BESTRAFFA ELLER BELÖNA? En kvantitativ studie om miljöpolitik och väljarbeteende
Abstract
A possible explanation for the inability of the governments of the world to implement
necessary environmental policies is that they are worried of being punished by voters for
implementing too forceful policies. But do voters actually punish governments that
implement more stringent environmental policies? Few studies have explored this question
directly. Parts of the literature on environmental policy and public opinion indicate that voters
would predominantly reward governments that implement more stringent environmental
policies, while other parts indicate that voters would predominantly punish them. It is also
possible that voters punish governments that implement more stringent environmental
policies in some contexts, but reward them in others. One such example is that public support
for environmental policies is lower in economically hard times. But earlier science has not
investigated if lowered environmental policy support in economically hard times translates to
voting behavior. This bachelor thesis investigates whether voters predominantly reward or
punish governments that implement more stringent environmental policies, and whether this
effect depends on if the policy is implemented in economically good or hard times. I attempt
to answer these questions with a multivariate OLS-regression analysis with an interaction,
covering a large number of OECD-countries and a timespan of thirty years. At first I find no
correlation between environmental policy and vote share, but when I investigate the
interaction effect of good or hard times I find a positive correlation between more stringent
environmental policy and higher vote share in good times, and a negative correlation in hard
times.
Degree
Student essay