Abstract
Introduction
In 2011, we published the article ‘Global activism and nationally driven recycling: The influence of world society and national contexts on public and private environmental behavior’ in International Sociology. We considered the effects of national affluence, political opportunity structures, and global ties on these two environmental behaviors. This initial analysis showed that public behavior is quite similar across countries, while private behavior is more strongly influenced by the national context. Furthermore, a higher level of development, permissive political opportunities, and more ties to world society showed positive effects on both public and private behaviors.
The 2011 analysis and conclusions were based on survey data from 23 countries collected by the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) in 2000/2001. This cross-sectional design did not allow for any insights in changes over time. Meanwhile, ISSP has collected another wave of data on environmental behaviors and attitudes in 2010/2011. Together with the older ISSP data from 1993/1994, this research note utilizes a three-wave design that allows more complex insights.
The present time-comparative analysis extends and qualifies some of the initial observations. Private and public behaviors are becoming more similar across countries over time, and, therefore, homogenization processes are present in both dimensions. The underlying trends, however, are contrarian. Activism has decreased and private behavior increased. Even more, the decline in activism is the strongest in open democracies and affluent societies, questioning the positive effects of increasing affluence and democratization over time.
Research design and analyses
The data used in this analysis were collected by ISSP (www.ISSP.org), a research consortium that conducts annual surveys on various topics, currently with 48 member countries. The modules on environmental behavior and attitudes were fielded in 1993/1994, 2000/2001, and 2010/2011. In total, 16 countries have participated in all three waves. This analysis is based on these countries. When limiting this study to the second wave only – the wave used in Hadler and Haller (2011) – results obtained from the 16-country sample are comparable to the cross-sectional study with 23 countries.
The present analysis considers – in the same way as the initial analysis – six environmental behavior items. Public behavior is measured by ‘being a member of an environmental organization’ and having ‘signed a petition’, ‘donated money’, or ‘attended a demonstration’ during the last five years. The ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers of each respondent were summed, divided by the number of valid responses, and rescaled with 0 indicating no public behavior and 100 the maximum activity. Private behavior is measured by ‘foregoing car driving for environmental reasons’ and ‘separating waste’. Answer categories are ‘always’, ‘often’, ‘sometimes’, ‘never’, and ‘no car or driver’s license’ and ‘no recycling available’ as additional options. Again, the valid responses were summed and divided by the total number of responses. The private behavior scale also ranges from 0 to 100 with 0 indicating no private behavior and 100 the maximum activity.
The following section includes only descriptive overviews of the magnitudes and changes in environmental behaviors. Advanced analyses were conducted as well, but are not shown in this research note. Nonetheless, they inform the interpretations and remarks in the results section.
Results
Figure 1 shows the magnitude and changes of private behavior in 16 countries since 1993. The countries are sorted according to the prevalence of private behavior in 2010. In accordance with Hadler and Haller (2011), private behavior is the most common in the corporatist welfare states Austria and Germany and the least common in the two former socialist countries Russia and Bulgaria. When considering changes over time, however, we can see that private behavior has increased the most in countries where it was less common in 1993 and 2000, while it has stagnated at a higher level in more affluent countries and seasoned democracies. We, therefore, need to add a qualification to the initial conclusion of affluence having a positive influence on private behavior. Its effect is limited and ceiling effects are observable. Over time, the population in countries with initially less favorable structures has caught up with those of countries with more favorable structures.
Private behavior and its change since 1993 in 16 countries.
Figure 2 shows the pattern for public behavior. Again, in accordance with Hadler and Haller (2011), public behavior is more common in liberal states and less common in former socialist countries. The changes over time, however, are in stark contrast to the changes in private behavior. Public behavior has become less common in countries with permissive contexts such as affluent societies and seasoned democracies. In countries with less permissive contexts, public behavior has mostly remained at the original lower level. The initial conclusion that permissive circumstances have positive effects on activism, therefore, needs to be qualified by the observation that public behavior has decreased substantially in these countries.
Public behavior and its change since 1993 in 16 countries.
Table 1 summarizes the changes in private and public behavior in terms of magnitude (overall mean value) and homogeneity across countries (standard deviation of national mean values). As discussed above, the two behaviors are drifting apart over time with private behavior converging at an overall higher level and public behavior at an overall lower level. Interestingly, however, the differences across countries within each behavior have decreased over time. Therefore, the initial conclusion that public behavior is quite homogeneous cross-nationally, while private behavior is more strongly influenced by the national context (Hadler and Haller, 2011), needs to be qualified by the observation that homogenization processes are visible in both dimensions.
Magnitude and homogeneity of public and private behavior over time.
Connections to other research and conclusions
How do these contrarian trends in environmental behaviors relate to other research? The increase and/or overall high level of private behavior is in line with other cross-cultural comparisons such as that of Dunlap and York (2008), who discovered increasing environmental concerns, and Franzen and Meyer (2010), who found stable concerns. The decrease and/or overall lower level of public behavior (and support for environmental organizations), however, is quite surprising when considering research such as Longhofer and Schofer (2010) that points to increasing numbers of environmental organizations at a global scale. Therefore, a gap between the organizational professionalization of environmental protection and individual support seems to emerge.
These new findings also have some implications for different theories and conclusions presented in Hadler and Haller (2011). Regarding world society theory, the current analysis shows that increasing diversity and increasing homogenization can occur at the same time. Global forces, therefore, may lead to both more differences – as seen in the increasing split between private and public behavior – and more similarities – as seen in the diminishing cross-country differences in each behavioral dimension. Regarding political opportunity structures, the present analysis confirms their importance considering the difference between countries with and without a socialist legacy. However, the conclusion in Hadler and Haller (2011) that governments which have established strong environmental protections also face strong activism applies only when ignoring the time comparative aspect-given that Figure 2 shows that the drop in activism is the highest in countries with long-established environmental protections. A similar qualification applies to available resources. They do matter, but the reduction in public behavior is more common in resourceful societies.
In sum, the observed trend of diverging public and private behaviors, mixed with a general homogenization across countries within each behavior add substantially to the conclusions of the initial cross-national study of 2011. First, homogenization occurs in both dimensions. Second, indicators such as increasing prosperity, increasing international ties, and better political opportunity structures can have negative effects. Increases and decreases in contextual characteristics, therefore, must not be equated with their effects at a single time point. Finally, the growing gap between the two behaviors also points towards a shift from public to private environmental behaviors. In this regard, they confirm arguments and studies showing that membership and participation in large formal associations (e.g., political parties, trade unions, churches) is declining (Putnam, 2000; Thomson, 2005). This does not necessarily imply, however, a general decline of engagement for public affairs and of social capital; it may indicate only a shift toward other patterns of such engagement, that is, more self-selected, concrete, and time-limited forms of participation (Hilton and McKay, 2011; Hondrich and Koch-Arzberger 1992).
Footnotes
Funding
This research received support under Project Nr. P22575, ‘Environmental behavior: Global and national influences’, funded by the Austrian Science Fund, principal investigator: Markus Hadler.