The determinants of citizens’ preference of policy instruments for environmental policy: do social trust, government capacity, and state-society relations matter?

ABSTRACT

This study aims to investigate the determinants of citizens’ preferences for policy instruments. In particular, this study examines the impacts of social trust, government capacity, and the state-society relationship on citizens’ preferences for policy instruments. To test the relationships among those variables, the study utilizes data from the ISSP (International Social Survey Program) Environmental III 2010, which includes 32 countries. The results show that regardless of policy target groups, social trust makes citizens prefer market-based policy instruments most, and a high level of government capacity leads citizens to favor indirect policy instruments over regulation. The influence of the state-society relationship is contingent on the social construction of the policy target groups except in the case of East Asian countries, which have a strong preference for suasive policy instruments.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy preference
• policy instruments
• environmental policy
• government capacity
• social trust

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Taiwan is excluded from the statistical analysis because it is impossible to find country-level variables for Taiwan, especially GDP per capita, from the World Bank.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2017S1A3A2067636).

Notes on contributors

Beomgeun Cho

Beomgeun Cho is a doctoral student at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy of the State University of New York at Albany. He is interested in public management and public policy instruments.

M. Jae Moon

M. Jae Moon is Professor of public administration and Director of the Institute for Future Government Studies, Yonsei University. The areas of his teaching and research include public management, e-government, and policy tools.