The Political Economy of Environmental Policies: a Socio-Cultural Approach – GREENVOTE

Last years have witnessed the rise of various citizens protest movements in the realm of environmental policy making. In face of the urgency of implementing environmental policy to tackle global environmental issues, it is crucial to understand how new citizens cleavages over environmental policy are formed and how they affect environmental policy choice. In this research project we explore the idea that heterogeneity in voters choices and attitudes reflect not only diverse material interests but also variations in psycho-social motivations. We argue that a promising way to understand those motivations is to adopt a social identity perspective where people sense of self is tied to the social groups to which they belong. The first objective is to explore the interplay between social identification and the demand for climate policy. From a theoretical angle, we aim to provide a unified theory for the determination of climate policies and the formation of new citizens cleavages over environmental issues. This theory will serve to identify common driving factors in sudden reversals in environmental policy choice and the rise of new citizens movement. From an empirical perspective, we propose to assess the impact of different social identities on a wide variety of climate policy. Second, we aim to analyze interactions between the supply of climate-related information and the psycho-social determinants of the demand for climate beliefs. Why has polarization over climate beliefs become such a prominent feature of American society while it has remained moderate -even absent - in most European countries ? To understand those facts we propose to analyze interactions between the supply-side of climate skepticism and the psycho-social mechanisms involved in the demand for information. First, we will propose a static analysis of the two-way feedback between identity cleavages which determine the demand for climate knowledge and media outlets' incentives to bias information. Second, we will propose a dynamic setting to examine the evolution of psycho-social biases with multiple information sources. Overall, this project will serve to formulate novel policy recommendations to enhance the acceptability of different climate policy instruments and to promote the diffusion of climate knowledge.