Cycnos | Volume 32.2- Les guerres culturelles aux États-Unis | V. Guerres culturelles : le climat en question

Résumé :

International audience

This article assesses the validity of the hypothesis of the culture wars and takes the political controversy over climate change as its case study. It is currently a well-established scientific fact that climate change is real and man-made and that it will have far-reaching detrimental repercussions across the globe should nothing be done to slow down its progress. In the US political arena, however, the fight is far from over, prompting commentators to describe this political controversy as a new front in the American culture wars as analyzed by James Davison Hunter in the early 1990s. This article ultimately examines this culture war as a way of portraying the state of US public opinion and tests the theories of political scientist Morris P. Fiorina which question the validity of such an approach. lt thus seeks to demonstrate the clear discrepancy between the political class and public opinion as a whole as far as climate change is concerned, and concludes by suggesting that the culture war approach may remain relevant if applied, in a more limited fashion, only to the political class.

Mots-clés : American politics, climate change, climate skepticism, culture wars, political class, public opinion

Date de publication : 2016