Environmental Racism and the “Action Gap”:
Assessing White and Minority Commitment to Environmental Causes
Shaun Bowler
Professor
Department of Political Science
University of California, Riverside
Watkins Hall 2225
Riverside, CA 92521
Gary M. Segura
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
University of Iowa
341 Schaeffer Hall
Iowa City, IA 52242
Matthew Whittaker
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Political Science
University of Iowa
341 Schaeffer Hall
Iowa City, IA 52242
Prepared for Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science
Association, January 8-10, 2004. Authors’ names are presented alphabetically, and their
email addresses are shaunb@citrus.ucr.edu, gary-segura@uiowa.edu, and matthew-
whittaker@uiowa.edu, respectively. Questions and correspondence should be directed to
Gary M. Segura.
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Abstract
In this paper, we examine the question of whether there is an “action gap”
between non-Hispanic whites and racial and ethnic minorities over questions of the
environment. A hierarchy of needs approach would suggest that minorities would be less
involved, whereas an environmental deprivation argument would yield expectations of
greater minority action.
Using survey data from California in 2002, we find that Latinos and African-
Americans are consistently more likely to be concerned about environmental problems.
Further, there appears to be little or no action gap between these groups and whites, as
multivariate estimates find no direct effects. However, we do find evidence that Latino
levels of action are, overall, less sensitive to their levels of concern, as evidenced by a
negative and significant interaction effect. That is, Latino and white levels of action are
approximately the same despite higher levels of environmental concern among Latinos.
We call this finding the motivation gap.
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Environmental Racism and the “Action Gap”:
Assessing White and Minority Commitment to Environmental Causes
After successfully blocki