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The environmental policy assumption revisited: Explaining trends in environmental concerns in France between 1971 and 2008

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French Politics Aims and scope

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.

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Notes

  1. Although it would have made sense to include the recent period, this time frame was chosen in view of the data available on ecological opinion and commitment. However, the changes brought to forms of environmental policy instrumentation under the Sarkozy administration is briefly introduced in the third part of the article and has been extensively developed elsewhere (Boy et al, 2012).

  2. In each case, the samples include at least 1000 individuals, randomly selected for face-to-face interviews. For more information on the Eurobarometer surveys, see www.ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/index_en.htm; and on the EVS surveys, see www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu/

  3. This process follows a five-step model: (i) pre-problem, (ii) alarmed discovery and euphoric enthusiasm, (iii) realizing the cost, (iv) gradual decline of intense public interest and (v) post-problem.

  4. A similar argument has been made regarding the measurement of social movements on public policies (Dupuy and Halpern, 2009).

  5. The research for this section was funded by the European Union's sixth Framework Programme, as part of the New Modes of Governance Project on ‘Choice and combination of environmental and urban policy instruments since the 1970s’ (2005–2008) (Halpern and Le Galés, 2008).

  6. See, for example, the ongoing work done within the comparative agenda project: www.agendas-france.fr/index.php?lang=en.

  7. For a full list of French environmental policy instruments and the methodological issues we faced in order to develop this database, see Halpern (2011).

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Acknowledgements

Helpful comments on earlier versions of this article were received from Céline Belot, Bruno Cautrès and Claire Dupuy. We also thank the anonymous referees for their useful suggestions and comments.

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Correspondence to Jean-Paul Bozonnet.

Appendix

Appendix

Table A1

Table a1 Major steps in the evolution of the environmental Ministry’s formal attributions since 1971

Table A2

Table a2 Major steps in the devolution of competences towards subnational levels of government since 1982

Table A3

Table a3 Major environmental legislation since 1960

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Bozonnet, JP., Halpern, C. The environmental policy assumption revisited: Explaining trends in environmental concerns in France between 1971 and 2008. Fr Polit 11, 48–72 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/fp.2013.1

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