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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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  • Michallet, Benjamin
  • Gaeta, Giuseppe Lucio
  • Facchini, Francois

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Michallet, Benjamin & Gaeta, Giuseppe Lucio & Facchini, Francois, 2015. "Greening up or not? The determinants of political parties’ environmental concern: an empirical analysis based on European data (1970-2008)," MPRA Paper 63335, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Mar 2015.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:63335
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    Cited by:

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    2. 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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    More about this item

    Keywords

    environmental concern; environmental attitudes; political parties; electoral manifestos;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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