Liberalism, Environmentalism, and Partisanship in Public Policy-Making

Abstract

This article examines the effects of partisanship, liberalism, environmental concern, and issue salience on both the general policy preferences and the actual voting behavior of administrative officials in a state agency concerned with land use and natural resources management. Building upon earlier studies of interest groups and legislative bodies, this analysis of the members of the California Coastal Commissions suggests several refinements in current thinking about the relation of environmental concern to traditional ideological and partisan cleavages. First, while our findings confirm the association found in most previous elite studies between liberalism and support for protection of natural resources, they also indicate that it is only two of the three components of liberalism that are relevant-government regulation of the market and local government autonomy as opposed to attitudes toward the welfare state. Second, party identification proves of minimal value in explaining the policy preferences and actual behavior of administrative officials.