by Chris Koski & Paul Manson
Public attitudes toward solar radiation management, geoengineering, cultural theory, and partisanship in US climate policy are at the centre of Not Yet Partisan: Cultural Theory Explains Attitudes about Solar Radiation Management in the US, by Chris Koski (Reed College) and Paul Manson (Portland State University), recently published in Policy & Politics.
Solar radiation management (SRM) remains a low-salience and poorly understood climate intervention in the United States. Unlike carbon taxes or emissions regulations, SRM has not yet been fully absorbed into entrenched partisan conflict. Koski and Manson use this “pre-partisan” moment to ask a theoretically significant question: when elite cues are weak, what structures public opinion?
Solar radiation management in a low-information environment
Drawing on a nationally representative survey of 3,210 US adults conducted in 2022, the authors confirm that awareness of SRM is extremely limited. After respondents are presented with a vignette explaining stratospheric aerosol injection and its potential risks and benefits, moderate support emerges for laboratory research, declining support for field trials and emergency deployment, and very limited support for immediate use.
Crucially, partisanship proves to be a weak and inconsistent predictor of SRM attitudes. Republicans are not systematically more supportive than Democrats, nor are they uniformly opposed. In contrast to conventional mitigation policies—such as carbon taxes, emissions regulation, or redistributive green investment—SRM does not yet follow established partisan cleavages.
Cultural theory as explanation
The article brings cultural theory into direct dialogue with climate policy scholarship. Cultural theory distinguishes between two foundational dimensions of belief: group (the extent to which individuals see themselves as embedded in collective social units) and grid (attitudes toward authority and externally imposed rules). These combine into four orientations—egalitarianism, hierarchism, individualism, and fatalism—which have long been used to explain environmental risk perception.
Here, cultural affinities matter considerably. The group dimension is particularly influential. Individuals with stronger group orientations—especially those aligned with egalitarianism—are more supportive of SRM research and emergency deployment. Hierarchical orientations also predict support, albeit somewhat less strongly. By contrast, those low in affinity for authority, particularly individualists, are more likely to favour never using SRM. Fatalist orientations show weaker and less consistent effects.
These findings suggest that, in a low-information setting without clear partisan cues, relational worldviews provide the scaffolding for opinion formation. Cultural theory offers analytical leverage precisely where partisan heuristics are underdeveloped.
Implications for climate policy scholarship
The contrast with mitigation policies reinforces this interpretation. When respondents evaluate carbon taxes or cap-and-trade systems, partisanship reasserts itself as a dominant predictor, with Republicans consistently opposed and Democrats more supportive.
Koski and Manson therefore capture a potentially transitional moment in American climate politics. Solar radiation management occupies a rare space in which attitudes are not yet rigidly polarised. Whether this status will persist is uncertain, particularly given evidence that partisan cues can rapidly shape opinion once introduced. Nonetheless, the article demonstrates the continued value of cultural theory for understanding how publics respond to emergent, high-uncertainty policy domains before they harden into familiar partisan divides.
You can read the original research in Policy & Politics at
Koski, C., & Manson, P. (2026). Not yet partisan: Cultural Theory explains attitudes about solar radiation management in the US. Policy & Politics (published online ahead of print 2026) from https://doi.org/10.1332/03055736Y2026D000000092
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