Why do people accept environmental policies? The prospects of higher education and changes in norms, beliefs and policy preferences

Abstract

Pressing problems of environmental degradation are typically argued to require coordination, primarily through state intervention. Social scientists are struggling to understand how attitudes toward such state interventions are formed, and several drivers have been suggested, including education. People with university degrees are assumed to have certain values as well as the analytical skills to understand complex issues such as climate change. By using a unique panel data-set with students in different university programs (economics, law and political science), this study provides a better understanding of whether and how education affects environmental policy acceptance. One important finding is that university studies generate variation in support and scepticism toward different types of policy measures. For example, economics students tend to develop more positive attitudes toward market-based policy measures. This indicates a potential for education to increase the societal support often hindering the implementation of such policy tools.

Keywords:

• Environmental policy
• higher education
• policy acceptance
• panel data

Acknowledgements

We would also like to thank Cecilia Lundholm, Tomas Torbjörnsson and James Stoutenborough.

Notes

1. It has been argued that this is rather a selection than an exposure effect (e.g. Frey and Meier 2005).

2. In the first wave we had 1801 students.

3. The ones who actually did complete the questionnaire were rewarded with a movie ticket. It is hard to say anything about the ‘real’ response rate within the group since students can register for courses and not attend them or re-register. However, at the collection of the data most of those who attended class that day also completed the survey. In order to match the students from the first and second waves and keep anonymity we let them state their parents’ first names. We think that the matching process worked well. In order to verify the process we performed spot checks where we compared the handwriting between waves 1 and 2.

4. Sometimes people talk about different types of environmental policy instruments based on the concept of fairness/efficiency: How fair do you consider the following measures?/How efficient do you consider the following measures? ‘Impose consumption taxes on polluting consumption’; ‘Impose more regulations and prohibitions to prevent people from harming the environment’; ‘Subsidize environmentally friendly consumption’; and ‘More information and education to people about the benefits of protecting the environment’.

5. Response options on a five-point scale from ‘You can’t be too careful’ to ‘Most people can be trusted’.

6. Response options on a five-point scale from ‘Most people would try to take advantage’, ‘Most people would try to be fair’.

7. ‘It is sometimes said that political opinions can be placed on a left-right scale. Where would you place yourself on such a scale?’ The respondents are given five alternatives ranging from ‘clearly to the left’ to ‘clearly to the right’.

8. The time period was characterized by relatively high uncertainty in Swedish politics, which might have affected political trust in general. After the national elections a minority government was formed that had a hard time finding support for its proposals in the parliament. For this question we also have a control group of 916 individuals, provided by the Citizens Panel at the LORE (Laboratory of Opinion Research ) Institute at the University of Gothenburg, who received some of the questions during both waves. The respondents in the Citizen Panel are mostly self-recruited but some are also recruited through random probability sampling. For more information see www.lore.gu.se.We also see a drop political trust within the control group.