Spatial Patterns for Potential Climate Voting
(2022) EOSK12 20221Department of Economic History
- Abstract
- The need to curb global warming is evident, and efficient climate policies are essential. But within the democratic context, public support for climate politics is needed to implement mitigation efforts. Sweden has long been known as a forerunner for climate change mitigation, however, there are indications that the voters’ interest in climate politics is waning. This study aims to visualize the evolution of spatial patterns of support for climate politics on a regional level in Sweden between 2006-2018 and explore how selected factors might be related to the trends on a regional level. This is done by constructing the Climate Prioritization Index, which is based on the voter’s perceptions of the political parties’ climate politics since... (More)
- The need to curb global warming is evident, and efficient climate policies are essential. But within the democratic context, public support for climate politics is needed to implement mitigation efforts. Sweden has long been known as a forerunner for climate change mitigation, however, there are indications that the voters’ interest in climate politics is waning. This study aims to visualize the evolution of spatial patterns of support for climate politics on a regional level in Sweden between 2006-2018 and explore how selected factors might be related to the trends on a regional level. This is done by constructing the Climate Prioritization Index, which is based on the voter’s perceptions of the political parties’ climate politics since the study is concerned with what steers voters’ behaviour. It is found that, on a national level there was a moderate increase in the propensity to vote for the climate until 2011, when a dramatic decline was initiated. The southern regions pioneered the drastic decrease, where South Sweden had the most extreme decline. Even though this trend is nationwide, the northern regions and Stockholm show persistence in their support for climate politics. Regional level labour income does not appear to have an effect, neither do climate tax, while the effects from access to public transport and price on gasoline are ambiguous and CO2 emissions per capita has a panoptic positive relation. The persistence in the pattern is likely related to interdependence of voters and the neighbourhood effect, and the mechanism in which the voters position themselves according to the political reference point in their region. The overall decline can, partially, be explained by the collective action of political participation, where the voter is discouraged to vote if the party they voted for does not gain power, as the voter loses the sense of political usefulness. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9094206
- author
- Garberg, Lovisa LU
- supervisor
- organization
- alternative title
- The political economy of public support for climate politics in Sweden 2006-2018
- course
- EOSK12 20221
- year
- 2022
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- Public support, Climate politics, Electoral Geography, Voter’s Behaviour, Sweden, Climate change
- language
- English
- id
- 9094206
- date added to LUP
- 2022-08-19 10:44:22
- date last changed
- 2022-08-19 10:44:22
@misc{9094206,
abstract = {{The need to curb global warming is evident, and efficient climate policies are essential. But within the democratic context, public support for climate politics is needed to implement mitigation efforts. Sweden has long been known as a forerunner for climate change mitigation, however, there are indications that the voters’ interest in climate politics is waning. This study aims to visualize the evolution of spatial patterns of support for climate politics on a regional level in Sweden between 2006-2018 and explore how selected factors might be related to the trends on a regional level. This is done by constructing the Climate Prioritization Index, which is based on the voter’s perceptions of the political parties’ climate politics since the study is concerned with what steers voters’ behaviour. It is found that, on a national level there was a moderate increase in the propensity to vote for the climate until 2011, when a dramatic decline was initiated. The southern regions pioneered the drastic decrease, where South Sweden had the most extreme decline. Even though this trend is nationwide, the northern regions and Stockholm show persistence in their support for climate politics. Regional level labour income does not appear to have an effect, neither do climate tax, while the effects from access to public transport and price on gasoline are ambiguous and CO2 emissions per capita has a panoptic positive relation. The persistence in the pattern is likely related to interdependence of voters and the neighbourhood effect, and the mechanism in which the voters position themselves according to the political reference point in their region. The overall decline can, partially, be explained by the collective action of political participation, where the voter is discouraged to vote if the party they voted for does not gain power, as the voter loses the sense of political usefulness.}},
author = {{Garberg, Lovisa}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Spatial Patterns for Potential Climate Voting}},
year = {{2022}},
}