Towards the Eco-Social State? Attitudes towards Welfare and Climate Policies

• In Event: Climate Politics, Environmental Policy, and Public Opinion

Abstract

Nearly every country on Earth is faced with multiple external shocks related to consequences of climate change. However, droughts, floods, and forest fires are not only becoming more and more frequent and severe over the last decades. Modern societies are also confronted with increasing living costs because of higher energy prices, due to the Russian war against Ukraine, as a result of austerity measures, or because of the costs of the COVID19 pandemic. Policies that adress (the consequences of) climate change therefore rank high on the agenda of every European government. As different climate mitigating policy instruments affect societal sub-groups in different ways, public attitudes towards climate policies differ considerably. For example, socially disadvantaged groups are more prone to suffer from climate policies, while more affluent groups consume and consequently pollute disproportionately more. Thus, the traditional social policy regime is closely linked to the emerging climate mitigation policies. Furthermore, climate policies will certainly come with increased governmental spending, public resources continue to be scarce, and social welfare continues to be the most expensive part of the budget. As a result, conflicts concerning positions and the relative salience of either dimension will be both polarized and salient. Conceptually, individuals have roughly four options regarding their attitudes towards climate and welfare policies: (1) they may either be opposed to both, (2) either in favour of climate mitigation as well as social polices or (3+4) they may prefer one over the other.

In the first step, we analyze attitudes toward the welfare state, towards climate change, and towards energy consumption across 23 European countries. In the second step, we focus on a novel dataset from Austria and show how these two dimensions of public opinion, climate mitigation and social welfare, are interconnected. We also explore the demographic and socio-economic characteristics that determine preferences at the individual level and variations across our two-dimensional issue space. In the next step, we advance towards variation at the country level that is structured by divergent social, political, and cultural context. The main drivers at the country level are differences between energy-producing and energy-consuming countries, the energy-dependence of the industry, and the taxation level in the respective country.

For the statistical data analysis we utilize two datasets: (1) the European Social Survey Round 8 (ESS-8, 2016/17) comprising data from 23 countries and more than 40.000 respondents and (2) the 6th wave of CRONOS II (2022) which exclusively addresses the the Austrian case. The dynamic interconnectedness of our two policy dimensions has direct implications for European governments, because public support has a legitimizing function. Moreover, government policies most of the time need to taker into account the dynamics of public opinion. Both policy dimensions compensate market failure. Their distributive consequences may likely result in social conflicts which pit different segments of the society against one another. A prominent example is the "Mouvement des Gilets jaunes" in France. Ultimately, the strong links between both dimensions of our issue space matter more generally, namely for the (just) transition to and the design of an eco-social welfare state.

Authors

• Guido Tiemann, Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna

• Marcel Fink, Institut für Höhere Studien / Institute for Advanced Studies

• Peter Grand, Institute for Advanced Studies