Explaining national environmental performance: approaches, evidence, and implications

Abstract

Since environmental problems rose to prominence in the last third of the twentieth century, they have been a major area of policy for national governments. A large body of research has explored the explanations for different levels of environmental policy performance among countries. This article begins with a discussion of approaches to measuring national performance before reviewing and assessing four categories of explanations in the literature, which may be summarized in four questions: (1) What are the relationships between economic growth and environmental protection? (2) Do democratic regimes have advantages over more authoritarian ones in adopting effective policies and reducing harm? (3) Do such institutional characteristics as pluralism or neo-corporatism and federalism affect a nation's ability to deal with environmental problems? (4) Are there institutional or societal capacities or relationships within or among nations that may explain policy success? By adopting a broad perspective on the literature on national environmental performance, the article is able to explore and compare the principal findings of these categories of research and assess the relationships among them.

Environmental Performance in Countries Worldwide: Determinant Factors and Multivariate Analysis

“…Another possible reason for this discrepancy in results could be the changes in political regimes that have taken place in some of the countries analyzed, such as those in Eastern Europe. In short, and considering the opinion of Fiorino [28], we may conclude that it is difficult to establish clear and consistent results owing to the differences in the dependent variables used and the complex interaction among institutional factors.…”

“…In this vein, authors, such as Fiorino [28], also show that effective, innovative and adaptable governance is a necessary condition for countries seeking a transition to sustainability. Governance aspects include integrating policy, enhancing social capital, improving participation and making and implementing choices more adaptively.…”

Relevant Determinants of the Political Parties’ Environmental Preference

“…As stated by Fiorino (2011), the existing literature with regard to national environmental performance can be divided in two important strands, where the focus is either on policy outputs or on policy outcomes. Within the first branch of the literature (which concentrates on policy outputs), researches usually: a) focus solely on indicators of policy outputs, such as the number of environmental policies adopted (C. Knill et al, 2010), number of institutions created, international agreements reached (Recchia, 2002) or commitments made; b) employ a combination of policy outputs, such as the creation of a national council for sustainable development, measures of the availability of environmental information, a country's membership in international environmental organizations, in addition to participation in agreements (Gates et al, 2002;Gleditsch et al, 2002); c) make us of a mix between environmental commitment and various factors of policy outcomes (Bättig and Bernauer, 2009).…”

“…The pollutants usually employed in these analyses are: nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, biological oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand and metals (Fiorino, 2011). The most consecrated works on the topic include the ones of L. Scruggs (2003), Porter (2002, 2005), D. Esty et al (2008), Neumayer (2003), Emerson et al (2010), Hsu et al (2016; and others.…”

“…Fiorino (2011) identified two important waves of development in this regard: a) in the 1 st wave, 'pioneer' western democracies established national programs as a response to the existing environmental problems (Weidner, 2002); Sweden or the USA are among the first states which created the appropriate institutions, enacted laws and developed the necessary administrative and technical capacity; b) within the 2 nd wave, many developing and transitional economies responded with appropriate political measures to the signals offered by the World Commission on Environment and Development meeting (in 1983) and the Rio Earth Summit (in 1992).…”