Beyond Proximity: Representational Isolation and Emotional Response in Climate Politics

March 31, 2026·
Frauke Riebe
,
L. Constantin Wurthmann
Lukas Hetzer
Lukas Hetzer
· 0 min read
Link
Abstract
This paper examines how perceived political (mis)representation in climate policy is associated with citizens’ emotional responses. Using original survey data from Germany (N = 879), we analyse how preferences on a newly formulated climate-freedom trade-off – prioritising climate protection versus preserving personal freedoms – relate to climate anxiety. Beyond the established minimal-distance approach, we introduce the concept of representational isolation, capturing situations in which individuals place themselves outside the range of all perceived party positions. Our results indicate that minimal ideological distance is not significantly associated with climate anxiety, contrary to conventional expectations. By contrast, representational isolation is linked to distinct emotional patterns: individuals holding more climate-protective views than any party report higher levels of climate anxiety, while those prioritising personal freedoms more than any party report lower levels. These results are robust across model specifications and when replicated with the conventional climate-growth measure.
Type
Publication
Representation, 1–20
publications
Lukas Hetzer
Authors
Research Associate

I am a Research Associate at the Jacques Delors Centre at the Hertie School and part of the DFG-funded Research Unit “Reconfiguring Europe: Between Competence and Control”, where I work on the Coordination Project. I am also completing my PhD in Political Science at the University of Cologne.

My research focuses on European politics, political communication, public opinion, and crisis governance. I am particularly interested in how citizens, political actors, and institutions respond to political crises and broader political challenges, and how these responses shape European integration, political representation, and institutional change.

Methodologically, I work at the intersection of political science and computational social science. I use large-scale text data, computational text analysis, advanced survey designs, and (quasi-)experiments to study political discourse, public opinion, and political behaviour. I am also interested in building, linking, and analysing large-scale political datasets, particularly institutional text data from parliaments and EU institutions.

Before joining the Hertie School, I worked as a doctoral researcher at the University of Cologne and at GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, where I worked on election research and data-based knowledge transfer. I also held research assistant positions at the University of Amsterdam, Ghent University, and Humboldt University of Berlin. I hold an M.Sc. in Social Sciences Research from the University of Amsterdam and a B.Sc. in Social Sciences from Humboldt University of Berlin.

I also teach courses on quantitative methods, EU politics, and crisis politics.

Please feel free to explore my work and get in touch.