Eco-Social Divides in Europe: Public Attitudes towards Welfare and Climate Change Policies

Abstract

In the face of accelerating global warming and attendant natural disasters, it is clear that governments all over the world eventually have to take measures to mitigate the most adverse consequences of climate change. However, the costs of these measures are likely to force governments to reconsider some of their tax and spending priorities, of which social spending is the largest expenditure item in developed welfare states. Unless carried out in a way that is considered as fair by most citizens, such trade-off is likely to add a new, ecological dimension to the existing social cleavages in people’s preferences for public provision. Whether or not the possible tensions between the two sets of policies have already resulted in the emergence of a new, eco-social divide in Europe is an open question. In this paper, we hypothesise that there are four distinct attitude groups in relation to welfare and climate change policies, and that the probability of belonging to any of these groups is influenced by individuals’ socioeconomic and ideological characteristics, as well as the country context in which they live. We test our hypotheses using data from the eighth round of the European Social Survey conducted in 2016/17 in multinomial regression models. Results suggest that across Europe people are considerably divided in their support of public welfare and climate policies, but that support for both dimensions is highest in the Nordic countries. At the micro level, we find political ideology and trust in public institutions to be the most important drivers of a newly emerging eco-social divide.

Determinants of Public Support for Eco-Social Policies: A Comparative Theoretical Framework

“…In recent literature, this double cleavage in welfare and environmental preferences across income groups has been highlighted in the eco-social divides theory (Otto & Gugushvili 2020).…”

“…However, two recent studies applying different methods to the same data for 23 European countries, found that simultaneous support for environmental and social policy measures was higher in Nordic countries than in most other European nations (Fritz & Koch 2019;Otto & Gugushvili 2020). Accordingly, it would be premature to dismiss the importance of welfare regimes in shaping opinions about eco-social policies based on relatively scant evidence.…”

The Impact of Economic Complexity on the Formation of Environmental Culture

“…A related interesting topic is public attitudes with respect to environmental and government policies and how these attitudes are shaped by economic complexity. Prior research, e.g., Otto [66], has shown that attitudes in relation to welfare and climate change can be explained both by the individuals' socioeconomic and ideological characteristics, and by some features of the country of origin such as development stage or poverty level. These studies find that citizens living in high income countries are more favorable to the environmental policies.…”

Habitus and climate change: Exploring support and resistance to sustainable welfare and social–ecological transformations in Sweden

“…Fritz and Koch further distinguish between “red crowding‐out” (social policies are preferred over climate policies) and “green crowding‐out” (climate policies are preferred over social policies) and identify a fourth category (“rejection”) where individuals oppose both types of policies. Similarly, Otto and Gugushvili (2020) classify types of eco–social attitudes into “eco–social enthusiasts,” “welfare enthusiasts,” “environment devotees,” and “eco–social sceptics.”…”

“…We consider Sweden an appropriate context for studies on sustainable welfare, since, on the one hand, it is regarded by many as an “advanced” welfare state, traditionally based on universalism and social citizenship, albeit recently characterized by privatization and liberal or market policy solutions. On the other hand, comparative studies (Fritz & Koch, 2019; Otto & Gugushvili, 2020) indicate that the Swedish population supports welfare and environmental policies in combination more often than people in most other countries.…”