Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Given the importance of climate change controversies in our society, inferences drawn from examining the way in which policymakers and business leaders form their preferences toward sustainable energy policy are important to craft future policy directions. In this paper, we attempt to identify individual-level determinants that shape sustainable energy policy adoption decisions, utilizing the grid-group cultural theory (CT) of policy preference formation posited by Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky. Through an analysis of data collected from a statewide survey of 420 local policy elites in more than 50 Arkansas cities in 2014, we found that strong egalitarians are more likely to support various sustainable energy policies in their communities, whereas strong individualists are less likely to support such policies. While policymakers and business leaders with a strong hierarch proclivity are more likely to support energy efficiency and renewable energy solutions at the local level, their support was not as strong as egalitarian elites’. Meanwhile, fatalism was not a significant dimension of cultural predisposition in the formation of sustainable energy policy preferences among the local elites.