The contingent effects of environmental concern and ideology: institutional context and people’s willingness to pay environmental taxes

Abstract

Environmental taxes are often argued to be key to more effective environmental protection. People’s willingness to pay such taxes in contexts with varying levels of quality of government (QoG) is investigated. Applying multilevel analyses on data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) and the QoG Institute, links between environmental concern, ideology, and QoG are explored. The results show that people who state that they are concerned about environmental issues and live in high QoG countries are more willing than people in low QoG countries to pay environmental taxes. Moreover, people in low QoG countries holding leftist political value orientations are less willing to pay environmental taxes than rightists and other value groups. Environmental concern and leftist political ideology are more important drivers of public support for environmental taxes in high QoG countries than in low QoG countries.