Publication : Jean-Paul Bozonnet, Charlotte Halpern, The environmental policy assumption revisited: Explaining trends in environmental concerns in France between 1971 and 2008

27 mars 2013
By

Jean-Paul Bozonnet and Charlotte Halpern, The environmental policy assumption revisited: Explaining trends in environmental concerns in France between 1971 and 2008, French Politics (2013) 11, 48–72

Abstract

Why do people declare themselves to be highly concerned by ecology in the long run but vary over time in their commitment to the environmental cause? This article seeks to address this question by revisiting the environmental policy hypothesis. More precisely, it argues that such an assumption has not been demonstrated empirically partly because of data unavailability and to the choice of indicators. This article contributes to the wider debate on the disconnect between environmental concern and behaviour between 1971 and 2008 by using the choice and combination of policy instruments as an indicator of evolving relationship between the governing and the governed. This exploratory approach suggests that environmental behaviour may be increasingly channelled by environmental policies and less so by other forms of (individual or collective) mobilisation.

Keywords:

environmental concern; environmental behaviours; environmental policy; policy instruments; public opinion; European Social Survey

Link

http://www.palgrave-journals.com/fp/journal/v11/n1/abs/fp20131a.html