Do liberals oppose genetically modified organisms more than conservatives?

There has been recent talk about GMOs and political orientation recently. Keith Kloor has pointers to the appropriate places. The general impression on all sides seems to be that elite voices against genetically modified organisms are on the Left. To my knowledge this is correct, especially in the United States. But is this true more broadly? We can use the General Social Survey to explore this further. It has a series of questions relating to genetically modified organisms. All except one were asked in 2006 (the exception was 2010).

For replication here are the variables:

Row: EATGM POLINFGM BIZINFGM MEDAGRGM MEDINFGM GMMED GMPOL GMBIZ POLINFNK

Column: POLVIEWS(r:1-3″Liberal”;4″Moderate”;5-7″Conservative”)

There results are presented below (rows add up to 100% for each question).

Attitudes toward genetically modified foods by ideology in the general social survey
	Lib	Mod	Conserv
Don’t care whether or not food GMO	15	16	17
Willing to eat but would prefer non-GMO	55	53	52
Will not eat genetically modified food	30	30	31
How much influence should group X have?
Politicians
A great deal of influence	9	8	6
A fair amount of influence	30	32	33
A little influence	42	35	40
None at all	20	25	21
Business leaders
A great deal of influence	5	4	3
A fair amount of influence	17	17	17
A little influence	41	43	45
None at all	37	37	35
Medical researchers
A great deal of influence	48	41	44
A fair amount of influence	40	43	43
A little influence	10	12	10
None at all	2	4	3
Elected officials
A great deal of influence	8	12	9
A fair amount of influence	44	44	36
A little influence	38	34	41
None at all	11	11	14
Do group X agree on the risks of GMO?
Medical researchers
1 – Near complete agreement	13	6	11
2	26	19	22
3	40	55	45
4	13	11	14
5 – No agreement at all	8	9	8
How well does group X know risk of GMO?
Medical researchers
1 – Very well	33	34	34
2	36	28	38
3	16	22	17
4	8	10	6
5 – Not at all	6	5	5
Elected officials
1 – Very well	3	3	4
2	7	7	6
3	23	28	24
4	33	37	35
5 – Not at all	35	26	31
Business leaders
1 – Very well	3	3	6
2	13	5	7
3	27	27	24
4	27	37	35
5 – Not at all	30	29	28

 

What this tells us is that elite opinions matter a lot in public discourse. The gap between liberals and non-liberals is not really there on this issue at the grassroots. That could change, as people of various ideologies tend to follow elite cues. This is why the strong counter-attack from within the Left elite is probably going to be effective, as it signals that being against GMO is not the “liberal position.”

Addendum: Just so people who haven’t been reading me know, political moderates tend not to be very intelligent.