The Tea Party versus Agenda 21: local groups and sustainability policies in U.S. cities

ABSTRACT

As local governments have moved toward adopting sustainability policies, there have been some cases where local Tea Parties have emerged as aggressive and strident opponents of such changes. Looking broadly at the Tea Party movement across the United States and systematically measuring its influence in urban America, we assess each Tea Party chapter’s capacity – its ability to convert resources into meaningful political advocacy. Data is derived from surveys of political elites in 50 cities as well as from determining the level of sustainability programming in each of these same cities. Evidence demonstrates that the Tea Party has not had a significant impact on city policymaking in the area of sustainability. Rather, the typical Tea Party chapter appears to be at best a modest presence in local politics.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainability
• environmental politics
• Tea Party
• Local Agenda 21

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Since ours were elite interviews, the sequence of questions and wording of questions is not precisely the same in each interview. However, all interviewees were asked a general question about sustainability. We then asked a question about whether the chapter did anything on Agenda 21. We also asked about any work the chapter did on the environment and global climate change. There were probes and follow-ups to some of the answers to these questions. All of this together gave us a good idea of what each chapter was doing in the broad area of sustainability and environmental protection

2. The rankings and associated Sustainability Index Scores of American cities we use come from Portney’s (2013) ongoing analyses of the largest 55 cities in the United States. The most current ratings and Index Scores can be found at the Our Green Cities web site, http://ourgreencities.com:80/.

3. See, for example, ‘What is Agenda 21?’, at TeaParty911’s site: http://www.teaparty911.com/issues/what_is_agenda_21.htm. Accessed 5 July 2016.