Marc Fabel, Matthias Flückiger, Markus Ludwig, Helmut Rainer, Maria Waldinger, Sebastian Wichert
{"title":"The relationship between the youth-led Fridays for Future climate movement and voting, politician and media behaviour in Germany","authors":"Marc Fabel, Matthias Flückiger, Markus Ludwig, Helmut Rainer, Maria Waldinger, Sebastian Wichert","doi":"10.1038/s41562-024-02075-4","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>We study the relationship between the Fridays for Future climate protest movement in Germany and citizen political behaviour. In 2019, crowds of young protesters, mostly under voting age, demanded immediate climate action. Exploiting cell-phone-based mobility data and hand-collected information on nearly 4,000 climate protests, we created a highly disaggregated measure of protest participation. Using this measure, we show that Green Party vote shares increased more in counties with higher protest participation (<i>n</i> = 960). To address the possibility of non-random protest participation, we used various empirical strategies. When we examined mechanisms, we found evidence for three relevant factors: reverse intergenerational transmission of pro-environmental attitudes from children to parents (<i>n</i> = 76,563), stronger climate-related social media presence by Green Party politicians (<i>n</i> = 197,830) and increased local media coverage of environmental issues (<i>n</i> = 47,060). Our findings suggest that youth protests may initiate the societal change needed to overcome the climate crisis.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"113 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":21.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Nature Human Behaviour","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-02075-4","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
We study the relationship between the Fridays for Future climate protest movement in Germany and citizen political behaviour. In 2019, crowds of young protesters, mostly under voting age, demanded immediate climate action. Exploiting cell-phone-based mobility data and hand-collected information on nearly 4,000 climate protests, we created a highly disaggregated measure of protest participation. Using this measure, we show that Green Party vote shares increased more in counties with higher protest participation (n = 960). To address the possibility of non-random protest participation, we used various empirical strategies. When we examined mechanisms, we found evidence for three relevant factors: reverse intergenerational transmission of pro-environmental attitudes from children to parents (n = 76,563), stronger climate-related social media presence by Green Party politicians (n = 197,830) and increased local media coverage of environmental issues (n = 47,060). Our findings suggest that youth protests may initiate the societal change needed to overcome the climate crisis.
期刊介绍:
Nature Human Behaviour is a journal that focuses on publishing research of outstanding significance into any aspect of human behavior.The research can cover various areas such as psychological, biological, and social bases of human behavior.It also includes the study of origins, development, and disorders related to human behavior.The primary aim of the journal is to increase the visibility of research in the field and enhance its societal reach and impact.