving discourse on climate change, the phenomenon of ‘whataboutism’ has emerged as a pervasive rhetorical strategy to deflect responsibility for the emissions of one’s own country by shifting blame to other nations. Given its nature, it is argued here that whataboutism may resonate particularly with nationalists, who exalt the concerns and priorities of their own country while downplaying those of other nations. Analyzing survey data from four European countries – Sweden, Germany, Spain, and Poland – this study demonstrates a strong and consistent relationship between nationalist attitudes and the extent to which people think that their own country should not act on climate change unless others do. The findings also show that climate whataboutism mediates the relationship between nationalist attitudes and opposition to climate policies. Hence, the results support the supposition that climate whataboutism discourses, driven by nationalist sentiments, permeates rightwing populist discourses to justify climate inaction.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Routledge, 2024.
Keywords [en]
whataboutism, rightwing populism, nationalism, delay discourses, public opinion, climate policy support
National Category
Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-232030DOI: 10.1080/09644016.2024.2431393ISI: 001360322800001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85210032236OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-232030DiVA, id: diva2:1915173
Funder
Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation, 2019.0196Swedish Research Council, 2018–01531Swedish Research Council, 2020-04725Available from: 2024-11-21 Created: 2024-11-21 Last updated: 2025-01-10

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Kulin, Joakim

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CiteExportLink to record
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Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
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  • vancouver
  • Other style
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Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
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  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
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  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
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  • asciidoc
  • rtf