Disempowered by Design: Political Efficacy and the Roots of Climate Skepticism

Abstract: Public resistance to climate action is typically explained by entrenched ideology, elite cueing, or information deficits. This paper challenges that causal ordering, proposing instead that ideological identity is not a starting point but a psychological adaptation to upstream political disempowerment. Drawing on national panel data and a supplemental framing experiment, we show that perceived external efficacy—the belief that political institutions are unresponsive—serves as a primary driver of both conservative identification and opposition to environmental regulation. Structural models reveal that nearly half the effect of efficacy on climate attitudes is mediated by ideology, and that this pathway is most pronounced under low institutional trust. By reorienting climate skepticism as a rational response to perceived democratic futility, rather than ignorance or partisanship, the study offers a general theory of belief formation with implications beyond the climate domain. Crucially, this reordering exposes the limits of standard interventions based on education or elite messaging. If identity is downstream of disempowerment, then efforts to persuade without restoring agency may misfire. Our findings suggest that restoring civic agency may be a necessary precondition for effective engagement on collective problems.