The rise and fall of GMOs in politics: party positions and mainstream party behaviour in Western Europe
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In: Environmental Sociology, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2023, p. 93-106.
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The rise and fall of GMOs in politics
T2 - party positions and mainstream party behaviour in Western Europe
AU - Schwörer, Jakob
AU - Vidal, Xavier Romero
AU - Vallejo, Silvana Moreno
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Social and environmental scientists usually argue that political parties hold hostile positions towards GMOs, yet we are confronted with a lack of systematic comparative analyses in the West European context. Conducting a quantitative content analysis of 265 election manifestos in seven Western European countries from 1990 until 2020, we test this assumption and explore the salience of GMOs in election manifestos and the positions of political parties on this domain. Our findings reveal that GMOs are neither a particular salient nor ignored issue by political parties and that most party families do tend to reject GMOs. Mainstream parties are more likely to talk about GMOs and to take a critical stance during periods of high mobilization of anti-GMO movements. Additionally, we hypothesize that the presence of a Green party in the national party system may make a difference. The findings provide insights into mainstream parties’ behaviour on niche issues and information for the scientific community about how political parties may become less hostile towards GMOs.
AB - Social and environmental scientists usually argue that political parties hold hostile positions towards GMOs, yet we are confronted with a lack of systematic comparative analyses in the West European context. Conducting a quantitative content analysis of 265 election manifestos in seven Western European countries from 1990 until 2020, we test this assumption and explore the salience of GMOs in election manifestos and the positions of political parties on this domain. Our findings reveal that GMOs are neither a particular salient nor ignored issue by political parties and that most party families do tend to reject GMOs. Mainstream parties are more likely to talk about GMOs and to take a critical stance during periods of high mobilization of anti-GMO movements. Additionally, we hypothesize that the presence of a Green party in the national party system may make a difference. The findings provide insights into mainstream parties’ behaviour on niche issues and information for the scientific community about how political parties may become less hostile towards GMOs.
KW - content analysis
KW - election manifestos
KW - environmental politics
KW - GMO
KW - party behaviour
KW - Political parties
KW - regression analysis
KW - Politics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85136820073&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/ee9ec9d1-1e2a-302c-9b0a-fc81e50427f1/
U2 - 10.1080/23251042.2022.2115654
DO - 10.1080/23251042.2022.2115654
M3 - Journal articles
AN - SCOPUS:85136820073
VL - 9
SP - 93
EP - 106
JO - Environmental Sociology
JF - Environmental Sociology
SN - 2325-1042
IS - 1
ER -