| 1. |
- Ahlerup, Pelle, 1977, et al.
(author)
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Drought and Political Trust
- 2023
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Other publication (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Droughts can affect people’s political trust positively, through rallying effects, or negatively, through blame attribution. We examine how drought conditions affect political trust in the context of Africa. We link high-precision exogenous climate data to survey respondents, 2002–2018, and report moderate negative effects of drought conditions on people’s trust in their president. These negative effects increase with the severity of drought conditions. The political economy of favoritism, where some regions are preferentially treated by rulers, should result in heterogeneous effects across territories. We find that trust increases in capital regions and in leader birth regions during dry conditions. In contrast, when droughts take place in such regions, trust levels fall in other regions. This is in line with the idea that capital regions and leader birth regions could be preferentially treated in the aftermath of droughts. Understanding these processes further is important given their salience because of global warming.
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| 2. |
- Bastos Lima, Mairon G., et al.
(author)
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Large-scale collective action to avoid an Amazon tipping point - key actors and interventions
- 2021
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In: Current Research in Environmental Sustainability. - : Elsevier BV. - 2666-0490. ; 3
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The destruction of the Amazon is a major global environmental issue, not only because of greenhouse gas emissions or direct impacts on biodiversity and livelihoods, but also due to the forest's role as a tipping element in the Earth System. With nearly a fifth of the Amazon already lost, there are already signs of an imminent forest dieback process that risks transforming much of the rainforest into a drier ecosystem, with climatic implications across the globe. There is a large body of literature on the underlying drivers of Amazon deforestation. However, insufficient attention has been paid to the behavioral and institutional microfoundations of change. Fundamental issues concerning cooperation, as well as the mechanisms facilitating or hampering such actions, can play a much more central role in attempts to unravel and address Amazon deforestation. We thus present the issue of preventing the Amazon biome from crossing a biophysical tipping point as a large-scale collective action problem. Drawing from collective action theory, we apply a novel analytical framework on Amazon conservation, identifying six variables that synthesize relevant collective action stressors and facilitators: information, accountability, harmony of interests, horizontal trust, knowledge about consequences, and sense of responsibility. Drawing upon literature and data, we assess Amazon deforestation and conservation through our heuristic lens, showing that while growing transparency has made information availability a collective action facilitator, lack of accountability, distrust among actors, and little sense of responsibility for halting deforestation remain key stressors. We finalize by discussing interventions that can help break the gridlock.
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| 3. |
- Bergquist, Magnus, 1983, et al.
(author)
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Meta-analyses of fifteen determinants of public opinion about climate change taxes and laws
- 2022
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In: Nature Climate Change. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1758-678X .- 1758-6798. ; 12, s. 235-240
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Public acceptance is a precondition for implementing taxes and laws aimed at mitigating climate change. However, it still remains challenging to understand its determinants for the climate community. Here, we use a meta-analytic approach to examine the role of public opinion about climate change taxes and laws. Fifteen variables were examined by synthesizing 89 datasets from 51 articles across 33 countries, with a total sample of 119,465 participants. Among all factors, perceived fairness and effectiveness were the most important determinants. Self-enhancement values and knowledge about climate change showed weak relationships and demographic variables showed only weak or close to zero effects. Our meta-analytic results provide useful insights and have the potential to inform climate change researchers, practitioners and policymakers to better design climate policy instruments.
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| 4. |
- Bergquist, Magnus, 1983, et al.
(author)
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The importance of perceived fairness to public opinion about climate change policies
- 2022
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In: Nature Climate Change. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1758-678X .- 1758-6798. ; 12, s. 226-227
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This is a "Research Briefing" summarizing Bergquist et al. (2022) Meta-analyses of fifteen determinants of public opinion about climate change taxes and laws. Nat. Clim. Change https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01297-6
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| 5. |
- Boräng, Frida, 1977, et al.
(author)
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In Light of Democracy and Corruption: Institutional Determinants of Electricity Provision
- 2021
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In: The Energy Journal. - : International Association for Energy Economics (IAEE). - 0195-6574 .- 1944-9089. ; 42:2
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Long-lasting democratic institutions have been found to matter for the universal provision of reliable electricity. In this article we revisit this finding, suggesting that the effect of democracy on electricity provision is moderated by the quality of institutions shaping the implementation of public policies. We test the hypothesis positing the interaction effect between democracy and corruption using cross-national data on the share of population living in unlit areas. The results show that democracy is associated with a higher electrification rate only in low-corrupt contexts. When corruption is widespread, democratic experience is not correlated with higher rates of electrification. These findings suggest that the effect of democratic institutions is conditional on the quality of the institutions that shape policy implementation.
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| 6. |
- Coleman, Eric A., et al.
(author)
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Policy attributes shape climate policy support
- 2023
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In: Policy Studies Journal. - : Wiley. - 0190-292X .- 1541-0072. ; 51:2, s. 419-437
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Understanding how preferences for public policy instruments shape policy support helps policymakers to design policies that begin to tackle large-scale and complex problems, such as climate change. Climate change policies generate both local and global costs and benefits, which affect the public's policy preferences. In this article we investigate the role of perceived conditional cooperation and distributive concerns on climate policy attitude formation. We identify a range of climate policies and test public opinion for adoption of these policies at different scales of government. The important theoretical distinction is the scale-driven distributional nature of policy costs and benefits as well as concerns regarding the cooperation of other actors. We use data from Sweden and a conjoint experimental design where we vary level of government, type of policy, and the targeted group. We find evidence that people support policies when costs are shared broadly. We also find that support for climate policy is conditional on expected policy adoption by other units of government at various scales. This implies that unpopular climate policies might be more popular if the funding structure of the policy allows for binding policy and that the cost-sharing is taking place at higher levels of government.
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| 7. |
- Davidovic, Dragana, et al.
(author)
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The contingent effects of environmental concern and ideology: institutional context and people’s willingness to pay environmental taxes
- 2020
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In: Environmental Politics. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0964-4016 .- 1743-8934. ; 29:4, s. 674-696
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Environmental taxes are often argued to be key to more effective environmental protection. People’s willingness to pay such taxes in contexts with varying levels of quality of government (QoG) is investigated. Applying multilevel analyses on data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) and the QoG Institute, links between environmental concern, ideology, and QoG are explored. The results show that people who state that they are concerned about environmental issues and live in high QoG countries are more willing than people in low QoG countries to pay environmental taxes. Moreover, people in low QoG countries holding leftist political value orientations are less willing to pay environmental taxes than rightists and other value groups. Environmental concern and leftist political ideology are more important drivers of public support for environmental taxes in high QoG countries than in low QoG countries.
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| 8. |
- Duus-Otterström, Göran, 1978, et al.
(author)
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Att mota Olle på andra sidan grind – svenskarnas uppfattningar om klimatanpassningsåtgärder
- 2022
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In: Du sköra nya värld. SOM-undersökningen 2021. SOM-rapport nr 81, 243–261. - Göteborg : SOM-Institutet, Göteborgs universitet. - 0284-4788. - 9789189673526
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- I takt med att klimatförändringarna förvärras blir klimatanpassning allt viktigare. I detta kapitel tittar vi närmare på svenska folkets syn på frågor som rör klimatanpassningsåtgärder, det vill säga åtgärder som syftar till att göra klimatförändringarna mindre skadliga. Vi använder oss av två frågebatterier från 2021 års nationella SOMundersökning för att undersöka: 1) var svenskarna anser att offentliga medel bör satsas för att anpassa samhällen till ett förändrat klimat och 2) vem man anser bör bära huvudansvaret för dylika satsningar. Resultaten visar att det finns ett brett stöd bland de svarande för att staten ska bekosta klimatanpassningsåtgärder i Sverige såväl som i sårbara eller fattiga länder. Det finns även ett brett stöd för att det internationella ansvaret att betala för klimatanpassning främst bör falla på stora utsläpparländer, särskilt de som släpper ut mycket växthusgaser i nuläget.
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| 9. |
- Ejelöv, Emma, 1989, et al.
(author)
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Push, Pull, or Inform - An Empirical Taxonomy of Environmental Policy Support in Sweden
- 2022
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In: Journal of Public Policy. - 0143-814X. ; 42:3, s. 529-552
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Research on environmental policy support utilises different categorisations of policies, for example, differentiating between policies assumed to be perceived as rewarding or punishing. Do citizens' perception of environmental policies also lend itself to this categorisation? Based on an exhaustive sample of active policies in Sweden, this study presents a taxonomy of environmental policy support in Sweden. A fairly representative Swedish sample (N = 2911) rated the acceptability of 44 environmental policies. Exploratory factor analysis indicated that participants' acceptability of policies forms three categories: push policies consisting of regulatory and market-based disincentives, pull policies consisting mainly of market-based incentives, and informational policies, such as ecolabeling. Sociodemographics had small but consistent effects on attitudes towards the three categories, while political ideology had a larger effect across the categories. This study indicates that current academic categorisations may not adequately capture laypeople's perceptions, and discusses the importance of research on driving mechanisms behind the current taxonomy. © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press.
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| 10. |
- Harring, Niklas, 1979, et al.
(author)
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COVID-19: Large-scale collective action, government intervention, and the importance of trust
- 2021
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In: World Development. - : Elsevier BV. - 0305-750X .- 1873-5991. ; 138:February 2021
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this article we apply a large-scale collective action framework on the spread of the COVID-19 virus. We compare the pandemic with other large-scale collective action problems – such as climate change, antimicrobial resistance and biodiversity loss – which are identified by the number of actors involved (the more actors, the larger the scale); the problem’s complexity; and the spatial and temporal distance between the actors causing and being affected by the problem. The greater the extent of these characteristics, the larger the scale of the collective action problem and the smaller the probability of spontaneous collective action. We argue that by unpacking the social dilemma logic underlying the spread of the COVID-19 virus, we can better understand the great variation in policy responses worldwide, e.g., why some countries are adopting harsher policies and enforcing them, while others tend to rely more on recommendations. We claim that one key factor is trust and, more precisely, reciprocal trust, both horizontally among people and also vertically between people and their governments – and vice versa. Citizens must trust that the recommendations they receive from the public authorities are correct, that these are in their (or the collective’s) best interest, and that most others will follow the recommendations. Simultaneously, government authorities must trust that their citizens will transform the recommendations into collective action. When this situation is present, we argue that governments enjoy a large degree of collective action capital, which potentially open up for a wider palette of policy options.
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