Sverker C. Jagers

Inspecting environmental management from within: the role of street-level bureaucrats in environmental policy implementation.

In this paper, we assert that an important element is largely missing in much of the current environmental policy literature regarding different management ideals: street-level bureaucrats (i.e., the practicing and, typically, anonymous civil servants at the very end of the environmental policy chain). Thus, we aim to enhance a deeper understanding of the role that street-level bureaucrats play within different management ideals, and through this discussion, we indicate how they affect the functionality of governing structures and processes. We do so by interviewing street-level bureaucrats carrying out their role in different management settings, enabling evaluations of the degree to which their practices correspond with the ideals expressed in the literature and in official directives. We find a rather poor match between these ideals on one hand and the way street-level bureaucrats actually perceive that they are internally steered and how they carry out their commissions on the other hand.

How exposure to policy tools transforms the mechanisms behind public acceptability and acceptance—The case of the Gothenburg congestion tax

ABSTRACT An increasing body of literature suggests that acceptance of environmental policy instruments tends to change along with increased experience of the same. Among the more popular examples of this is the growing number of congestion pricing initiatives emerging around the world. In several cases, the acceptability of these projects among the public has been relatively low before implementation, but then acceptance has increased as experience of the project has grown. The question is just how, and in particular, why? That is, what is it really that experience does to peoples propensity to accept initially quite unpopular measures? In this article, we analyze how the relationship between political trust, policy-specific beliefs (PSBs), and public support for policy tools is moderated or affected by peoples personal experiences of those policy tools. On the basis of the experience of previous research, we test the way in which PSBs, institutional trust, and the legitimacy of the political decision-making process affect public attitudes toward a policy tool. In addition—and consistent with other studies—we expect these effects to be significantly reduced post-implementation, as people gain first-hand experience of a policy tool. More specifically, we theorize that the often emphasized process legitimacy is only valid as a factor driving support before implementation, and that the effect of general institutional trust is replaced by the level of trust specific to the implementing institutions after the introduction of the policy tool. We tested these hypotheses using a natural experiment; that is, by studying public attitudes toward the introduction of congestion fees in the Swedish city of Gothenburg both before and after their introduction. By doing so, we were able to comprehensively analyze both the drivers behind public sentiments toward congestion charges and how these mechanisms transform as people are exposed to the costs and benefits of the policy tool in practice. Among other things, we found that with regard to fairness and environmental effectiveness, there is a clear symmetry in our results. The level of acceptance increased most noticeably among those who experienced that the environment was improved by the implemented tax, or that the system turned out to be fairer than expected. However, the opposite is also the case. Thus, among those experiencing that the environment was not improved, or that the system appeared to be less fair than expected, the level of acceptance decreased significantly after implementation. These results may have important policy implications.

Environmental management from left to right : on ideology, policy-specific beliefs and pro-environmental policy support

Due to growing environmental challenges, the demand for effective management through pro-environmental policy measures is increasing. The effectiveness is, however, largely determined by the degree to which the policy measures are supported by the actors affected by them. A consistent finding in the literature is that ideology (or subjective positioning on the left–right dimension) affects environmental policy support, with left-leaning individuals being more pro-environmental. A major caveat with previous research is that it seldom makes a distinction between different kinds of policies. Therefore, we are concerned with investigating how different ideological positions affect attitudes towards different forms of environmental protection. Using unique survey data, we show that ideology is related to conceptions about the fairness and effectiveness of different policy tools, which in turn steer preferences. In that sense, this paper makes the discussion on the effects of ideological position on pro-environmental policy support more nuanced.

Why do people accept environmental policies? The prospects of higher education and changes in norms, beliefs and policy preferences

Abstract Pressing problems of environmental degradation are typically argued to require coordination, primarily through state intervention. Social scientists are struggling to understand how attitudes toward such state interventions are formed, and several drivers have been suggested, including education. People with university degrees are assumed to have certain values as well as the analytical skills to understand complex issues such as climate change. By using a unique panel data-set with students in different university programs (economics, law and political science), this study provides a better understanding of whether and how education affects environmental policy acceptance. One important finding is that university studies generate variation in support and scepticism toward different types of policy measures. For example, economics students tend to develop more positive attitudes toward market-based policy measures. This indicates a potential for education to increase the societal support often hindering the implementation of such policy tools.