About

Sarah E. Anderson is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She specializes in environmental politics and American politics, with her academic affiliation also extending to the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. Her work focuses on understanding the political dimensions of environmental issues and the interplay between environmental policies and political processes. She is based in Santa Barbara, CA, and can be contacted via her email at sanderson@bren.ucsb.edu. Her office is located in Bren 4510, and she is involved in undergraduate advising and departmental activities.

Research topics

• Biology
• Environmental resource management
• Environmental science
• Geography
• Ecology

Selected publications

• The primary election study 2024 dataset on U.S. Senate primary elections

  Data in Brief · 2026-04-09

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This article describes the Primary Election Study (PES), a survey dataset designed to facilitate the study of voter behavior, attitudes, and decision-making in U.S. primary elections. The PES was fielded during the 2024 U.S. Senate primary elections in California, Michigan, and Nevada and includes both representative samples of the adult population and large oversamples of likely primary voters. The study collected data from 8124 respondents through a pre-election survey administered in the weeks leading up to each state's primary contest. The dataset contains detailed measures of candidate evaluations, issue priorities, partisan attitudes, political engagement, and validated turnout, allowing researchers to distinguish between reported voting intentions and verified participation. Survey weights are provided to support analyses of statewide populations, likely primary electorates, and combined samples. The PES addresses limitations of existing election surveys by capturing voter preferences contemporaneously with primary elections and by ensuring adequate statistical power for analyses of primary electorates. These data are suitable for research on electoral behavior, political polarization, representation, and democratic accountability, as well as for teaching and methodological replication.

  PublisherDOI

• Transparency by Chinese cities reduces pollution violations and improves air quality

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2025-04-04 · 14 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  We provide national-scale experimental evidence from China showing that transparency by local governments improves the management of air pollution. Governments that perform better have more reasons to be transparent, making the causal relationship between transparency and policy outcomes difficult to disentangle. In 2015, we randomly assigned municipal governments in China to a high-visibility, public rating of their adherence to national requirements for transparency about their regulation of pollution. By 2016, this treatment significantly boosted transparency in treated cities relative to control cities, allowing us to observe the effect of randomly increasing transparency in the years that followed. Subsequently, high-polluting firms in treated cities cut their violations by 37% compared to similar firms in control cities. Inspections by local governments increased by about 90% in treated cities relative to control cities. Ambient air pollution decreased between 8 and 10% in treated cities relative to control cities, which likely generated significant health benefits. This study provides strong evidence that governmental transparency causes improved environmental quality, at least in a setting where the public and higher governments want to hold local governments accountable.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Fines and financial penalties in Scotland

  2025-07-02

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• Correction: Information and Perceptions of Electability in Primary Elections

  UNC Libraries · 2025-08-28

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Sources of Candidate Fundraising Affect Perceptions of Electability

  American Politics Research · 2025-08-13

  article1st author

  The amount of money flowing in political campaigns in the U.S. has increased dramatically in recent years. Campaign fundraising can provide several signals to voters—especially in primary elections where voters may be considering the electability of candidates in the general election. We conduct a survey experiment to distinguish whether funds influence electability perceptions because they are a war chest of resources that a candidate can use in the general election or because funds signal the candidate’s ability to draw in public support. The results of our survey experiment show that self-funding is less effective than money from donors at increasing primary voters’ perceptions of candidate electability. Our results provide insights into how news coverage on the sources of fundraising might mitigate advantages that self-funded candidates might otherwise have.

  PublisherDOI

• Correction: Information and Perceptions of Electability in Primary Elections

  Political Behavior · 2025-08-20

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Information and Perceptions of Electability in Primary Elections

  UNC Libraries · 2025-08-28

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Triangulating habitat suitability for the locally extirpated California grizzly bear

  Biological Conservation · 2025-02-07 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Information and Perceptions of Electability in Primary Elections

  Political Behavior · 2025-06-18 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st author

  Abstract When citizens vote in primary elections, they have good reason to consider each candidate’s electability —the chances of winning the general election if they become their party’s nominee. Although electability perceptions are potentially a critical determinant of who wins, little is known about how voters form such perceptions. Using a pre-registered survey experiment conducted on voters in advance of several real competitive senatorial and gubernatorial primary elections in 2022, we examine three candidate attributes that plausibly shape and are correlated with voters’ perceptions of electability: ideological moderation, experience in elected office, and campaign fundraising success. We find evidence that providing new information about candidate attributes affects perceptions of electability, with fundraising being most important. Subsequent analysis shows that this effect is largely driven by Republican voters. Our results highlight the need to better understand differences across the parties in perceptions of electability and how voters learn about campaign finance information.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Social Inequity and Wildfire Response: Identifying Gaps and Interventions in Ventura County, California

  Fire · 2024-01-28 · 12 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  As climate change increases the frequency and severity of wildfires across the Western U.S., there is an urgent need for improved wildfire preparedness and responses. Socially marginalized communities are particularly vulnerable to wildfire effects because they disproportionately lack access to the resources necessary to prepare for and recover from wildfire and are frequently underrepresented in the wildfire planning process. As an exemplar of how to understand and improve preparedness in such communities, this research identified communities in Ventura County facing heightened marginalization and risk of wildfire using spatial analysis. Researchers then deployed a county-wide survey and held focus groups in two communities identified in the spatial analysis. Research revealed that non-English speakers, women, people of color, and newer residents in Ventura County are less prepared for wildfire than other groups. Based on these findings, this paper recommends an expansion of traditional risk mitigation programs, strengthened community engagement efforts, and strategies that increase community resources and leadership to decouple marginalization and wildfire vulnerability.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Bing Zhang

  Nanjing University

  25 shared

• Mengdi Liu

  25 shared

• Daniel M. Butler

  Washington University in St. Louis

  16 shared

• Mark Buntaine

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  13 shared

• Laurel Harbridge‐Yong

  Northwestern University

  13 shared

• Gary D. Libecap

  10 shared

• Heather Hodges

  LSVT Global (United States)

  9 shared

• Andrew J. Plantinga

  9 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Political Science

  Stanford University

  2006