Aiding or Shaming in Climate Politics: Experimental Evidence from Brazil

• In Event: Assessing Democratic Brazil: Institutions, Traditional Politics and New Issues

Abstract

Middle-income countries face substantial pressure from wealthy governments to reform their environmental and climate policies. Few countries have faced greater foreign criticism than Brazil, with its large population and stewardship over most of the world’s largest rainforest. What are the effects of this foreign pressure on Brazilian citizens’ opinions regarding climate policies? In a pre-registered survey experiment (n = 1003), I probe the effects of prompts regarding foreign aid and shame from abroad on Brazilians’ attitudes toward four climate policies: a carbon tax, payments for ecosystem services, establishing conservation areas, and bans on combustion engine cars in urban centers. Considering that Global South countries contribute less to total emissions and lag behind in economic development, I suggest that foreign aid and shame impact climate policy support by shaping views of policy fairness. Aid is expected to calm these concerns and raise policy support, whereas shame leads to the opposite effect. I find that foreign pressures have limited overall effects, except that shame significantly decreases support for a carbon tax. Costly policies which directly impact an individual’s pocketbook are likely to be most sensitive to foreign pressures. Moreover, pre-registered heterogeneity analysis provides evidence that aid generally increases support for climate policy among environmentally conscious citizens. But for subjects who do not prioritize the environment, against expectations I find that aid significantly decreases support for climate policies and shame, paradoxically, sometimes increases such support. The net effect of aid is the polarization of opinion toward most of the climate policies tested. The results indicate that foreign pressures land very differently for distinct types of citizens based on their prior levels of environmentalism. Overall, these findings raise doubts about the effectiveness of bilateral aid and pressure to raise support for reforming climate policies in emerging country contexts. The belief that foreign shame is less effective in democracies that are less established and less affluent is supported by this study. However, in contrast to common belief, foreign offers of aid, often seen as 'carrots,' are not inherently superior in motivating climate policy action.

Author

• Anthony Calacino, University of Oxford