Alexander F. Gazmararian

Excited to share that I’ve joined the University of Michigan as an Assistant Professor of Political Science!

I’ll continue to study the political economy of climate change, and I’m so grateful to the mentors, colleagues, friends, and family who helped me along the way.

Go Blue!

Valuing the Future: Changing Time Horizons and Policy Preferences - Political Behavior The short time horizons of citizens are a prominent explanation for why governments fail to tackle significant long-term public policy problems. Evidence for the influence of time horizons is mixed, c...

This article combines panel data + DiD + experiments to provide new causal evidence on how life experiences shape time horizons and climate policy support.

You can read it here (open access): link.springer.com/article/10.1...

I ran falsification tests to rule out alternative explanations (i.e., risk preferences, altruism).

Then I conducted two experiments: prompting people to think about their kids increased their future focus, which in turn boosted support for climate policy.

I analyze a 9,500-person panel surveyed 3 times over 6 years.

With a difference-in-differences + panel matching approach, I find:

→ New parents become more supportive of climate policy than their otherwise similar peers.

It’s challenging to study how time horizons affect policy views because how much we value the future isn’t randomly assigned.

I approach this issue by leveraging a personal life event that plausibly shifts future focus: becoming a parent.

Valuing the Future: Changing Time Horizons and Policy Preferences - Political Behavior The short time horizons of citizens are a prominent explanation for why governments fail to tackle significant long-term public policy problems. Evidence for the influence of time horizons is mixed, c...

Excited to share my new article in Political Behavior!

If people cared more about the future, would they support policies to address long-term issues like climate change?

tldr: Life experiences shape future-orientation and climate policy support.

Open-access: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Valuing the Future: Changing Time Horizons and Policy Preferences - Political Behavior The short time horizons of citizens are a prominent explanation for why governments fail to tackle significant long-term public policy problems. Evidence for the influence of time horizons is mixed, c...

This paper uses experimental data to test mechanisms behind an observational finding: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Excited to announce a new funding opportunity for research on "what works" in climate adaptation. We are specifically looking for strong causal designs that tell us what interventions work (or don't) to reduce impacts of a changing climate. Plz share + apply!
seedfunding.stanford.edu/apply/U5N4

ABSTRACT Popular debates about political barriers to the clean energy transition increasingly acknowledge the mass public’s role, but often summarize its importance with amorphous concepts like ‘political’ or ‘public will.’ This essay clarifies how the public’s beliefs, preferences, and behaviors affect the clean energy transition through three channels: policymaker incentives, electoral selection, and technology adoption and siting. In turn, we consider how energy and climate policy design can influence the mass public’s preferences, emphasizing cost and benefit visibility, public perceptions of distributional effects, and cross-domain policy linkages. Drawing from our framework, we outline priorities for public opinion research on the clean energy transition.

New!

Public opinion foundations of the clean energy transition by
Alexander F. Gazmararian, Matto Mildenberger & Dustin Tingley.

This review article clarifies how public opinion's role in the clean energy transition, & charts priorities for future research.

doi.org/10.1080/0964...

The Republican tax and budget bill could sharply slow E.V. sales, harm US competitiveness, and kill off manufacturing investment and jobs, the NY Times reports www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/b...

For more, see our REPEAT Project analysis cited in the Times ⤵️

Home Order Now: Amazon, Barnes & Noble (Print/eBook); Cambridge University Press (PDF) Political scientists Alexander F. Gazmararian at Princeton and Dustin Tingley at Harvard have a pathbreaking new book...

Uncertain Futures, written as the IRA was finalized, cautioned about the risks of policy reversal as the political pendulum swings

uncertainfuturesbook.com

nytimes.com/2025/05/23/b...

While some GOP House members wrote letters, in the end, none would tank the whole bill to save the IRA's EV incentives.

Screenshot of paper abstract

It's so cool to see this paper in print!

Relevant if you're interested in:

- The domestic politics of stopping global warming

- How voters understand their changing economic circumstances

- The erosion of working-class support for Democrats

www.journals.uchicago.edu/eprint/HBDCS...

Unfortunately, all Census TIGER/Line and cartographic boundary shapefiles are down as of this evening.

This means that the tigris #rstats and pygris #Python packages will not work, and geometry support in tidycensus will also fail.

The Census API, for now, is still up.

Tomorrow's the deadline for the Climate Pipeline Conference!

Updated paper ⬇️ on how vulnerability moderates political responses to climate shocks. Check it out!

osf.io/preprints/os...

Application deadline closes on January 31 for *2025's Climate Pipeline Workshop* at Princeton University. May 9, 2025.

It's designed for pre-tenure political scientists.

harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

Thanks!

Valuing the Future: Changing Time Horizons and Policy Preferences - Political Behavior The short time horizons of citizens are a prominent explanation for why governments fail to tackle significant long-term public policy problems. Evidence for the influence of time horizons is mixed, c...

Time horizons matter, and they can change. Parenthood makes people more likely to support climate action, in part because it extends their time horizon. Great work from Alex Gazmarian link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Great paper on this:

Some new research on how time horizons affect policy preferences.

Tldr: it's possible to lengthen time horizons and increase support for climate policy

Open access: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Really excited to host @agazmararian.bsky.social and Helen Milner at UCSB Department of Political Science and @the2035initiative.bsky.social to workshop their book "Climate Fault Lines" and talk about future of climate politics domestically and internationally over two action-packed days.

Please apply by Jan 31 to 2025's Climate Pipeline Workshop at Princeton University, held on May 9, 2025. Designed for pre-tenure political scientists

Cc @climatesollab.bsky.social @dustintingley.bsky.social @agazmararian.bsky.social

harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

So kind! Thank you!

Will post a thread in the days to come. In the meantime, I'm very grateful for all of the tremendous feedback and support I received along the way!

Thrilled to share that my paper on electoral backlash in coal country---and the politics of visibility---has been conditionally accepted at JOP! papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The American Energy Society on LinkedIn: It's Energy Awards Week - each year, AES (www.energysoc... It's Energy Awards Week - each year, AES (www.energysociety.org) spotlights the most extraordinary contributions to energy and sustainability in the…

Honored that the American Energy Society recognized Uncertain Futures with a "Best Book" award!

www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

Polisky

Check out our updated paper on when governments respond to climate change with mitigation policy papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

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