The differences in public support for environmental protection among individuals from 50 nations were investigated. Support was determined by the willingness of individuals to make financial sacrifices to protect the environment. The results from multilevel analyses indicated that significant variance exists within and among nations in the level of support. The contextual-level variance was to a substantial degree explained by individual-level variables, capturing compositional effects. Income, postmaterialism, educational attainment, environmental involvement, and age related directly to support for environmental protection. Contextual-level variables—GDP, GDP growth, and average postmaterialist value-orientation of publics—also related directly to levels of support among nations and explained a significant part of the contextual-level variance. The findings are congruent with the affluence hypothesis and Inglehart's subjective values hypothesis. They also point to the necessity of simultaneously assessing the effects of individual- and contextual-level characteristics on proenvironmental attitudes in cross-national research.
Blocker, T.J., & Eckberg, D.L. (1997). Gender and environmentalism: Results from the 1993 General Social Survey. Social Science Quarterly, 78(4), 841-858.
2.
Brand, K.-W. (1997). Environmental consciousness and behaviour: The greening of lifestyles. In M. R. G. Woodgate (Ed.), The international handbook of environmental sociology (pp. 204—217). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
3.
Brechin, S.R. (1999). Objective problems, subjective values, and global environmentalism: Evaluating the postmaterialist argument and challenging a new explanation. Social Science Quarterly, 80(4), 793-809.
4.
Brechin, S.R., & Kempton, W. (1994). Global environmentalism: A challenge to the postmaterialist thesis?Social Science Quarterly, 75(2), 245-269.
5.
Brechin, S.R., & Kempton, W. (1997). Beyond postmaterialist values: National versus individual explanations of global environmentalism. Social Science Quarterly, 78(1), 16-29.
6.
Diekmann, A., & Franzen, A. (1999). The wealth of nations and environmental concern . Environment and Behavior, 31(4), 540-549.
7.
Dietz, T., Stern, P.C., & Guagnano, G.A. (1998). Social structural and social psychological bases of environmental concern. Environment and Behavior, 30(4), 450-471.
8.
Diez Roux, A.V. (2002). A glossary for multilevel analysis. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 56(8), 588-594.
9.
Dunlap, R.E., & Mertig, A.G. (1997). Global environmental concern: An anomaly for postmaterialism . Social Science Quarterly, 78(1), 24-29.
10.
European Commission. (2003). External costs: Research results on socio-environmental damages due to electricity and transport. Luxembourg, Belgium: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.
11.
Franzen, A. (2003). Environmental attitudes in international comparison: An analysis of the ISSP surveys 1993 and 2000. Social Science Quarterly, 84(2), 297-308.
12.
Gelissen, J.P.T.M. (2002). Worlds of welfare, worlds of consent? Public opinion on the welfare state (International Comparative Social Studies, 4)Leiden: The Netherlands: Brill.
13.
Grossman, G.M., & Krueger, A.B. (1995). Economic growth and the environment. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 110(2), 353-377.
14.
Guerin, D., Crete, J., & Mercier, J. (2001). A multilevel analysis of the determinants of recycling behavior in the European countries. Social Science Research , 30(2), 195-218.
15.
Hox, J. ( 2002). Multilevel analysis: Techniques and applications. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
16.
Hunter, L.M., Hatch, A., & Johnson, A. (2004). Cross-national gender variation in environmental behaviors. Social Science Quarterly, 85(3), 677-694.
17.
Inglehart, R. (1990). Culture shift in advanced industrial society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
18.
Inglehart, R. (1995). Public support for environmental protection: Objective problems and subjective values in 43 societies. PS: Political Science and Politics, 15, 57-72.
19.
Inglehart, R., Basáñez, M. , Díez-Medrano, J., Halman, L., & Luijkx, R. (Eds.). (2004). Human beliefs and values: A cross-cultural sourcebook based on the 1999-2002 values survey. San Angel, México: Siglo XXI Editores.
20.
Jahn, D. (1998). Environmental performance and policy regimes: Explaining variations in 18 OECD countries. Policy Sciences , 31(2), 107-131.
21.
Kanagy, C.L., Humphrey, C.R., & Firebaugh, G. (1994). Surging environmentalism: Changing public opinion or changing publics?Social Science Quarterly, 75(4), 804-819.
22.
Kemmelmeier, M., Król, G., & Kim, Y.H. (2002). Values, economics, and proenvironmental attitudes . Cross-Cultural Research, 36(3), 256-285.
23.
Kidd, Q., & Lee, A.-R. (1997). Postmaterialist values and environment: A critique and reappraisal. Social Science Quarterly, 78(1), 1-15.
24.
Oskamp, S., & Schultz, P.W. (2005). Attitudes and opinions. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
25.
Pickett, K.E., & Pearl, M. (2001). Multilevel analyses of neighbourhood socioeconomic context and health outcomes: a critical review. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 55(2), 111-122.
26.
Population density 1999. (2005). Nationmaster.com . Retrieved May 16, 2005, from www.nationmaster.com/red/graph-T/geo_pop_den&int=-1
27.
Raudenbush, S., Bryk, A., Cheong, Y.F., & Congdon, R. (2001). HLM 5: Hierarchical linear and nonlinear modeling . Lincolnwood, IL: Scientific Software International.
28.
U.N. Development Programme. (2001). Human development report 2001: Making new technologies work for human development . Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
29.
U.N. Development Programme. (2003). Human development report 2003: Millenium development goals: A compact among nations to end human poverty. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
30.
World Economic Forum, Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, and Center for International Earth Science Information Network. (2001). Environmental sustainability index. New Haven, CT: Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy. Retrieved May 15, 2005, from www.ciesin.columbia.edu/indicators/ESI/archive.html
