Environmental management from left to right – on ideology, policy-specific beliefs and pro-environmental policy support

Abstract

Due to growing environmental challenges, the demand for effective management through pro-environmental policy measures is increasing. The effectiveness is, however, largely determined by the degree to which the policy measures are supported by the actors affected by them. A consistent finding in the literature is that ideology (or subjective positioning on the left–right dimension) affects environmental policy support, with left-leaning individuals being more pro-environmental. A major caveat with previous research is that it seldom makes a distinction between different kinds of policies. Therefore, we are concerned with investigating how different ideological positions affect attitudes towards different forms of environmental protection. Using unique survey data, we show that ideology is related to conceptions about the fairness and effectiveness of different policy tools, which in turn steer preferences. In that sense, this paper makes the discussion on the effects of ideological position on pro-environmental policy support more nuanced.

Keywords:

• environmental policy
• environmental policy support
• ideology
• environmental management

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The perceived fairness and perceived consequences for personal freedom are also encoded as dummy variables. The respondents are asked to judge the policies on a 7-point scale ranging from very unfair/circumscribes my freedom to a large extent (–3) to very fair/increases my freedom to a large extent (+3), with 0 as a middle, neither/nor alternative. Positive numbers are encoded as fair/increases my freedom, while negative numbers are encoded as unfair/circumscribes my freedom.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council within the projects Climate Change Challenge [grant number 721-2011-5991] and Pro-Environmental Policy Support in a Comparative Perspective: The Importance of Values and Beliefs in different Political Contexts [grant number 2011-01844].