Constructing a ‘Representative Claim’ for Action on Climate Change: Evidence from Interviews with Politicians
| Date | 01 November 2018 |
| Published date | 01 November 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321717753723 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321717753723
Political Studies
2018, Vol. 66(4) 940 –958
© The Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0032321717753723
journals.sagepub.com/home/psx
Constructing a ‘Representative
Claim’ for Action on Climate
Change: Evidence from
Interviews with Politicians
Rebecca Willis
Abstract
At the 2015 Paris Summit, global leaders agreed a strategy to tackle climate change. Under
the agreement, each country must prepare a national plan. What challenges does this pose for
politicians? How do they reconcile their representative role with understandings of climate change
and measures required to address it? This article analyses interviews with UK politicians, through
the framework of the ‘representative claim’ developed by Michael Saward, seeing representation
as a dynamic interaction between politicians and those they claim to represent. Thus, politicians
need to construct a ‘representative claim’ to justify action on climate. Four different types of
claims are identified: a ‘cosmopolitan’ claim, a ‘local prevention’ claim, a ‘co-benefits’ claim and a
‘surrogate’ claim. The analysis shows that it is not straightforward for a politician to argue that
action is in the interests of their electorate and that climate advocates need to support efforts to
construct and defend claims.
Keywords
climate change, politicians, representation, United Kingdom, interviews
Accepted: 18 December 2017
Introduction
The scientific consensus on climate change is strong, and evidence points to the need to
take action to drastically reduce emissions of greenhouses gases (Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2014). At the Paris summit in 2015, 195 world leaders
agreed to act, with each country committing to a national plan for emission reduction.
National politicians, therefore, have responsibility for developing their country’s plan,
putting in place the strategies, policies and incentives necessary to facilitate emission
reductions.
Department of Sociology and Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
Corresponding author:
Rebecca Willis, Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YN, UK.
Email: r.willis@lancaster.ac.uk
753723PSX0010.1177/0032321717753723Political StudiesWillis
research-article2018
Article
Willis 941
But how does this political commitment to act on climate change link to democratic
representation at the national or local level? The scientific case may be made, but ques-
tions remain as to how (or indeed whether) this fits with a politician’s mandate as an
elected representative, given that public concern about climate change is low compared
to other political issues (Pidgeon, 2012). This article considers action on climate change
through the lens of political representation and presents evidence from a set of interviews
with Members of the UK Parliament (MPs).
The article begins with a discussion of political representation, particularly the theory
of the ‘representative claim’ developed by Michael Saward (2010). Saward sees represen-
tation not as a static fact but as a dynamic relationship between a representative and the
represented. The politician must put forward a claim, which may be accepted, rejected or
ignored by those that he or she represents.
This theoretical lens is used to analyse the way in which politicians reconcile their
representative role with their understanding of the need for political action on climate
change. Data are taken from 14 interviews carried out in 2016. The interviews show that
climate change poses a representation dilemma for politicians. While they acknowledge
that action on climate change is necessary, they report little or no pressure from their
electorate to speak or act on the issue. Politicians shape the way that they talk about and
act on climate, crafting the issue in a way that they feel will be meaningful to those they
see themselves as representing, in order to justify their actions and garner support. In
other words, they make a ‘representative claim’. Doing this is not straightforward, given
the complex nature of the problem and the low levels of public concern.
Among the politicians interviewed, four different types of representative claim were
identified. First, some MPs make a cosmopolitan claim, saying that it is in the interests of
the human species as a whole to act, and therefore, it should be a concern for all politi-
cians. Second, some frame the issue as a local prevention claim, in which they assert that
action is necessary to prevent impacts such as flooding in their local area. Third, some
point to the economic or social benefits arising from taking action on climate change,
such as jobs created in renewable energy industries. This can be called a co-benefits
claim, as politicians are claiming that such action helps towards tackling climate change,
as well as bringing other specific local benefits. Last, some politicians judge that they
cannot speak out on climate change because a direct claim would be opposed or ignored.
Instead, they make what might be called a surrogate claim, in which climate change is not
explicitly mentioned. Instead, other reasons are given for measures which the politician
privately believes will help to tackle climate change.
The interviews show that politicians feel constrained in acting on climate change, but
some nonetheless find ways of building a representative claim. The article concludes with
a discussion of the implications of this analysis for the theory of representative claims and
suggests ways in which politicians could be better supported to act on climate change.
Although the politics and governance of climate change has been discussed exten-
sively, across the fields of political studies and international relations (see, for example,
Giddens, 2009; Underdal, 2017), there has been relatively little attention to the ways in
which politicians, as crucial actors within political systems, understand or respond to the
issue (Rickards et al., 2014). This article contributes to a greater understanding of the
specific role of politicians, supplementing the accounts of governance and political sys-
tems described above. In doing so, it tests empirically a contemporary theory of represen-
tation, contributing to a greater understanding of the representative role of elected
politicians.
To continue reading
Request your trial