The Electoral Consequences of Environmental Accidents: Evidence from Chernobyl
(2023) In Journal of Public Economics 225.- Abstract
- This paper examines the relationship between environmental accidents and voting. Following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, environmentalist parties entered parliaments in several nations. This paper uses Chernobyl as a natural experiment creating variation in radioactive fallout exposure over Sweden. I match municipality-level data on cesium ground contamination with election results for the environmentalist Green Party, which was elected to parliament in 1988. After adjusting for pre-Chernobyl views on nuclear power, the results show that voters in high-fallout areas were more likely to vote for the Greens. Detailed individual-level survey data suggests that resistance to nuclear energy increased in fallout-effected areas after the accident,... (More)
- This paper examines the relationship between environmental accidents and voting. Following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, environmentalist parties entered parliaments in several nations. This paper uses Chernobyl as a natural experiment creating variation in radioactive fallout exposure over Sweden. I match municipality-level data on cesium ground contamination with election results for the environmentalist Green Party, which was elected to parliament in 1988. After adjusting for pre-Chernobyl views on nuclear power, the results show that voters in high-fallout areas were more likely to vote for the Greens. Detailed individual-level survey data suggests that resistance to nuclear energy increased in fallout-effected areas after the accident, and that this change was driven by voters who followed local media closely. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/7bd3781f-4cff-4027-959d-3c4fbee6c582
- author
- Mehic, Adrian LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2023-09
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- D72, Q48, Q53, Q58, Chernobyl, Pollution, voting
- in
- Journal of Public Economics
- volume
- 225
- article number
- 104964
- publisher
- Elsevier
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85167968953
- ISSN
- 0047-2727
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2023.104964
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 7bd3781f-4cff-4027-959d-3c4fbee6c582
- date added to LUP
- 2023-08-17 11:35:29
- date last changed
- 2023-10-13 04:00:14
@article{7bd3781f-4cff-4027-959d-3c4fbee6c582,
abstract = {{This paper examines the relationship between environmental accidents and voting. Following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, environmentalist parties entered parliaments in several nations. This paper uses Chernobyl as a natural experiment creating variation in radioactive fallout exposure over Sweden. I match municipality-level data on cesium ground contamination with election results for the environmentalist Green Party, which was elected to parliament in 1988. After adjusting for pre-Chernobyl views on nuclear power, the results show that voters in high-fallout areas were more likely to vote for the Greens. Detailed individual-level survey data suggests that resistance to nuclear energy increased in fallout-effected areas after the accident, and that this change was driven by voters who followed local media closely.}},
author = {{Mehic, Adrian}},
issn = {{0047-2727}},
keywords = {{D72; Q48; Q53; Q58; Chernobyl; Pollution; voting}},
language = {{eng}},
publisher = {{Elsevier}},
series = {{Journal of Public Economics}},
title = {{The Electoral Consequences of Environmental Accidents: Evidence from Chernobyl}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2023.104964}},
doi = {{10.1016/j.jpubeco.2023.104964}},
volume = {{225}},
year = {{2023}},
}