IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/egr/ejge00/v3i1p24-46.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Collective action problems: Disentangling possible feedback loops between government policies and the public’s value-change

Author

Listed:
  • Eivind Hoff-Elimari

    (Common Cause Network)

  • Anat Bardi

    (Royal Holloway University of London)

  • Simon Matti

    (Luleå University of Technology)

  • Kristina Östman

    (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)

Abstract

Solving collective action problems, such as poverty reduction or climate change, depends on interactions between governments' and voters' preferences regarding pro-social actions. This paper examines whether the overall direction of change in pro-social public policy precedes public value-change, rather than the other way around. We examine change in the public’s pro-social values in six European countries, as measured by the European Social Survey (ESS) during 2002-2012. In these countries, we conducted an expert survey to rate governmental policy that expresses these values over the same period, thereby examining value-change in governmental policy. The chronological comparison of value-change of the public with that of respective governments suggests that changes in pro-social government policies may drive public value-change rather than vice versa. This complements previous studies focused on the opinion-policy connection. Possible political implications are discussed. The promising findings of this initial study point to the importance of conducting larger-scale future studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Eivind Hoff-Elimari & Anat Bardi & Simon Matti & Kristina Östman, 2014. "Collective action problems: Disentangling possible feedback loops between government policies and the public’s value-change," European Journal of Government and Economics, Europa Grande, vol. 3(1), pages 24-46, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:egr:ejge00:v:3:i:1:p:24-46
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ejge.org/index.php/ejge/article/download/51/42
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andreas Duit, 2011. "Patterns of Environmental Collective Action: Some Cross‐National Findings," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 59(4), pages 900-920, December.
    2. Wlezien, Christopher, 1996. "Dynamics of Representation: The Case of US Spending on Defence," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(1), pages 81-103, January.
    3. Stimson, James A. & Mackuen, Michael B. & Erikson, Robert S., 1995. "Dynamic Representation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(3), pages 543-565, September.
    4. Soss, Joe, 1999. "Lessons of Welfare: Policy Design, Political Learning, and Political Action," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(2), pages 363-380, June.
    5. Soss, Joe & Schram, Sanford F., 2007. "A Public Transformed? Welfare Reform as Policy Feedback," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(1), pages 111-127, February.
    6. Page, Benjamin I. & Shapiro, Robert Y., 1983. "Effects of Public Opinion on Policy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(1), pages 175-190, March.
    7. Hodge, Ian & McNally, Sandra, 2000. "Wetland restoration, collective action and the role of water management institutions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 107-118, October.
    8. Hurwitz, Jon & Peffley, Mark, 1987. "How are Foreign Policy Attitudes Structured? A Hierarchical Model," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(4), pages 1099-1120, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. M. Kanerva, 2022. "Consumption Corridors and the Case of Meat," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 45(4), pages 619-653, December.
    2. Braito, Michael & Flint, Courtney & Muhar, Andreas & Penker, Marianne & Vogel, Stefan, 2017. "Individual and collective socio-psychological patterns of photovoltaic investment under diverging policy regimes of Austria and Italy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 141-153.
    3. Byrne, Rosemary & Byrne, Susan & Ryan, Ray & O’Regan, Bernadette, 2017. "Applying the Q-method to identify primary motivation factors and barriers to communities in achieving decarbonisation goals," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 40-50.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Niklas Harring & Sverker C. Jagers & Simon Matti, 2017. "Public Support for Pro-Environmental Policy Measures: Examining the Impact of Personal Values and Ideology," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-14, April.
    2. Richard C. Eichenberg & Richard Stoll, 2003. "Representing Defense," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 47(4), pages 399-422, August.
    3. Niklas Harring & Sverker C. Jagers, 2013. "Should We Trust in Values? Explaining Public Support for Pro-Environmental Taxes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-18, January.
    4. Christopher J Williams, 2016. "Issuing reasoned opinions: The effect of public attitudes towards the European Union on the usage of the 'Early Warning System'," European Union Politics, , vol. 17(3), pages 504-521, September.
    5. El-Mallakh, Nelly, 2020. "How do protests affect electoral choices? Evidence from Egypt," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 299-322.
    6. David H. Bearce & Thomas R. Cook, 2018. "The first image reversed: IGO signals and mass political attitudes," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 13(4), pages 595-619, December.
    7. Onal, Bunyamin & Petmezas, Dimitris & Xiong, Nan, 2022. "Societal equality sentiment and executive compensation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    8. Andranik Tangian, 2017. "Policy Representation of a Parliament: The Case of the German Bundestag 2013 Elections," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 151-179, January.
    9. Jacqueline Chattopadhyay, 2017. "Is the ACA's Dependent Coverage Provision Generating Positive Feedback Effects Among Young Adults?," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(1), pages 42-70, March.
    10. Qian Liu & Yingying Wang & Ning Kang, 2023. "Analyzing the Influence of BRI Foreign Direct Investment on Governance: Perspective from Southeast Asian Countries," Global Journal of Emerging Market Economies, Emerging Markets Forum, vol. 15(2), pages 289-305, May.
    11. Tangian, Andranik S., 2017. "Policy representation by German parties at the 2017 federal election," Working Paper Series in Economics 107, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management.
    12. Sencer Ecer & Nicholas J. Veasey, 2015. "The Shifting Determinants of Defense Spending Preferences Between 1980 and 2008," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(1), pages 75-88, February.
    13. Avi Ben-Bassat & Momi Dahan, 2016. "Biased Policy and Political Behavior," CESifo Working Paper Series 6269, CESifo.
    14. Heather Millar & Matthew Lesch & Linda A. White, 2019. "Connecting models of the individual and policy change processes: a research agenda," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 52(1), pages 97-118, March.
    15. Christopher J Williams & Shaun Bevan, 2019. "The effect of public attitudes toward the European Union on European Commission policy activity," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(4), pages 608-628, December.
    16. Philip J. Powlick, 1991. "The Attitudinal Bases for Responsiveness to Public Opinion among American Foreign Policy Officials," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 35(4), pages 611-641, December.
    17. Michael Manville & David King, 2013. "Credible commitment and congestion pricing," Transportation, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 229-249, February.
    18. Tangian, Andranik S., 2017. "Policy representation by the 2017 Bundestag," Working Paper Series in Economics 108, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management.
    19. H. Abbie Erler, 2012. "A New Face of Poverty? Economic Crises and Poverty Discourses," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 4(4), pages 183-204, December.
    20. Christian Weyand, 2013. "Why Political Elites Support Governmental Transparency. Self-Interest, Anticipation of Voters' Preferences or Socialization?," Cologne Graduate School Working Paper Series 04-02, Cologne Graduate School in Management, Economics and Social Sciences.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    values; policy feedback; democracy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Z18 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Public Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:egr:ejge00:v:3:i:1:p:24-46. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Europa Grande (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.