About

Parrish Bergquist is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Political Science Department. She studies the political determinants of environmental policy in the US and abroad, with a particular focus on public will and political behavior. Her research explores the development of attitudes and policy views about climate change and the environment, how public environmental concern is activated within the political system, and the drivers and consequences of state-level climate policies in the polarized US political context. Throughout her work, she aims to develop and test theories on polarization, public opinion, persuasion, and mobilization, applying these theories to address contemporary policy challenges. Her research has been published in scholarly outlets including the Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Nature Climate Change, Nature Energy, and Environmental Research Letters. She teaches courses in environmental politics, public policy, and statistical methods, with an emphasis on helping students apply theories and insights from political science, sociology, and economics to a wide range of public policy topics. Bergquist received her PhD from MIT in political science and urban studies & planning in 2019.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Geography
• History
• Psychology
• Art history
• Archaeology
• Statistics
• Ecology
• Economic growth
• Public economics
• Mathematics
• Economics

Selected publications

• Survey sampling in the Global South using Facebook advertisements – CORRIGENDUM

  Political Science Research and Methods · 2025-05-14

  erratumOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Public attitudes and community engagement in large-scale solar siting

  Environmental Research Letters · 2025-09-15 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Large-scale solar (LSS) systems represent an increasing share of energy infrastructure in the United States. The number of LSS systems is expected to continue to grow, and such expansion will require support from local communities that are asked to host new projects. Here, we perform a systematic literature review of studies that evaluate: (1) the factors that shape the perception, acceptance, and opposition of LSS; and (2) the role of stakeholders and community engagement in current LSS siting conflicts. Our review of the literature finds that local communities have complex, location-specific opinions and attitudes towards solar projects. Shaped by project characteristics such as size, land use type, and project ownership type, people value local benefits such as jobs, reduced pollution, increased tax revenue, and local ownership, and are critical of highly localized burdens such as impacts to the local landscape. We further find that scholars promote early and direct communication of potential benefits and tradeoffs, as well as an inclusive decision-making process and engagement activities that reflect community values and build trust. Our review reveals that further research is needed to investigate the roles and impacts of: (1) emerging LSS configurations such as solar plus storage hybrids and LSS projects paired with transmission and substation additions; (2) evolving LSS stakeholder groups including landowners, agricultural industry, and the media; and (3) causal relationships between public perceptions, community engagement activities, and project outcomes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• How publics in small-island states view climate change and international responses to it

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2025-07-25 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  Climate change caused by carbon pollution from the world's largest economies poses an existential threat to small-island states and territories this century. These places bear virtually no responsibility for climate change but will face sea-level rise, fresh water resource degradation, and intensified storms that will kill or dislocate exposed publics, and damage local economies. To alleviate this crisis, the global community has begun discussing who is responsible for climate mitigation and adaptation costs for those affected by climate change, in addition to continued debates around the distribution of responsibility for climate change. Missing from this analysis, however, are systematic efforts to elicit the preferences and perceptions of publics in these threatened small-island states and territories. Here, we report results from a large-sample (n [Formula: see text] 14,710) cross-national survey of publics living in climate-vulnerable states and territories, conducted in June-July 2022. By quota sampling through Facebook's ad platform, we generate survey samples at the national or territorial level for publics in 55 small-island states, territories, and subnational regions in the South Pacific, Indian Ocean, and Caribbean. We find widespread awareness and concern about the threat posed by climate change and sea-level rise, in contrast to what existing research finds in the Global North. We also find that climate-vulnerable publics believe their home governments, large polluters, and former colonial powers are all responsible for helping to manage the climate crisis, irrespective of these actors' relative carbon emissions. These findings fill an important gap by depicting climate beliefs among the communities at the frontlines of climate change.

  PublisherDOI

• Survey sampling in the Global South using Facebook advertisements

  Political Science Research and Methods · 2025-04-02 · 9 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  Abstract Survey research in the Global South has traditionally required large budgets and lengthy fieldwork. The expansion of digital connectivity presents an opportunity for researchers to engage global subject pools and study settings where in-person contact is challenging. This paper evaluates Facebook advertisements as a tool to recruit diverse survey samples in the Global South. Using Facebook’s advertising platform, we quota-sample respondents in Mexico, Kenya, and Indonesia and assess how well these samples perform on a range of survey indicators, identify sources of bias, replicate a canonical experiment, and highlight trade-offs for researchers to consider. This method can quickly and cheaply recruit respondents, but these samples tend to be more educated than corresponding national populations. Weighting ameliorates sample imbalances. This method generates comparable data to a commercial online sample for a fraction of the cost. Our analysis demonstrates the potential of Facebook advertisements to cost-effectively conduct research in diverse settings.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Global geographic variation in climate concern at national and sub-national scales

  2025-06-30

  preprintOpen access

  Addressing global climate change requires policy action by governments in every country and at every geographic scale. Yet, we lack systematic data on climate change opinions around the world, particularly at the sub-national scales critical to many policy processes. Here, we model country and sub-national concern about climate change using a Bayesian item response theory model. We draw on almost 3.9 million survey responses from 97 surveys conducted between 2002 and 2023. We estimate public concern about climate change in 166 countries and 2,188 sub-national regions, representing 97.9% of the global population. Our results indicate substantial heterogeneity in climate concern, both nationally and sub-nationally. We highlight strong sub-national heterogeneity in climate concern in some of the countries most pivotal to global climate action, contrasted with relative homogeneity in other places. Our findings offer an important resource for policymakers, scientists, advocates, and educators working to address climate change and plan for its impacts.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Replication Data for: Examining the Effect of Cost Information and Framing on Support for Methane Regulations in Europe

  Harvard Dataverse · 2023-05-29

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  survey data and code for survey of attitudes about methane regulation in Poland, Italy, Germany, and France

  PublisherDOI

• How climate policy commitments influence energy systems and the economies of US states

  Nature Communications · 2023-08-10 · 45 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In the United States, state governments have been the locus of action for addressing climate change. However, the lack of a holistic measure of state climate policy has prevented a comprehensive assessment of state policies' effectiveness. Here, we assemble information from 25 individual policies to develop an aggregate index of state climate policies from 2000-2020. The climate policy index highlights variation between states which is difficult to assess in single policy studies. Next, we examine the environmental and economic consequences of state climate policy. A standard-deviation increase in climate policy is associated with a 5% reduction in per-capita electricity-sector CO2 emissions and a 2% reduction in economy-wide CO2 emissions per capita. We do not find evidence that more stringent climate policy harms states' economies. Our results make clear the benefits of state climate policy, while showing that current state efforts are unlikelyto meet the US goal under the Paris Climate Accord.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Examining the effect of cost information and framing on support for methane regulations in Europe

  Environmental Research Letters · 2023-08-23

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Methane abatement policies will play an important role in mitigating climate change given the high global-warming potential of methane compared to carbon dioxide. Yet evidence on public attitudes and support for methane regulations is lacking. In partnership with the Clean Air Task Force, we develop an original nationally representative survey of four European countries ( N = 5629) to show variation in public opinions about methane emissions and policy to reduce them. Using a framing experiment, we test variation in these preferences as a function of policy impacts on cost, global climate change, local pollution, or energy security. We find largely null effects across the board: attitudes are remarkably durable to varying treatments, suggesting that support for methane regulations is not sensitive to cost information and policy framing. The results from this survey provide a much-needed baseline for public attitudes about methane abatement and will inform existing debates on what information is and is not effective in generating support for ambitious methane policy.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Replication Data for: How climate policy commitments influence energy systems and the economies of US States

  Harvard Dataverse · 2023-06-14

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Data and code for replicating the analysis presented in "How climate policy commitments influence energy systems and the economy of US States," conditionally accepted at Nature Communications

  PublisherDOI

• Information about the human causes of global warming influences causal attribution, concern, and policy support related to global warming

  Thinking & Reasoning · 2022-07-03 · 27 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Scientists know that human activities, primarily fossil fuel combustion, are causing Earth’s temperature to increase. Yet in 2021, only 60% of the US population understood that human activities are the primary cause of global warming. We experimentally test whether information about the human causes of global warming influences Americans’ beliefs and concerns about global warming and support for climate policies. We find that communicating information about the human-causes of global warming increases public understanding that global warming is human-caused. This information, both alone and with additional information about climate impacts and policy solutions, also increases public concern about global warming and support for climate policies, although the effects on climate concern and policy support are smaller. Importantly, the treatment effects are consistent across political party, with no backlash effects among Republicans. This suggests that when informed about climate change causes, impacts and solutions, most Americans can update their own climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, and policy support.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Matto Mildenberger

  39 shared

• Leah Stokes

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  32 shared

• Anthony Leiserowitz

  Yale University

  21 shared

• Edward Maibach

  George Mason University

  19 shared

• Seth A. Rosenthal

  18 shared

• John Kotcher

  George Mason University

  17 shared

• Abel Gustafson

  16 shared

• Matthew H. Goldberg

  13 shared