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Greening up or not? The determinants of political parties' environmental concern: an empirical analysis based on European data (1970-2008)

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  • Benjamin Michallet

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Giuseppe Gaeta

    (University of Naples Federico II = Università degli studi di Napoli Federico II)

  • François Facchini

    (UP11 - Université Paris-Sud - Paris 11, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

Why do parties offer environmental policies in their political programs? While a number of papers examine the determinants of citizens' pro-environmental behaviour, we know little about the extent to which political parties adjust their platform towards environmentalism. We investigate this process through data provided by the Manifesto Project Dataset (CMP) for 20 European countries over the period 1970-2008. Following the literature on public concern towards environment, we examine economic, environmental and political determinants. Our findings provide evidence that political parties' environmental concern is strongly correlated with their political ideology and with country-level economic conditions.

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  • Benjamin Michallet & Giuseppe Gaeta & François Facchini, 2015. "Greening up or not? The determinants of political parties' environmental concern: an empirical analysis based on European data (1970-2008)," Working Papers halshs-01154006, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01154006
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01154006
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    Cited by:

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    3. Giuseppe Lucio Gaeta & Stefano Ghinoi & Francesco Silvestri, 2017. "Municipal performance in waste recycling: an empirical analysis based on data from the Lombardy region (Italy)," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 337-352, October.

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    environmental concern; political parties; electoral manifestos;
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