Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-v2bm5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-11T23:26:53.454Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Public Support for Environmental Protection: Objective Problems and Subjective Values in 43 Societies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Ronald Inglehart
Ronald Inglehart*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Policies designed to solve environmental problems are unlikely to succeed unless they have broad public support, but the motives for mass support are poorly understood. The problem is global in scope, but most of the relevant public opinion research done so far has been carried out in advanced industrial societies, usually Western democracies. Moreover, much of this research is limited to the tip of the iceberg, focusing on what people think about environmental problems without probing into why they think it or how deeply they are committed.

The analysis of mass attitudes toward environmental problems in this article uses evidence from representative national surveys of countries representing the entire developmental spectrum, from rich to poor nations, including not only Western democracies but authoritarian regimes and recently emerging democracies from the former communist bloc. The data come from the 1990–93 World Values survey, carried out in 43 countries containing 70% of the world's population. Our goal is to determine why given publics are—or are not—sufficiently concerned about environmental problems that they are willing to make financial sacrifices and undertake other actions in order to help protect the environment.

Type
Research Article
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , March 1995 , pp. 57 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramson, Paul R. and Inglehart, Ronald. 1995 (forthcoming). Value Change in Global Perspective. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abramson, Paul R. and Inglehart, Ronald. 1994. “Education, Security and Postmaterialism,” American Journal of Political Science 38(3):797–814.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, Kendall L., Dalton, Russell, and Hildebrandt, Kai. 1981. Germany Transformed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bennulf, Martin, and Holmberg, Soren. 1990. “The Green Breakthrough in Sweden.” Scandinavian Political Studies 13(2): 165–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Betz, Hans-Georg. 1990. “Value Change in Postmaterialist Politics: The Case of West Germany.” Comparative Political Studies 23:239–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Block, J. 1981. “Some Enduring and Consequential Structures of Personality” in Further Explorations in Personality, Rabin, Albert et al. , ed. New York: Wiley, 368–388.Google Scholar
Dalton, Russell J., Flanagan, Scott C., and Beck, Paul Allen, eds. 1984. Electoral Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies: Realignment or Dealignment? Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hinckley, Ronald H. 1991. “Environmental Attitudes and Attitude Change: Evidence from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D.C., February 17–19.Google Scholar
Hoffmann-Martinot, Vincent. 1991. “Gruene and Verts: Two Faces of European Ecologism.” West European Politics 14(4): 70–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inglehart, Ronald. 1971. “The Silent Revolution in Europe.” American Political Science Review 4:991–1017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inglehart, Ronald. 1977. The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Inglehart, Ronald. 1990. Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inglehart, Ronald and Abramson, Paul R. 1994. “Economic Security and Value Change.” American Political Science Review (June) 88(2):336–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lubin, Nancy. “Climate Change: A Soviet Perspective.” Unpublished manuscript for a forthcoming publication by the Electric Power Institute. Pittsburgh: Carnegie-Mellon University. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Mueller-Rommel, Ferdinand, ed. 1990. New Politics in Western Europe: The Rise and the Success of Green Parties and Alternative Lists. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
OECD. 1991. The State of the Environment. Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
Topfer, Klaus. 1991. “The Environmental Challenge in Eastern Europe.” Occasional paper series number 13–19, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
World Bank. 1992. World Development Report, 1992. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar