Aktuelle Publikationen
Auf dieser Seite finden Sie die chronologisch geordneten Veröffentlichungen unserer Wissenschaftler*innen aus den vergangenen Jahren.
Aktuelle Publikationen (Politik- und Verwaltungswissenschaft)
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(2023): Graphical Causal Models for Survey Inference Sociological Methods & Research. Sage. ISSN 0049-1241. eISSN 1552-8294. Available under: doi: 10.1177/00491241231176851
Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) are now a popular tool to inform causal inferences. We discuss how DAGs can also be used to encode theoretical assumptions about nonprobability samples and survey nonresponse and to determine whether population quantities including conditional distributions and regressions can be identified. We describe sources of bias and assumptions for eliminating it in various selection scenarios. We then introduce and analyze graphical representations of multiple selection stages in the data collection process, and highlight the strong assumptions implicit in using only design weights. Furthermore, we show that the common practice of selecting adjustment variables based on correlations with sample selection and outcome variables of interest is ill-justified and that nonresponse weighting when the interest is in causal inference may come at severe costs. Finally, we identify further areas for survey methodology research that can benefit from advances in causal graph theory.
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Sanctions have evolved into a popular foreign policy tool. Especially, the United States has heavily relied on such coercive measures to address international challenges of peace and security. To date, it has imposed sanctions more frequently than any other country or international institution. Yet, its sanctions decisions show two inconsistencies: While the US is quick to sanction some foreign countries for their transgressions, it is hesitant to punish others. Similarly, some countries remain under US sanctions for decades, while for others punishment is only brief. This raises the following questions: Are US sanctions decisions biased? And, if so, what are the sources of that bias?
This dissertation is dedicated to answering this research puzzle. It introduces a comprehensive framework for studying possible domestic and international sources of bias in sanctions decision-making (Chapter 2). It then applies this framework to the empirical study of the three different stages of the sanctions process using the US as its case, starting with the imposition (Chapter 3), over the management (Chapter 4), through the termination of these coercive measures (Chapter 5). For each stage, it focuses on the level of analysis—domestic or international—that is currently underrepresented in the literature.
Specifically, Chapter 3 presents evidence that sanctions can be imposed by leaders as part of a diversionary strategy to generate domestic gains. It makes the case that legislative constraints on presidential responses to domestic economic problems push presidents to the sanctions domain to demonstrate competence, leadership skills, and to secure public approval. Using a novel dataset on US sanctions from 1989 to 2015, it shows that US presidents are more likely to use sanctions when unemployment levels are high and the president’s party power in Congress is weak. More importantly, it sheds light on leaders’ decision-making: it seems that when reverting to sanctions for domestic gains, presidents opt for measures that inflict little to no harm on the US economy itself.
The second empirical chapter (Chapter 4) moves to the next stage of the process, the management of sanctions, and shifts attention to international sources of bias. Together with Julia Grauvogel, I focus on a subset of cases—the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) sanctions regime—that are enshrined in legislation by Congress yet enforced and monitored by the executive. Hereby we study US executive decisions related to the monitoring and enforcement of these coercive measures. We use original data on all TIP-related executive decisions from 2003 to 2008 and show that trade partners and key political allies are both subjected to softer assessments and are more likely to have the imposed sanctions waived. The results indicate that the process is driven by the executive’s attempts to minimize the economic and political costs of sanctions for the US itself.
Finally, in Chapter 5, I turn to the last stage of the sanctions process: the termination of these coercive measures. I draw on work emphasizing the audience and reputational costs related to sanctions termination and posit that domestic constraints affect leaders’ decision-making on the lifting of these measures. Using novel data on all US sanctions imposed between 1990 and 2018, I provide evidence that, first, presidents with stronger party power in Congress are more likely to end sanctions. The effect is more pronounced for termination decisions despite the target’s resistance to US demands. Second, higher approval ratings similarly increase the likelihood of sanctions termination by US capitulation. Lastly, sanctions that include mechanisms of congressional oversight not only last longer but are less likely to be lifted by the president prior to goal attainment. The results indicate that leaders rely on their political capital vis-à-vis the public and Congress to take potentially costly termination decisions, especially when they anticipate pushback from the latter.
Taken altogether, this dissertation presents a nuanced framework for studying sanctions and improves our understanding of why and how these measures are used by state leaders. It also sheds light on the latter stages of the sanctions process—their management and termination—that have hitherto attracted insufficient scholarly attention as compared to for the imposition and effectiveness of these measures. More precisely, this dissertation makes theoretical, conceptual, and empirical contributions to the scholarship. Theoretically, it introduces a comprehensive framework that accounts for both domestic and international sources of bias at the different stages of the sanctions process. Conceptually, it accounts for the varying dynamics and interests among domestic actors in the sender country that affect the sanctions process. Empirically, it uses novel data, employs statistical tests, and utilizes interview material to provide evidence that sanctions are biased from cradle to grave.
The findings help change the way we think about sanctions in two key ways. First, they underline that to fully understand the use and effectiveness of these measures, one should look at the entire sanctions process and account for domestic and international circumstances. Second, they remind us of the diversity of sanctions—as an instrument that has both symbolic and punitive attributes and is not tied to specific policy goals. This explains why leaders continue to use these measures despite their mixed record of success. Chapter 6 concludes by discussing the implications of this dissertation for sanctions in the twenty-first century: Evidence of bias can undermine the effectiveness hereof, as it negatively impacts both the credibility of sanctions as an instrument of foreign policy and of the US in international bargaining. Finally, the results carry important policy implications on sanctions exit strategies.
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(2023): Umwelt- und Klimapolitik SENN, Martin, ed., Franz EDER, ed., Markus KORNPROBST, ed.. Handbuch Außenpolitik Österreichs. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien, 2023, pp. 345-363. ISBN 978-3-658-37273-6. Available under: doi: 10.1007/978-3-658-37274-3_17
Dieser Beitrag geht der Frage nach, wie sich das außenpolitische Engagement Österreichs im Bereich der Umwelt- und Klimapolitik seit 1945 entwickelt hat. Er zeigt, dass Österreich seit 1970 vermehrt multilateralen Umweltübereinkommen beigetreten ist. Auch der Beitritt zur Europäischen Union (EU) prägte sein Verhalten im Bereich des internationalen Umwelt- und Klimaschutzes maßgeblich. Verhandelt Österreich im EU-Kontext Umweltübereinkommen, zählt es zu den ambitionierten Staaten. Konzentriert man sich jedoch auf die bloße Anzahl von Umweltverträgen, die Österreich ratifiziert hat, zeigt sich ein eher mittelmäßiges Abschneiden im Vergleich zu anderen europäischen Staaten.
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(2023): Who Deserves European Solidarity? : How Recipient Characteristics Shaped Public Support for International Medical and Financial Aid during COVID-19 British Journal of Political Science. Cambridge University Press. 2023, 53(2), pp. 629-651. ISSN 0007-1234. eISSN 1469-2112. Available under: doi: 10.1017/S0007123422000357
International solidarity is indispensable for coping with global crises; however, solidarity is frequently constrained by public opinion. Past research has examined who, on the donor side, is willing to support European and international aid. However, we know less about who, on the recipient side, is perceived to deserve solidarity. The article argues that potential donors consider situational circumstances and those relational features that link them to the recipients. Using factorial survey experiments, we analyse public support for international medical and financial aid in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results show that recipient countries' situational need and control, as well as political community criteria, namely, group membership, adherence to shared values and reciprocity, played a crucial role in explaining public support for aid. Important policy implications result: on the donor side, fault-attribution frames matter; on the recipient side, honouring community norms is key to receiving aid.
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(2023): Bildungspolitik WENZELBURGER, Georg, ed., Reimut ZOHLNHÖFER, ed.. Handbuch Policy-Forschung. 2., aktualisierte und erweiterte Auflage. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2023, pp. 657-681. ISBN 978-3-658-34559-4. Available under: doi: 10.1007/978-3-658-34560-0_26
Bildungspolitik war lange ein vernachlässigtes Feld der vergleichenden Policy-Forschung. In den letzten Jahren haben viele neue Forschungsarbeiten begonnen, diese Lücke zu schließen. Diese sollen zusammen mit den Klassikern des Forschungsfelds in diesem Überblickskapitel vorgestellt werden. Zunächst zeichnet das Kapitel jedoch anhand von ausgewählten Daten die Konturen des Politikfeldes Bildung im internationalen Vergleich nach. Es folgt eine kritische Würdigung und Diskussion der einschlägigen Forschung entlang von vier Themenbereichen: erstens, Beiträge zur Erklärung der Varianz von bildungspolitischem Output; zweitens, neuere Arbeiten zur Analyse von Konvergenz- und Diffusionsprozessionen in der Steuerung (Governance) von Bildungssystemen, die mit der Internationalisierung von Bildungspolitik zusammenhängen; drittens, Forschungsansätze, die Bildung aus der Perspektive der vergleichenden politischen Ökonomie und Kapitalismusforschung analysieren; und viertens, Forschung zu den Effekten von Bildungssystemen.
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(2023): Inside Identity Appeals : How Ethnic Parties Adapt their Communication to Changing Conditions
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dc.contributor.author: Haiges, Lea
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Digital media form an integral part of political actors' communication strategies. They leverage personal websites, Facebook pages, Twitter profiles, and Instagram accounts to disseminate information, communicate policy positions, and mobilize followers. Through digital media, politicians, political parties, and nongovernmental organizations alike are able to reach potentially massive audiences as nearly half the world's population is now connected to the Internet. Compared to other, more traditional media, digital media enable cost-effective, direct, two-way communication with diverse audiences. For political organizations that claim to represent specific ethnic groups, these information channels open up new opportunities and means to achieve their goals. Investigating their activities in the digital space constitutes the topic of this dissertation.
In the first paper (co-authored with Nils B. Weidmann), I present a new dataset for this purpose. It enables researchers to track the online activities of ethnic organizations. The Ethnic Organizations Online (EO2) database systematically captures Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram profiles as well as websites of political organizations with links to ethnic groups in 90 countries. I demonstrate the value of this dataset in three applications: First, I am able to show that separatist organizations are more likely to use Twitter than organizations without secessionist goals. Moreover, I find that organizations in autocracies invest fewer resources into their social media activity as elections approach. Finally, I compare organizations in power to those with opposition status: the former tend to communicate less about political phenomena and activities.
In the second paper (co-authored with Lea Haiges), I examine the content of political communication online, in particular how elections and party competition influence the use of ethnic identity appeals. The basis for this work is provided by hand-coding more than 9000 Facebook and Twitter posts. Based on this data, I train machine learning models that automatically detect identity appeals in over 2~000~000 million social media posts. Analyzing this data with regression models, I find the following: The closer an election, the higher the likelihood that an ethnic party will appeal to ethnic identities. In addition, I show that when more ethnic parties participate in a particular election, this results in a higher number of ethnic identity appeals. Both results provide evidence on axiomatic assumptions of theories of ethnic politics.
In the third paper, I turn to the effects of ethnic organizations' digital communication. I investigate whether individuals' who are exposed to references to ethnic identities online leads to increased identification with those very identities. To study this, I collect more than 200~000 Facebook comments authored in reply to 8000 Facebook posts of ethnic parties. I show that these parties face incentives to mention ethnic identities as this increases the reach of their posts. Their comment sections are more likely to feature comments with negative emotions, references to ethnic identities, and even toxic content. However, I find no evidence that these results extend to citizens' attitudes on the ground.
In summary, this dissertation offers important insights into the digital, political communication of ethnic organizations. It shows that these actors use social media strategically to achieve their goals -- although adoption of platforms has not been universal. However, when ethnic organizations take to social media the electoral context plays an important role. Moreover, ethnic organizations' digital communications carry wide-ranging implications in the digital space, as it can lead to more toxic language and negative comments. Although their offline impact remains unclear, the data collected in this dissertation provides a valuable starting point for further research.
Forschungszusammenhang (Projekte)
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(2023): What do Twitter comments tell about news article bias? : Assessing the impact of news article bias on its perception on Twitter Online Social Networks and Media. Elsevier. 2023, 37-38, 100264. eISSN 2468-6964. Available under: doi: 10.1016/j.osnem.2023.100264
News stories circulating online, especially on social media platforms, are nowadays a primary source of information. Given the nature of social media, news no longer are just news, but they are embedded in the conversations of users interacting with them. This is particularly relevant for inaccurate information or even outright misinformation because user interaction has a crucial impact on whether information is uncritically disseminated or not. Biased coverage has been shown to affect personal decision-making. Still, it remains an open question whether users are aware of the biased reporting they encounter and how they react to it. The latter is particularly relevant given that user reactions help contextualize reporting for other users and can thus help mitigate but may also exacerbate the impact of biased media coverage.
This paper approaches the question from a measurement point of view, examining whether reactions to news articles on Twitter can serve as bias indicators, i.e., whether how users comment on a given article relates to its actual level of bias. We first give an overview of research on media bias before discussing key concepts related to how individuals engage with online content, focusing on the sentiment (or valance) of comments and on outright hate speech. We then present the first dataset connecting reliable human-made media bias classifications of news articles with the reactions these articles received on Twitter. We call our dataset BAT - Bias And Twitter. BAT covers 2,800 (bias-rated) news articles from 255 English-speaking news outlets. Additionally, BAT includes 175,807 comments and retweets referring to the articles.
Based on BAT, we conduct a multi-feature analysis to identify comment characteristics and analyze whether Twitter reactions correlate with an article’s bias. First, we fine-tune and apply two XLNet-based classifiers for hate speech detection and sentiment analysis. Second, we relate the results of the classifiers to the article bias annotations within a multi-level regression. The results show that Twitter reactions to an article indicate its bias, and vice-versa. With a regression coefficient of 0.703 (), we specifically present evidence that Twitter reactions to biased articles are significantly more hateful. Our analysis shows that the news outlet’s individual stance reinforces the hate-bias relationship. In future work, we will extend the dataset and analysis, including additional concepts related to media bias.
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(2023): Positional Deprivation and Support for Redistribution and Social Insurance in Europe Comparative Political Studies. Sage Publications. 2023, 56(5), pp. 655-693. ISSN 0010-4140. eISSN 1552-3829. Available under: doi: 10.1177/00104140221115168
We argue that support for redistribution increases when one experiences “positional deprivation,” situations when one’s own income increases slower or decreases faster compared to that of others. This specific combination of economic suffering over-time and relative to others has effects beyond well-studied measures of suffering that are static and/or absolute in nature, such as income level. We empirically explore this hypothesis by using “objective-material” measures of positional deprivation derived from the Luxembourg Income Studies and the European Social Survey, and by using “subjective” measures derived from an original survey in 13 European countries. We find that those whose income growth is outpaced by the average and/or richest members of their country are more likely to support redistribution. We also find that the objective and subjective measures of positional deprivation are significantly correlated, and that positional deprivation’s fostering of support for redistribution holds above-and-beyond static and/or absolute measures of economic experience.
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(2023): Dealing with Technological Change : Social Policy Preferences and Institutional Context Comparative Political Studies. Sage Publications. 2023, 56(7), pp. 968-999. ISSN 0010-4140. eISSN 1552-3829. Available under: doi: 10.1177/00104140221139381
How does technological change affect social policy preferences across different institutional contexts? In this paper, we argue that individuals who perceive high levels of technology-related employment risks prefer passive policies like unemployment benefits over active measures like retraining in order to satisfy the need for immediate compensation in the case of job loss. At the same time, general support for passive (active) policy solutions to technological change should be significantly lower (higher) in countries where generous compensation schemes already exist. As the perception of technology-related employment risks increases, however, we expect that social policy preferences among high-risk individuals should converge across different welfare state contexts. We use novel data from a diverse set of 24 OECD countries that specifically measure preferred social policy solutions to technological change in a constrained choice scenario. Applying statistical methods that explicitly model the trade-off faced by individuals, we find evidence in line with our theoretical expectations.
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Was wissen wir über die Situation von Frauen in Führungspositionen, und was wissen wir nicht? Führen Frauen anders als Männer? Was motiviert Frauen dazu, Führungspositionen zu übernehmen? Sind neuere Führungskonzepte eher für Frauen geeignet? Dieses Buch bietet einen kompakten und profunden Einblick in den aktuellen Stand der Leadership-Forschung mit teilweise überraschenden Erkenntnissen. Zudem liefert es eine evidenzbasierte Grundlage für die Ableitung von Handlungsempfehlungen für Praktiker und Praktikerinnen, die die Situation von Frauen in Führungspositionen (mit-)gestalten und beeinflussen. Es versteht sich damit als Versuch, diejenigen Fragen zu beantworten, die sich im Zusammenhang mit Female Leadership stellen, und als Orientierungshilfe, auch und gerade für Frauen in (zukünftigen) Führungspositionen.
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(2023): Preferred policy responses to technological change : Survey evidence from OECD countries Socio-Economic Review. Oxford University Press. 2023, 21(1), pp. 593-615. ISSN 1475-1461. eISSN 1475-147X. Available under: doi: 10.1093/ser/mwac015
How do the labor market risks associated with technological change affect policy preferences? We argue that higher perceptions of technology-related risks should increase support for compensation and decrease support for social investment. We expect the opposite effect for individuals who use technology constantly at work, have a university degree and earn higher incomes. However, as the perception of technology-related employment risks in the latter group of individuals increases, so does their preference for compensatory and protective policy solutions to technological change. Our expectations are confirmed by novel data from a survey of 24 diverse Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries that includes specifically designed questions on technology-related risks and policy preferences. The results suggest that technology-related risks not only correlate with certain demographic and occupational characteristics, but also cross-cut them. Thus, technology-related risks might not only become a source of new cleavages between the losers and winners of technological change, but also the basis for new cross-class coalitions.
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(2023): From alternative conceptions of honesty to alternative facts in communications by US politicians Nature Human Behaviour. Springer. 2023, 7(12), pp. 2140-2151. eISSN 2397-3374. Available under: doi: 10.1038/s41562-023-01691-w
The spread of online misinformation on social media is increasingly perceived as a problem for societal cohesion and democracy. The role of political leaders in this process has attracted less research attention, even though politicians who ‘speak their mind’ are perceived by segments of the public as authentic and honest even if their statements are unsupported by evidence. By analysing communications by members of the US Congress on Twitter between 2011 and 2022, we show that politicians’ conception of honesty has undergone a distinct shift, with authentic belief speaking that may be decoupled from evidence becoming more prominent and more differentiated from explicitly evidence-based fact speaking. We show that for Republicans—but not Democrats—an increase in belief speaking of 10% is associated with a decrease of 12.8 points of quality (NewsGuard scoring system) in the sources shared in a tweet. In contrast, an increase in fact-speaking language is associated with an increase in quality of sources for both parties. Our study is observational and cannot support causal inferences. However, our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the current dissemination of misinformation in political discourse is linked to an alternative understanding of truth and honesty that emphasizes invocation of subjective belief at the expense of reliance on evidence.
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(2023): This Is What Pandemic Looks Like : Visual Framing of COVID-19 on Search Engines VAKOCH, Douglas A., ed., John C. POLLOCK, ed., Amanda M. CALEB, ed.. COVID Communication : Exploring Pandemic Discourse. Cham: Springer, 2023, pp. 113-123. ISBN 978-3-031-27667-5. Available under: doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-27665-1_9
In this chapter, we conduct a comparative analysis of how different search engines prioritize visual information related to COVID-19 and what consequences it has for the representation of the pandemic. Our interest in the visuality of COVID-19 is attributed to images being an effective means of communicating complex phenomena that are hard to express verbally. Furthermore, the potential of images for stirring emotional responses makes them a potent catalyst of societal mobilization at the time of crisis but also results in their frequent (ab)use for manipulating public opinion. We looked at how classic news frames (e.g., the attribution of responsibility, human interest, and economics) are used in relation to COVID-19 and how their visual composition varies between the search engines. Our preliminary findings indicate significant differences in the use of frames such as the less pronounced use of classic news frames in English and Russian compared with Chinese.
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(2023): Two-Year Progress of Pilot Research Activities in Teaching Digital Thinking Project (TDT) Zeitschrift für Hochschulentwicklung (ZFHE). Verein Forum Neue Medien in der Lehre Austria. 2023, 18, pp. 117-136. eISSN 2219-6994. Available under: doi: 10.3217/zfhe-SH-HL/07
This article presents a progress report from the last two years of the Teaching Digital Thinking (TDT) project. This project aims to implement new concepts, didactic methods, and teaching formats for sustainable digital transformation in Austrian Universities’ curricula by introducing new digital competencies. By equipping students and teachers with 21st-century digital competencies, partner universities can contribute to solving global challenges and organizing pilot projects. In line with the overall project aims, this article presents the ongoing digital transformation activities, courses, and research in the project, which have been carried out by the five partner universities since 2020, and briefly discusses the results. This article presents a summary of the research and educational activities carried out within two parts: complementary research and pilot projects.
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(2023): Moving on up? : How Social Origins Shape Geographic Mobility within Britain’s Higher Managerial and Professional Occupations Sociology. Sage. 2023, 57(3), pp. 659-681. ISSN 0038-0385. eISSN 1469-8684. Available under: doi: 10.1177/00380385221113669
This article presents the first longitudinal analysis of social and geographic mobility into Britain’s higher managerial and professional occupations. Using linked census records from the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study, we find that those from advantaged social origins are substantially more likely to make long-distance residential moves, implying that geographic mobility is a correlate of advantaged social origins rather than a determinant of an advantaged adult class position. Among higher managers and professionals, those with advantaged backgrounds lived in more affluent areas as children than those from disadvantaged backgrounds. This ‘area gap’ persists during adulthood: when the upwardly mobile move, they are unable to close the gap to their peers with privileged backgrounds in terms of the affluence of the areas they live in: they face a moving target. Geographic advantage, and disadvantage, thus lingers with individuals, even if they move.
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Digitalization is leading to significant changes in the world of work and transpires as a constant challenge in today’s working life. To a certain extent, all employees are affected by digitalization and must acquire and develop digital competencies. To stay competitive, digital competencies or digital fluency could be a substantial competence. This dissertation conducts three empirical studies to expand our knowledge of employees’ digital fluency, particularly the antecedents and influential factors on the acquisition of digital fluency. The three empirical studies in the dissertation move from the individual-level to the dyadic-level to the team-level perspective to provide as comprehensive an overview as possible of the acquisition of digital fluency.
Study 1, with the focus on the individual-level, provides a better understanding of the individuals’ willingness of training participation, the role of personality, specific training, and the matching between these constructs. Based on 1,007 employees surveyed at a large German technology company, the study reveals that the employees’ personality has an impact on their willingness of training participation. Study 2 operates on the dyadic-level and found that leadership behavior: empowering leadership and the leaders’ personality have an effect on employees’ acquisition of digital fluency. Building on a sample of 486 employees from a medium-sized company, Study 2 contributes to a comprehensive understanding of influential factors on employees’ acquisition of digital fluency. Study 3 offers a better understanding of dyadic relationships within work groups, their influence on collective digital fluency, and the moderating effect of the leader-member exchange climate on the team-level. Results from a collected dataset of 805 employees from a large German company confirmed a moderating effect of leader-member exchange climate on collective digital fluency.
Overall, the dissertation findings highlight the importance of different antecedents and influential factors in the acquisition of digital fluency. The unique insights can help practitioners build a more suitable work environment for employees to become and stay digitally fluent and thrive in the future.
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(2023): Was Deutschland von Estlands Transformation lernen kann Innovative Verwaltung. Gabler. 2023(1/2). ISSN 1618-9876. eISSN 2192-9068. Available under: doi: 10.1007/s35114-022-1495-5
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dc.contributor.author: Krimmer, Robert
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(2023): Why Globalization Hardly Affects Education Systems : A Historical Institutionalist View MATTEI, Paola, ed., Xavier DUMAY, ed., Éric MANGEZ, ed., Jacqueline BEHREND, ed.. The Oxford Handbook of Education and Globalization. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2023, pp. 554-C26P159. ISBN 978-0-19-757068-5. Available under: doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197570685.013.24
Many scholars and observers have assumed that globalization triggers convergence in many areas, including education policy and systems. Yet, while some change has happened, the central elements of countries’ education systems have been relatively unaffected by globalization. This chapter explains this inertia, pointing at the politics of education. Taking a historical institutionalist perspective, the chapter shows that education systems have created positive feedback effects generating path dependencies which make education systems increasingly resilient to change. A review and discussion of recent research underpin this reasoning, identifying three mechanisms, through public opinion, interest groups, and political elites, respectively.
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(2023): Environmental Concern Leads to Trade Skepticism on the Political Left and Right International Studies Quarterly. Oxford University Press. 2023, 66(5), sqac060. ISSN 0020-8833. eISSN 1468-2478. Available under: doi: 10.1093/isq/sqac060
The environmental implications of international trade appear to be associated with public backlash against trade liberalization and efforts at greening international trade. Because public support is essential to environmental and trade policy-making alike, we examine the trade–environment nexus from a public opinion perspective. We investigate whether negative attitudes toward trade are in fact fueled by concern over its environmental consequences. We argue that environmental concern affects how citizens evaluate the costs and benefits of trade, and that such evaluation is moderated by political ideology. The empirical analysis relies on a large representative survey and a population-based survey experiment in Switzerland, a small open economy. We show that environmental concern leads to decreasing appreciation of and support for international trade, with different manifestations of trade skepticism on the political left and right. This suggests (i) that policy-makers should focus more on greening global supply chains, and thus trade, if they wish to sustain public support for liberal international trade policy; and (ii) that the public follows informational cues on the environmental impacts of trade.