Publications
"Going Green or Making Green? The Effects of Partisanship and Inflation on Environmental Executive Orders, 1945−2020" (2023)
While a growing body of scholarship examines US presidential unilateralism, there remains less focus on policy-specific areas of unilateral action. Given environmental politics is a particularly constrained and contentious issue area, understanding the conditions that affect the frequency of presidents' environment-related unilateral activity requires a more nuanced examination. As such, this study draws upon existing theories of unilateralism to explore the relationship between environmental executive orders, Congress, the economy, and environmental disasters in the United States between 1945 and 2020. A broad examination of environmental executive orders provides evidence to suggest that while Democratic presidents are more likely to issue environmental executive orders compared to Republican presidents, presidents are generally more likely to issue environmental executive orders in response to higher inflation. A second analysis using a subset of these data further indicates Democratic presidents are more likely to issue environmental executive orders following technological disasters and that the frequency of these orders increases when their partisanship changes from that of the previous president. Collectively, these findings serve to broaden our current understanding of US presidential unilateralism by providing important linkages between executive power, the environment, and the economy.
"Can Exceptionalism Withstand Crises? An Evaluation of the Arctic Council's Response to Climate Change and Russia's War on Ukraine" with Gabriella Gricius (2022) in Global Studies Quarterly
For almost three decades, the Arctic Council has been considered exceptional in its approach to domestic, environmental, and geopolitical issues. Russia’s 2022 war on Ukraine and the subsequent pause of the Arctic Council, however, give cause to question whether the Arctic Council remains exceptional in the face of actual crises. We explore this question in two ways: As an endogenous crisis, we provide a systematic literature review of publications on Arctic Council climate change governance. As an exogenous crisis, we explore the Arctic Council’s pause given the Russia-Ukraine war. Taken together, our findings suggest that while the Arctic Council has the potential for exceptionalism, it lacks the capacity to substantively respond to crises. In turn, our study provides further evidence to suggest that even idealized institutions may not truly offer unique methods for withstanding environmental and geopolitical challenges; furthermore, it highlights the precariousness of intergovernmental institutions considered broadly.
"Who are the 3 Per Cent? The Connections Among Climate Change Contrarians"
Despite 97 per cent of scientists agreeing on anthropogenic global warming, the remaining 3 per cent play a critical role in keeping the debate about climate consensus alive. Analysis of climate change contrarians from multi-signatory documents reveals 3 per cent of signees to be climate experts, while the remaining 97 per cent do not meet expert criteria and are also involved with organizations and industries who make up the climate change countermovement. The data also reveal most contrarians to be aged sixty-five or older. As a result, we explore other factors (for example, collective memories and ideological views) that may have also contributed to expert and non-expert views.