Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T14:56:49.024Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Democracy, Autocracy, and Everything in Between: How Domestic Institutions Affect Environmental Protection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2020

Jana von Stein Open the ORCID record for Jana von Stein [Opens in a new window]
Jana von Stein*
Affiliation:
School of Politics and International Relations, The Australian National University, Canberra
*
E-mail: jana.vonstein@anu.edu.au
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

As major global challenges intensify in the twenty-first century, which domestic institutions will best enable countries to take decisive and positive action? This article explores this question in the realm of environmental policy. Scholars and practitioners have long argued that ‘democracy’ yields the best environmental outcomes, but others now maintain that ‘eco-authoritarianism’ may be the best way forward. The author unpacks the theoretical mechanisms behind these debates, and adds important nuance in making three arguments. First, the link between elections and eco-policy depends on what citizens want. Secondly, the relationship between civil liberties protections and environmentalism depends on which actors within society hold power. Finally, political constraints make environmental policy change – be it environmentally friendly or damaging – more difficult. The study empirically tests these arguments and finds strong support for the expectations regarding elections and civil liberties. There is only limited evidence that constraints stymie eco-policy change.

Keywords

environmental politicsdemocracyautocracy
Type
Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , January 2022 , pp. 339 - 357
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, B, Böhmelt, T and Ward, H (2017) Public opinion and environmental policy output: a cross-national analysis of energy policies in Europe. Environmental Research Letters 12, 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baber, W, Bartlett, R (2005) Deliberative Environmental Politics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bakaki, Z, Böhmelt, T and Ward, H (2019) The triangular relationship between public concern for environmental issues, policy output, and media attention. Environmental Politics. doi:10.1080/09644016.2019.1655188Google Scholar
Barrett, S and Graddy, K (2000) Freedom, growth, and the environment. Environment and Development Economics 5, 433–456.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bates, D et al. (2015) Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software 61, 1–48.Google Scholar
Bättig, M and Bernauer, T (2009) National institutions and global public goods: are democracies more cooperative in climate change policy? International Organization 63, 281–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayer, P and Urpelainen, J (2016) It is all about political incentives: democracy and the renewable reed-in tariff. The Journal of Politics 78, 603–619.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayulgen, O and Ladewig, J (2017) Vetoing the future: political constraints and renewable energy. Environmental Politics 26, 49–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beck, N and Katz, J (2007) Random coefficient models for time-series–cross-section data: Monte Carlo experiments. Political Analysis 15, 182–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beeson, M (2018) Coming to terms with the authoritarian alternative: the implications and motivations of China's environmental policies. Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies 5, 34–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell, A and Jones, K (2015) Explaining fixed effects: random effects modeling of time-series cross-sectional and panel data. Political Science Research and Methods 3, 133–153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernauer, T and Betzold, C (2012) Civil society in global environmental governance. Journal of Environment and Development 21, 62–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernauer, T and Gempfer, R (2013) Effects of civil society involvement on popular legitimacy of global environmental governance. Global Environmental Change 23, 439–449.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernauer, T et al. (2016) Could more civil society involvement increase public support for climate policy-making? Evidence from a survey experiment in China. Global Environmental Change 40, 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernauer, T and Koubi, V (2009) Effects of political institutions on air quality. Ecological Economics 68, 1355–1365.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Besley, T and Prat, A (2005) Credible pensions. Fiscal Studies 26, 119–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Böhmelt, T, Bernauer, T and Koubi, V (2015) The marginal impact of ENGOs in different types of democratic systems. European Political Science Review 7, 93–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Böhmelt, T, Böker, M and Ward, H (2016) Democratic inclusiveness, climate policy outputs, and climate policy outcomes. Democratization 7, 1272–1291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Böhmelt, T, Koubi, V and Bernauer, T (2014) Civil society participation in global governance: insights from climate politics. European Journal of Political Research 53, 18–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bollyky, T et al. (2019) The relationships between democratic experience, adult health, and cause-specific mortality in 170 countries between 1980 and 2016: an observational analysis. Lancet 393, 1628–1640.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Börzel, T and Buzogán, A (2019) Compliance with EU environmental law. The iceberg is melting. Environmental Politics 28, 315–341.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, B et al. (2005) The Logic of Political Survival. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cantoni, R and Rignall, K (2019) Kingdom of the sun: a critical, multiscalar analysis of Morocco's solar energy strategy. Energy Research and Social Science 51, 20–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cao, X et al. (2014) Research frontiers in comparative and international environmental politics: an introduction. Comparative Political Studies 47, 291–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cao, X and Ward, H (2015) Winning coalition size, state capacity, and time horizons: an application of modified selectorate theory to environmental goods provision. International Studies Quarterly 59, 264–279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The Carter Center (2011) Presidential and legislative elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Atlanta, GA: The Carter Center.Google Scholar
Castro-Cornejo, R, Diop, A and Coppedge, M (2013) Senegal: a country report based on data 1900–2012. V-Dem Country Report Series 6.Google Scholar
Cheibub, J, Ghandi, J and Vreeland, J (2010) Democracy and dictatorship revisited. Public Choice 143, 67–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Congleton, R (1992) Political institutions and pollution control. Review of Economics and Statistics 7, 412–421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cope, K, Crabtree, C and Fariss, C (2020) Patterns of disagreement in indicators of state repression. Political Science Research and Methods 8, 178–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coppedge, M, et al. (2018) Varieties of Democracy Dataset V8. Available from http://www.v-dem.netGoogle Scholar
Dai, J and Spires, A (2016) Advocacy in an authoritarian state: how grassroots environmental NGOs influence local governments in China. The China Journal 79, 62–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daley, D, Haider-Markel, D and Whitford, A (2007) Checks, balances, and the cost of regulation: evidence from the American states. Political Research Quarterly 60, 696–706.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deacon, R (2009) Public good provision under dictatorship and democracy. Public Choice 139, 241–262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downs, A (1957) An economic theory of political action in a democracy. Journal of Political Economy 65, 135–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doyle, T and Simpson, A (2006) Traversing more than speed bumps: green politics under authoritarian regimes in Burma and Iran. Environmental Politics 15, 750–767.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dryzek, J (2002) Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics, Contestations. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duckett, J and Wang G, (2017) Why do authoritarian regimes provide public goods? Policy communities, external shocks and ideas in China's rural social policy making. Europe-Asia Studies 69, 92–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Environmental Protection Agency (1999) Nitrogen oxides (NOx): why and how they are controlled. Available from http://www3.epa.gov/ttncatc1/dir1/fnoxdoc.pdf.Google Scholar
Escher, R and Walter-Rogg, M (2018) Does the conceptualization and measurement of democracy quality matter in comparative climate policy research? Politics and Governance 6, 117–144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farber, D (1991) Free speech without romance: public choice and the first amendment. Harvard Law Review 105, 554–583.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farzin, H and Bond, C (2006) Democracy and environmental Quality. Journal of Development Economics 1, 213–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraenkel, J and Lal, B (2009) The 2006 Military Takeover in Fiji: A Coup to end all Coups? Canberra: Australian National University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franzese, R (2005) Empirical strategies for various manifestations of multilevel data. Political Analysis 13, 430–446.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frantz, E (2019) Authoritarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Freedom House (Various years) Available from freedomhouse.org/content/freedom-world-data-and-resources.Google Scholar
Fredriksson, P and Neumayer, E (2013) Democracy and climate change policies: is history important? Ecological Economics 95, 11–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fredriksson, P et al. (2004) Environmentalism, democracy, and pollution control. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 49, 343–365.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fredriksson, P and Wollscheid, J (2007) Democratic institutions v. autocratic regimes: the case of environmental policy. Public Choice 130, 381–393.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frey, C, Presidente, G and Chen, C (2020) Covid-19 and the future of democracy. Available from https://voxeu.org/article/covid-19-and-future-democracy.Google Scholar
Geddes, B, Wright, J and Frantz, E (2018) How Dictatorships Work. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ghandi, J (2008) Political Institutions Under Dictatorship. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gilley, B (2012) Authoritarian environmentalism and China's response to climate change. Environmental Politics 21, 284–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardin, G (1968) The Tragedy of the Commons. Science 162, 1243–1248.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harrison, T and Kostka, G (2014) Balancing priorities, aligning interests: developing mitigation capacity in China and India. Comparative Political Studies 47, 450–480.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haverland, M (2000) National adaptation to European integration: the importance of institutional veto points. Journal of Public Policy 111, 83–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heilbroner, E (1974) An Inquiry into the Human Prospect. New York: WW Norton.Google Scholar
Henisz, W (2017) The political constraint index. Available from mgmt.wharton.upenn.edu/faculty/heniszpolcon/polcondataset/.Google Scholar
Heurlin, C (2017) Responsive Authoritarianism in China: Land, Protests, and Policy Making. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hsiang, S et al. (2017) Estimating economic damage from climate change in the United States. Science 356, 1362–1369.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hsiang, S, Meng, K and Cane, M (2011) Civil conflicts are associated with global climate change. Science 476, 438–441.Google Scholar
Human Rights Watch (2019) Iran: environmentalists sentenced. Available from http://www.hrw.org/news/2019/11/22/iran-environmentalists-sentenced.Google Scholar
Hughes, L and Urpelainen, J (2015) Interests, institutions, and climate policy: explaining the choice of policy instruments for the energy sector. Environmental Science & Policy 54, 52–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hyde, S and Marinov, N (2012) Which elections can be lost? Political Analysis 20, 191–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
IPCC (2014) Climate change 2014: impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. Available from http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/.Google Scholar
IPCC (2018) Global warming of 1.5°C. Available from http://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/Google Scholar
Jamieson, D (2014) Reason in A Dark Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Janssens-Maenhout, G, et al. (2017) Global Atlas of the three major Greenhouse Gas Emissions for the period 1970–2012. Earth System Science Data. Available from edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keefer, P and Stasavage, D (2003) The limits of delegation: veto players, central bank independence, and the credibility of monetary policy. American Political Science Review 97, 407–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koko, S (2013) Peace at last? appraisal of the Addis Ababa Peace and Security Cooperation Framework and the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2098 for the Democratic Republic of the Congo. African Journal on Conflict Resolution 13, 59–86.Google Scholar
Lake, D and Baum, M (2001) The invisible hand of democracy: political control and the provision of public services. Comparative Political Studies 34, 587–621.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levitsky, S and Way, L (2020) The new competitive authoritarianism. Journal of Democracy 31, 51–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Q and Reuveny, R (2006) Democracy and environmental degradation. International Studies Quarterly 50, 935–956.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Looney, R (2016) Democracy is the answer to climate change. Foreign Policy, 1 June.Google Scholar
Lovelock, J (2010) James Lovelock on the value of sceptics and why Copenhagen was doomed. Available from http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock.Google Scholar
Madison, J (1788) The Federalist Papers: No. 51.Google Scholar
Madden, N (2014) Green means stop: veto players and their impact on climate-change policy outputs. Environmental Politics 23, 570–589.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maghraoui, A (2001) Monarchy and political reform in Morocco. Journal of Democracy 12, 73–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mani, A and Mukand, S (2007) Democracy, visibility and public good provision. Journal of Development Economics 83, 506–529.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, M, Gurr, T, Jaggers, K (2017) Polity IV Project.Google Scholar
McGuire, M and Olson, M (1996) The economics of autocracy and majority rule: the invisible hand and the use of force. Journal of Economic Literature 34, 272–296.Google Scholar
Midlarksy, M (1998) Democracy and the environment: an empirical assessment. Journal of Peace Research 35, 341–361.Google Scholar
Mildenberger, M (2020) Carbon Captured: How Business and Labor Control Climate Politics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, M (2015) Elections, information, and policy responsiveness in autocratic regimes. Comparative Political Studies 48, 691–727.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, S (2014) Modernisation, authoritarianism, and the environment: the politics of China's South–North Water Transfer Project. Environmental Politics 23, 947–964.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neumayer, E (2002) Do democracies exhibit stronger international environmental commitment? A cross-country analysis. Journal of Peace Research 39, 139–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ophuls, W (1977) Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity. San Francisco, CA: WH Freeman.Google Scholar
Payne, R (1995) Freedom and the environment. Journal of Democracy 6, 41–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pope, CA et al. (2002) Lung cancer, cardiopulmonary mortality, and long-term exposure to fine particulate air pollution. Journal of the American Medical Association 287(9), 1132–1141.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Povitkina, M (2018) The limits of democracy in tackling climate change. Environmental Politics 27, 411–432.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sater, J (2000) Parliamentary elections and authoritarian rule in Morocco. Middle East Journal 63, 381–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmitter, P and Karl, T (1991) What democracy is … and is not. Journal of Democracy 2, 75–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shahar, D (2015) Rejecting eco-authoritarianism, again. Environmental Values 24, 345–366.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shearman, D and Smith, J (2007) The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Liberal Democracy. London: Praeger.Google Scholar
Shor, B et al. (2007) A Bayesian multilevel modeling approach to time-series-cross-sectional data. Political Analysis 15, 165–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, J and Cheeseman, N (2020) Authoritarians are exploiting the coronavirus. Democracies must not follow suit. Foreign Policy, 20 April.Google Scholar
Sonnenfeld, D and Taylor, P (2018) Liberalism, illiberalism, and the environment. Society and Natural Resources 31, 515–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soroka, S and Wlezien, C (2010) Degrees of Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sowers, J (2007) Nature reserves and authoritarian rule in Egypt. Journal of Environment and Development 16, 375–397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spires, A, Tao, L and Chan, K (2014) Societal support for China's grass-roots NGOs: evidence from Yunnan. Guangdong and Beijing. The China Journal 71, 65–90.Google Scholar
Stadelmann-Steffen, I (2011) Citizens as veto players: climate change policy and the constraints of direct democracy. Environmental Politics 20, 485–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tang, S and Zhan, X (2008) Environmental NGOs, Civil Society, and Democratisation in China. Journal of Development Studies 44, 425–448.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Torras, M and Boyce, J (1998) Income, inequality, and pollution: a reassessment of the environmental Kuznets Curve. Ecological Economics 25, 147–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsebelis, G (2002) Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
UNEP (1992) Rio declaration on environment and development. Available from http://www.un.org/documents/ga/conf151/aconf15126-1annex1.htm.Google Scholar
UNEP (2019) Civil society engagement. Available from http://www.unenvironment.org/civil-society-engagement.Google Scholar
UNSC (2013) Resolution 2098. Available from http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/un-documents/document/sres2098.php.Google Scholar
UNSC (2019) Implementation of the peace, security and cooperation framework for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the region: report of the secretary-general.Google Scholar
von Stein, J (2020), “Replication Data for Democracy, Autocracy, and Everything in Between: How Domestic Institutions Affect Environmental Protection”, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/GGJWZJ, Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:J4fliL8H1Kdz0MAiNVYtpw== [fileUNF]Google Scholar
Ward, H (2008) Liberal democracy and sustainability. Environmental Politics 17, 386–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, H, Cao, X and Mukherjee, B (2014) State capacity and the environmental investment gap in authoritarian states. Comparative Political Studies 47, 309–343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Western, B (1998) Causal heterogeneity in comparative research: a Bayesian hierarchical modelling approach. American Journal of Political Science 42, 1233–1259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Bank (Various years) World Development Indicators. Available from http://data.worldbank.orgGoogle Scholar
World Bank (1992) World Development Report: Development and the Environment. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
Wurster, S (2013) Comparing ecological sustainability in autocracies and democracies. Contemporary Politics 19, 76–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yu, V (2020) If China valued free speech, there would be no coronavirus crisis. The Guardian, 8 February.Google Scholar
Zhong, Y and Hwang, W (2016) Pollution, institutions and street protests in urban China. Journal of Contemporary China 25, 216–223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

von Stein Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/GGJWZJ
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

von Stein supplementary material

von Stein supplementary material

Download von Stein supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 910.5 KB