Perceptions of Corruption, Political Distrust, and the Weakening of Climate Policy

Abstract

This article presents a theory of the relationship between public perceptions of political corruption and the strength of national climate change mitigation policies, which is then formally tested in a time-series-cross-section analysis of twenty industrialized democracies from 1990 to 2012. The analysis reveals that greater perceptions of corruption are highly and robustly associated with weaker climate policies—especially nonmarket policies—when controlling for relevant political and economic variables. A government perceived by citizens to be “mildly corrupt” but that transitions to “very clean” would be associated with strengthening nonmarket climate policies from levels in Greece to levels in Sweden or from levels in Poland to those in Denmark. Lax market-based climate policies are also significantly linked to greater perceived corruption, but notably, they are robustly associated with the size of domestic energy-intensive, trade-exposed industries, which have received substantial environmental tax exemptions and free allocations even in the greenest, high-trust, low-corruption democracies.

Political Economy Determinants of Carbon Pricing

“…To our knowledge, our analysis is the first study that finds quantitative evidence for a strong relationship between public belief and ambitious climate policy. Our finding that good governance is strongly related to carbon pricing is consistent with recent results generated in panel analyses of the political economy determinants of carbon pricing (Dolphin et al 2019;Rafaty 2018).…”

“…First, implementing carbon pricing systems is very complex, and they require political institutions equipped with sufficient technical and economic expertise to be designed, implemented, and administered ( Joas and Flachsland 2015; Jotzo and Löschel 2014; Karapin 2016; Rabe 2018). Second, well-governed institutions are less prone to corruption and hence can be expected to better serve the public interest (Rafaty 2018). Third, climate change is an environmental dilemma unfolding over a very long time horizon.…”

Political distrust and the spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria

“…They include education, personal well-being, social status, dislike of politics and ideological positioning (Norris, 2011). The major drivers of political distrust are poor quality of governance, technical incompetence, poor economy performance, manipulation of reports in government-owned media, mutual suspicions, lack of basic needs, political corruption and general exclusion (Bertsou, 2019;Carlisle, 2020;Clark, 2016;Iroghama, 2012;Khan, 2016;Kress et al, 2016;Rafaty, 2018). Lee and Lee (2018) also noted that incongruent ecological worldview could promote political distrust.…”

Regional Regulations and Public Safety Perceptions of Quality-of-Life Issues: Empirical Study on Food Safety in China

“…In fact, widespread food safety scandals have posed serious distrust of food producers, retailers, and regulatory authorities. As a result, many Chinese public have attributed food safety scandals to lax enforcement and poor governance, which often leads to public suspects of official corruptions and misconduct in building governance capacity with huge of fiscal expenditures [ 66 , 67 ]. Therefore, reducing information asymmetry via transparent information transmission, media monitoring, and public participation is helpful to rebuild political trust and then enhance their confidence on investment efficiency of food safety regulation [ 68 ].…”