Unformatted Attachment Preview
First publ. in: European Journal of Political Research 49 (2010), 3, pp. 301-336
DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-6765.2009.01903.x
301
Do parties matter in internationalised policy areas? The impact of
political parties on environmental policy outputs in 18 OEeD
countries, 1970-2000
CHRISTOPH KNILU, MARC DEBUS 2 & STEPHAN HEICHEL'
IDepartment of Politics and Management, University of Konstanz, Germany; 2Mannheim
Centre for European Social Research (MZES), University of Mannheim, Germany
Abstract. This article analyses the extent to which national policies in the highly internationalised environmental sector are influenced by the policy preferences of political parties.
The focus is on policy outputs rather than environmental performance as the central indicator of policy change. Based on a discussion of the relevant theoretical literature competing
hypotheses are presented. For an empirical test, a dataset is used that includes information
on the number of environmental policies adopted in 18 OECD countries at four points in
time between 1970 and 2000. The results show that not only international integration,
economic development and problem pressure, but also aspects of party politics, influence the
number of policies adopted. The number of environmental measures increases if the governmental parties adopt more pro-environmentalist policy positions. This effect remains
robust even when controlling for the institutional strength of governments, the left-right
position of parties in government, the inclusion of an ecological or left-libertarian party
inside the (coalition) government, and the presence of a portfolio that deals exclusively with
environmental issues.
Introduction
The question of whether political parties and partisan rule in government have
a systematic influence on policy making has received considerable scholarly
attention in the last decades (Castles 1982; Kernan 2002; Schmidt 1996). Traditionally, the research focus was on the left-right party composition of governments and its translation into policies, especially with regard to macroeconomic phenomena like inflation, growth and unemployment, but also fiscal
and tax policy as well as aggregate social spending. In recent years, the availability of systematic data on the positions of political parties collected within
the 'Comparative Manifesto Project' (CMP; Budge et al. 2001; Klingemann
et al. 2006) offers the basis for more sophisticated analyses.
However, while these research endeavours cover a broad range of policy
sectors, we still lack a comprehensive, cross-national study on the impact of
Konstanzer Online-Publikations-System (KOPS)
URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-144689
302
the ideological orientations and positions of political parties in governments
and legislatures on environmental policy outputs. Existing large-n studies in
the field typically focus on environmental performance rather than legislative or executive outputs (King & Borchardt 1994; Jahn 1998, 2000; Neumayer 2003; Scruggs 1999, 2003). This conceptualisation of the dependent
variable (which is often motivated by easier data availability), however,
entails severe validity problems. It does not allow for sound tests of partisan
influences as they are theoretically conceived to affect policy outputs rather
than substantive policy impacts. Shifts in environmental quality may be
brought about by many factors not related to national policy change, such as
implementation deficits or increases in environmentally damaging behaviour.
Pollutant emission changes, the 'standard' operationalisation in available
studies, are not necessarily the result of political measures, but might be
caused by a plethora of other factors.
The research deficit is striking as the environmental field constitutes a
particularly interesting case for assessing potential party influences. Given the
transboundary scope of many environmental problems, national environmental policy - from its very beginnings in the 1960s - was strongly affected by
international cooperation and supranational regulation at the level of the
European Union (EU). Hence, the detection of a significant influence of
political parties despite the presence of far-reaching international or supranational cooperation could be interpreted as strong support for the 'parties
matter' hypothesis.
Against this backdrop, this article provides a systematic analysis of the
extent to which political parties affect national environmental policy outputs.
We study not only potential effects of the parties' left-right orientation, but
also the impact of the environmental policy positions of governments. Related
to partisan impacts, we also test for the role of institutional constraints. In
addition, we control for two other groups of factors that are generally seen as
major driving forces of environmental policy-making - namely the impact of
international factors (in particular supranational law as well as trade) and
domestic factors (socio-economic conditions and environmental problem
pressure).
To measure changes in environmental outputs, we rely on the ENVIPOLCON dataset (Holzinger et al. 2008a, 2008b). Our results reveal that the
number of environmental measures adopted is affected not only by the integration of a country into supranational organisations and macro-economic
conditions, but also by the programmatic orientation of the government's
parties on environmentalism, while the existence of a cabinet portfolio has also
some impact. We further demonstrate that relying on a mere left-right dimension is insufficient for analysing environmental policy making. Rather it is
303
necessary to refer to a conflict dimension that reflects the importance of
environmental issues for each party represented in a country's government.
We also find evidence that higher institutional constraints seem to hinder the
adoption of environmental policies.
Theory and hypotheses
Two strands of research are of relevance for this study: research on the partisan
impact on policies; and existing explanations for environmental policy change.
On this basis, we distinguish between five groups of factors that account for
differences in environmental policy developments across countries and over
time: partisan politics; government formation and cabinet structure; institutional constraints; international factors; and domestic problem pressure.
Partisan politics
Our argument in the tradition of classical partisan politics models as developed by Hibbs (1977, 1992) and Tufte (1978) and the 'parties do matter'
hypotheses (Schmidt 1996,2002) is straightforward. As parties from different
ideological backgrounds that represent different constituencies should strive
for different policy goals in order to gain re-election, different policy choices
across space and time in modern democracies should be attributable to the
varying composition of governments and legislatures. Parties that compete for
votes need to implement those policies that satisfy their voters (Downs 1957)
once they control decision making. The objectives of office-seeking and the
realisation of policy goals are heavily interwoven (Muller & Strf,?lm 1999; Strf,?lm
1990). Indeed, important research contributions have demonstrated that
parties in government deliver those policies promised in their platforms
(Budge & Laver 1993; Klingemann et al. 1994; McDonald & Budge 2005). It
can hence be expected that the positions of parties in governments should at
least to some extent translate into policy outputs. The strength of proenvironmental preferences of parties in government should be observable at
the policy level.
Most studies assessing whether political parties matter for policy making
start from the expectation that the left-right composition of governments
and/or legislatures is the crucial dimension that accounts for the differential
impact of parties. For many policy areas, this distinction seems plausible. This
holds true, for instance, for early research efforts related to the impact of
political parties on macro-economic policies such as inflation, unemployment
and economic growth (Alvarez et al. 1991; Hibbs 1977; Tufte 1978; see
304
Franzese (2002) for an overview). The same statement applies to analyses in
the fields of fiscal and tax policy (Blais et al. 1993; Brauninger 2005; Cusack
1997; Cusack & Beramendi 2006) as well as social policy (Allan & Scruggs
2004; Hicks & Swank 1992; Huber et al. 1993).
However, while the basic opposing preferences in modern democracies along a left-right scale - are relatively clear-cut and comparatively easy to
determine for the above-mentioned highest priority policy areas (Klingemann
et al. 1994), this is the case to a lesser extent for environmental policy. Environmental issues cut across the left-right dimension when looking at specific
party families (Gallagher et al. 2006: 230-254; Mair & Mudde 1998). For policy
preferences of the centre-right wing parties, such as those of the Christiandemocratic party family or other parties that stress religious aspects, the protection of the environment might be important in terms of saving 'God's
creation'. At the same time, socialist or social-democratic parties as political
actors from the left-wing ideological spectrum might prefer economic growth
over environmental protection to secure employment for their core voter
clientele (Neumayer 2003: 218). Thus, the left-right dimension should be of
minor importance for explaining the variance in environmental policy developments over time and across countries.
This ambiguous theoretical picture is also mirrored by existing empirical
studies, although these suffer from the above-mentioned problem of focusing
on performance rather than policy outputs as the dependent variable. King
and Borchardt (1994) find a moderate inverse impact of left party strength on
air pollution. Jahn (1998, 2000) and Neumayer (2003) report a positive relationship between left-wing party strength in parliament and environmental
performance, while for left-wing government control such effects can not be
detected. Scruggs (1999), contrary to Jahn and Neumayer, finds largely insignificant results regarding the impact of left-libertarian or green parties on an
aggregate index of environmental performance. These ambiguous findings,
however, should not be interpreted to mean that parties' environmental policy
positions are of minor explanatory importance, as the environment is only
considered a 'second order issue' in electoral campaigns (Guber 2001). Several
studies have demonstrated that in Western democracies environmental protection has some salience (e.g., Knutsen 1989; Rohrschneider 1988, 1993). This
is also evident in the emergence of ecological movements during the 1970s that
paved the way for contemporary green parties in Western countries (MiillerRommel 1989; Richardson & Rootes 1995). The fact that environmental issues
are of considerable importance in party competition is also documented in
recent studies on elections in Germany and the United States (Davis & Wurth
2003; Debus 2007; List & Sturm 2006). From these considerations, we derive
the following hypotheses:
305
HI: The more parties represented in government stress the requirement
of environmental protection, the higher will be the number of environmental policies adopted.
H2: The number of environmental policies adopted is not dependent
upon the overall left- or right-wing orientation of parties in the national
governments.
Government formation and cabinet structure
In the literature on government formation, parties are typically assumed to
have one of two motives (Laver & Schofield 1998: 89-123). While the officeseeking approach considers only the strength of a political party as a unitary
actor within a legislature (Peleg 1981; Riker 1962; Van Deemen 1989; Von
Neumann & Morgenstern 1944), policy-driven theories take the programmatic
positions of parties on an overall left-right scale into account (Axelrod 1970;
De Swaan 1973). A number of studies show that there is an independent
impact of the degree of ideological distance between the parties on government formation . This is not only true for an overall left-right scale (Martin &
Stevenson 2001), but also for the distance between political parties in various
policy areas (Debus 2009; Warwick 2006). The common perspective is that
during the negotiations, coalition governments agree on the mean of the
programmatic positions of all participating parties, weighted by the seat share
each party brings to the government's majority (Cusack 1997,2001).
Moreover, several studies stress the relevance of the cabinet structure and
the decision rules inside a government (Andeweg 1993; Laver & Shepsle 1994)
as well as the existence of coalition policy agreements for the number and
content of policy outputs (Muller & Str~m 2008; Timmermans 1998,2006). An
approach that not only takes the programmatic positions of parties into
account, but also highlights the relevance of the cabinet structure and the role
of the heads of each ministry is the seminal portfolio allocation model developed by Laver and Shepsle (1990,1996). They presume that coalition cabinets
are based on ministerial discretion. Cabinet ministers have 'considerable influence' over governmental decision making in their area of jurisdiction (Laver &
Shepsle 1998: 34).
These theoretical considerations suggest that the number of policies
adopted should increase if an environmental ministry exists. Moreover, and in
line with the ministerial discretion approach, the policy position of the party
that controls the portfolio should matter for the policy output. If a minister for
environmental affairs belongs to a party attaching high salience to environmental protection, this should positively affect the number of environmental
policies adopted. Hence, we formulate:
306
H3: The number of environmental policies adopted increases if a minis-
try exists that deals explicitly with environmental protection.
H4: If a ministry for environmental affairs exists and if it is controlled by
a party that gives environmental issues a higher saliency than the other
governmental parties, the number of environmental policies adopted
increases.
Institutional constraints
While there is a broad consensus that institutional constraints matter for policy
making, and hence for the ability to adopt new policies, the scholarly discussion
is basically characterised by two opposing views on the direction of that impact.
Emphasising the positive influence of institutional constraints on the policy
performance of political systems, Lijphart (1999) investigated the effects of
different institutional settings in democratic systems. He distinguishes consensus democracies from majoritarian democracies, arguing that democracies'
encompassing elements that increase the necessity for consensual decisions
generally perform better or at least no worse than those whose decisions are
based upon majoritarian rule. Consensual institutions - for example, proportional electoral systems resulting in multi-party legislatures, (broad) coalitions
and collegial executives - have a greater capacity to represent diffuse groups
(including environmental interests) and are less susceptible to the influence of
special interest groups.
The veto player approach as developed by Tsebelis (1995,2002), however,
questions this expectation. Tsebelis looks at the number and constellation of
actors that are involved in decision-making processes and whose consent is
necessary for changing the status quo. He hypothesises that policy change
becomes more difficult, ceteris paribus, with a growing number of veto players.
While Tsebelis also emphasises that the stability of the status quo grows not
only with the number of veto players but also with constellations of the veto
players' preferences, the most important point for our analysis is the simple
numerical aspect of such institutional constraints (i.e., the number of veto
players). In that regard, a higher level of institutional constraints should hinder
policy changes, including adoptions of new policies.
H5: Following Tsebelis' (1995,2002) veto player theory, the more institutional constraints exist in a polity, the lower the number of environmental policies adopted.
H6: Following Lijphart's (1999) approach on institutional constellations
in different types of democracies, the more institutional constraints exist
in a polity, the higher the number of environmental policies adopted.
307
International factors: International cooperation and economic integration
In the literature on environmental policy change, it is well acknowledged that
domestic policies are strongly affected by exogenous factors. We generally find
a distinction between effects emerging from regulatory cooperation between
states at the international or supranational level and regulatory competition
driven by growing economic inter-linkages (Holzinger & Knill 2005; Holzinger
et al. 2008a) .
International cooperation presupposes the existence of interdependencies
pushing governments to resolve common problems through cooperation
within international or supranational institutions. Once established, institutional arrangements constrain and shape the domestic policy choices, even as
they are constantly altered by their member states. In this way, international
institutions are not only the object of state choice, but at the same time
consequential for subsequent governmental activities (Martin & Simmons
1998: 743). In the environmental field, the need [or international cooperation
is particularly pronounced because of the transboundary and global scope of
many environmental problems. Hence, cooperation and harmonisation activities often resulting in binding legal accords have always been an important
factor shaping domestic policy choices.
While domestic effects are well documented for international regimes and
institutions (Holzinger et al. 2008a; Miles et al. 2002), it is especially the domestic impact of EU legislation that is of major relevance for environmental policy
outputs in the Member States (Jordan & Liefferink 2004; Knill 2001). In the
underlying study, we hence only consider the possible impact of EU membership. This is also justified as the EU and other international institutions crucially differ in the extent to which compliance with legal obligation actually can
be enforced. In the EU, such powers are comparatively well developed, given
the direct effect and the supremacy of EU law. Considering the strong EU
conditionality impact on applicant countries (e.g., Schimmelfennig &
Sedelmeier 2004), we also acknowledge potential EU effects on countries that
are in the accession phase.
Exogenous factors that affect national environmental policies are not
restricted to international cooperation, but might also emerge from economic
inter-linkages between countries in the context of the global integration of
national markets. Research in this field resulted in an enormous output.
However, the causal relationship between trade effects and environmental
policy is theoretically undetermined. On the one hand, it is often expected that
economic openness increases competitive pressures on national regulations,
resulting in a 'race to the bottom' of environmental standards (Holzinger
2003) . On the other hand, ambitious environmental policies might also be a
308
comparative advantage by stimulating innovation resulting in economic
growth (Janicke & Jacob 2004; Porter & Van der Linde 1995; see Bernauer
et al. 2007 for an overview) . Thus, it remains unclear if and to what extent
economic openness and trade inter-linkages have an impact on national environmental policies. Empirical research finds contrary evidence, reaching from
a shift towards stricter regulations (Vogel 1995) to domestic attempts of
deregulation and dismantling (De Sombre 2008; for overviews, see Huang &
Labys 2002; Kirkpatrick & Scrieciu 2008). Here, we follow the approach mentioned second and hypothesise that economic openness has a positive impact
on the number of environmental policies enacted. We derive the following
hypotheses:
H7: If a country is a member or applicant state of the EU, the number of
environmental policies adopted will increase.
H8: The number of environmental policies adopted increases with the
economic openness of a country.
Domestic problem pressure
Many studies emphasise the impact of the level and changes of problem
pressure as well as the role of economic development for the adoption of
environmental policies (Harrington et al. 2005; Janicke & Weidner 1997;
Weidner & Janicke 2002) . In fact, environmental policy did not emerge as an
abstract idea but was the response to deteriorating environmental surroundings often threatening human health. In constellations of high or increasing
ecological problems, we should therefore expect an increase in regulatory
outputs - regardless of the political parties represented in government and
their environmental policy positions.
Domestic problem pressure, however, is not only affected by ecological
conditions, but also by the economic development of a country. Economic
development might cause an increase in ecological problems, mainly through
externalities emerging from growing industrial production (such as resource
consumption, energy demand or pollutant emissions). Besides, the level of
economic development directly affects the fiscal, technological as well as institutional and administrative resources that are required to develop effective
policy solutions (e.g., Weidner & Janicke 2002). Finally, with higher levels of
economic development, we can generally expect a higher relevance of nonmaterial values within societies (Inglehart 1995, 1997). As a result, higher
levels of wealth also entail a stronger demand for environmental protection. In
economic terms, environmental regulation is thus a 'luxury good'. Therefore
we expect:
309
H9: The higher the level of economic development, the higher will be the
number of environmental policies adopted.
HlO: The higher the ecological problem pressure a country faces, the
higher will be the number of environmental policies adopted.
Empirical findings
Data sources and descriptive results
To obtain information on the characteristics of our dependent variable, we rely
on the ENVIPOLCON dataset (Holzinger et al. 2008a, 2008b). The ENVIPOLCON data contain information on the number of policies adopted for
central environmental problem areas and sub fields in 24 OECD and transition
countries at four points in time (1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000) - hence for a
30-year time frame. The data include 40 preselected environmental policy
measures that cover a broad range of environmental spheres, including air and
water pollution control as well as soil protection, nature conservation and
overarching principles like sustainable development. They encompass only
general and comparable measures across countries (as opposed to individual
or case-based decisions). Although countries might have other policies
adopted instead of the preselected ones, it is important to note that all states in
the sample in principle had the chance to enact them within the time frame. As
the policies refer strictly to legislative and executive outputs, we refrain from
weighing the several policies differently, though it is, of course, always debatable whether some policies are more important than others. To compare the
changes in policy outputs across countries and over time, we analyse the
number of policies out of this sample of 40 policies that had been adopted by
a given country at a certain point in time. l The data were collected with the
help of expert surveys and by collaborative research efforts based on exploiting national and international legal databases and other primary as well as
secondary sources (see Heichel et al. 2008).
On this basis, we constructed a cumulative index that provides information
on the number of environmental policies that were in place in each of the
countries at each of the four points in time. As shown in Table 1, there is an
upward trend in environmental policy adoptions. While in 1970, the number of
policies adopted ranged between zero (Ireland) and ten (Sweden), ten years
later, every country in our sample had adopted at least three measures. In 1990,
around 16 environmental policies were in force on average, while the arithmetic mean in 2000 reached a value of 28. There is, however, still a high degree
310
Table 1. Number of enacted environmental policies in the countries and points in time
covered
1970
Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Finnland
France
Germany
Greece
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Netherlands
Norway
Portugal
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
United Kingdom
United States
Mean (SO)
2
6
2
6
6
5
0
5
8
6
4
10
5
5
4
4.9 (2.4)
1980
1990
2000
7
10
8
13
10
13
3
7
14
14
11
17
13
17
18
18
21
11
11
17
14
31
24
34
11
3
8
15
9
11
7
9.7 (3.5)
19
20
17
16
19
21
19
7
16.4 (3.8)
31
29
31
26
26
28
26
35
31
27
27
33
27
28
11
28.1 (5.2)
Source: Own calculations based on the ENVIPOLCON dataset (Holzinger et al. 2008a,
2008b).
of variation in the number of environmental policies adopted among the
countries under investigation.
To estimate the positions of parties in government in the period between
1970 and 2000, we refer to the data from the CMP (Budge et al. 2001; Klingemann et al. 2006) . The work of the CMP resulted in a large and complex
database that includes party saliencies on 56 policy issues for more than 3,000
election manifestos from 54 countries since 1945. While the dataset established
by the CMP bears methodological problems because of its approach of coding
saliencies rather than positions (Benoit et al. 2009; Laver 2001; Mikhaylov
et al. 2008) and a number of alternative methods for estimating the positions of
political actors exist (e.g., Laver & Garry 2000; Laver et al. 2003; Slapin &
Proksch 2008), the manifesto data of the CMP covers the programmatic statements of all relevant parties in the OECD countries over a long time period.
In this way, we can account for - potentially emerging - changes in the
left-right placements and the environmental protection orientation of political
311
actors. While a left-right dimension is already provided by the CMP dataset
(Budge & Klingemann 2001),2 no common environmental policy dimension
exists. However, the CMP coding scheme includes two categories that deal
with issues related to environmental policy. The more parties formulate 'quasisentences' in their election manifestos that belong to the categories 'antigrowth economy' (per416) and 'environmental protection' (per501), the more
they are assumed to be in favour of pro-environmental legislative proposals.
An alternative to this environmental policy saliency index would be the application of the Gal-Tan index created by Hooghe et al. (2002; d. Dalton 2009).
However, in contrast to the latter, which differentiates between left-libertarian
and right-authoritarian positions in general, our index explicitly deals with
environmental issues and the relationship between the environment and
economy, excluding libertarian aspects. We hence rely on the more explicit
environmental policy saliency index as it is explicitly related to our research
question.
The CMP data is included in the dataset 'Parties, Governments and Legislatures' compiled by Cusack & Engelhardt (2002), which provides not only
information on the partisan composition of each government, but also on the
strength of parliamentary parties and the composition of the cabinet. On this
basis, we calculated the government's 'centre of gravity' (Cusack 1997; Gross &
Sigelman 1984). This allows for estimating the overall position of a government
for both the left-right and the environmental policy dimension.3 As legislative
decision making and, therefore, the adoption of polices takes time (Martin &
Vanberg 2004), it is necessary to consider more than the environmental policy
position and the left-right orientation of governments at the four points in time
for which we have data on the number of environmental policies adopted. We
also have to take the ideological and environmental policy orientation of the
former governments into account. For this reason, we refer to the arithmetic
mean of the centres of gravity on the left-right and on the environmental
policy dimension for the governments that have been elected in the ten years
before each of our observation time points.
To test the robustness of our estimates, we additionally use an alternative
measure of the government's policy preferences. Referring to Tsebelis' (1995,
2002) work on 'veto players', we construct two variables. First, we include the
position of the least environmentally friendly party in government. If a party
(as a unitary actor) in a coalition government fulfils the criteria of a (partisan)
veto player, then a government should agree on the policy preferences of the
environmentally most sceptical party, because otherwise it risks the breakdown of the coalition and, therefore, the loss of control of executive offices. 4
Second, we include the position of the most leftist party in government and use
this position as the left-right position of the whole government. According to
312
Neumayer's (2004; cf. Dalton 2009) findings, left-wing parties and therefore
governments dominated by leftist political actors are more environmentally
friendly than right-wing governments. If this is correct, we should find a significant impact of the left-right position of the government on the number of
environmental policies in force at one point in time when explicitly looking at
the most left-wing partisan actor in government.
To account for institutional constraints, we use the 'Polcon V' dataset
created by Henisz (2000,2002) and the index of executive dominance developed by Lijphart (1999: 116- 142,313). The Polcon V data provide information
on the level of political discretion a governments has. It covers the institutional
characteristics and their impact on governments for all OEeD countries and
developing countries for a longer time period. The higher the score of the
index, which ranges from 0 to 1, the lower is the political discretion of a
government to implement its policy positions. The measure by Lijphart (1999)
covers a similar phenomenon by looking at the power of a government to
implement its preferences. The higher Lijphart's index of executive dominance, the stronger a government should be. If institutional constraints play a
role for the number of environmental policy standards implemented in the
way Tsebelis (1995, 2002) expects (see HS), then the estimated regression
coefficient of the Polcon V index should be significantly negative, while the
Lijphart index should have a significantly positive direction. If H6 is correct,
then the estimated coefficient of the Polcon V index should be significantly
positive, whereas Lijphart's (1999) index of executive dominance should have
a statistically negative regression coefficient. The mean score of the Polcon V
Index is 0.76 for the country sample in this study. It varies between 0.36
(Greece in the 1990s) and 0.89 (Belgium in 2000). When applying Lijphart's
(1999) index of executive dominance, the mean score in our country sample is
2.95. The United States and Switzerland have the lowest score of 1.0, which
means that the executive is quite weak in both states, while the United
Kingdom, France and Germany for the time period since 1971 receive scores
of 5.52, implying that the national governments in those three states are quite
strong.
Table 2 as well as Figures 1 and 2 provide an overview on the governments'
centres of gravity regarding the overall left-right axis and the environmental
policy dimension in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The environmental
policy dimension used here hypothetically could vary between '0' and '100'. A
score of '0' would indicate that no governmental parties emphasised friendly
points of view on environmental protection or sceptical positions on the risks
of economic growth in their election manifestos. A value of '100', by contrast,
would mean that the election manifestos of all governmental parties include
only 'quasi-sentences' that belong to the categories 'anti-growth economy'
Table 2. Mean of the government's centre of gravity on an environmental policy dimension (EP) and a left-right axis (LR) in the time periods
between 1961- 1970, 1971- 1980, 1981-1990 and 1991- 2000
Governmental centres of gravity on the environmental and left-right dimension
1960s
EP
Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Netherlands
Norway
Portugal
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
United Kingdom
United States
Mean (SD)
0.00
0.77
0.53
0.43
0.15
2.81
0.0
0.11
0.67
0.56
1.70
1970s
LR
- 16.42
- 12.29
- 11.78
-4.07
16.06
- 5.37
22.94
- 8.21
-4.71
0.50
-18.06
-44.44
2.96
0.65
1.59
-6.99
1.30
- 12.53
4.17
-6.98 (15.25)
1.18 (1.25)
EP
5.50
4.35
0.51
3.45
2.42
3.20
0.00
2.00
0.31
2.83
5.59
6.54
2.85
2.54
8.47
7.59
1.53
4.43
3.56
19~Os
1980s
LR
-12.80
- 9.87
- 5.27
- 38.07
-11.70
- 14.80
16.61
-11.65
-D.46
- 12.54
- 18.53
-34.25
19.25
-D.03
-4.10
- 2.07
- 17.20
1.10
- 7.39 (15.11)
(2.44)
EP
11.48
4.66
3.43
10.73
1.70
9.65
2.14
2.88
3.22
1.19
7.51
6.58
0.68
3.84
12.90
11 .23
3.47
3.25
5.59 (3 .98)
LR
-1.09
9.16
13.97
-14.16
-5.12
8.70
8.41
- 2.02
2.21
- 1.80
-8.55
4.94
12.44
- 15.16
- 21.30
2.98
29.73
31.50
2.50 (14.09)
EP
2.87
5.64
6.84
7.44
4.42
8.33
5.92
5.27
2.51
3.02
8.36
10.66
4.48
4.33
4.42
5.34
4.48
4.01
5.46
LR
16.66
- 7.81
- 1.25
1.41
-7.65
9.64
- 16.37
-D.07
14.19
- 9.62
- 1.78
- 13.15
- 14.44
-6.92
14.56
3.07
17.08
18.14
0.87 (11.67)
(2.15)
w
w
>--'
Notes: EP = environmental policy saliency; LR = left-right dimension. Calculations are based on the CMP dataset provided by Cusack and
Engelhardt (2002).
Aus![ia
" Belgium
Dlanmarl<
~
~
G~eece
Ireland
Finland
c
0
'iii
c
;>
OJ
E
'0
>.
,~
0
(5
~
a.
Germany
]§ 0;:
c
.....
+;.
t;.l
France
0;:
/"
Italy
-----------Japan
OJ
E ;>
c
e
'5
c
OJ
OJ
£
~
~
c
0
'"
Netherlands
OJ
t
III
Norway
---------
~
Portugal
0;:
Spain
a.
cOJ
;>
E
c
Q;
>
0
Ol
'0
~ ~
~
19605
~
Switzertand
Ol
'0
~
19705
[
19805
/\
[
1990519605
[
19705
19805
[
19905
United States
0;:
EOJ ;>
U
United Kingdom
Sweden
--[
::-
'5
-------
~
-------- ---I
19605
19705
19805
1990519605
i
19705
19805
I
1990519605
19705
I
I
19805
19905
Figure 1, 'Centres of gravity' of the government on the environmental policy dimension between 1960 and 2000 (arithmetic mean by country and
decades). Results are based on the CMP dataset provided by Cusack and Engelhardt (2002).
Austria
,Belgium
D.,n,rnar1<
France
IrelaQd
, Italy
Jilpan
------- -------"EQ)
E
c
....
Q)
o>
NE!th~riilnds
Spain
Sweden
0
...
0
'"
0
0
0)"1
0
_
o
"f
, '----r,----r,----.,
.?;.s;
19605
~
~ ~
o o
Q)
~
c
SWitzerland
United Kingdom
19705
19805
~
,
1990519605
,
19705
,
19805
,
19905
United States
'"
0
Q)
0
()
"I
o
"f ~---.----.-----r
i i
19605 19705 19805 1990519605 19705
i
19805
i
i
1990519605
i
i
i
19705
19805
19905
Figure 2. 'Centres of gravity' of the government on an overall left-right dimension between 1960 and 2000 (arithmetic mean by country and
decades). Results are based on the CMP dataset provided by Cusack and Engelhardt (2002).
316
(per416) and/or 'environmental protection' (perSOl). As the data reveal, there
are clear changes in the environmental and the left-right positions of the
governments. In most of the countries, environmental protection becomes a
more salient issue for governments over time (see Figure 1 below), which according to the CMP coding scheme - implies that national governments
adopted more pro-environmental policy positions. Yet, this upward trend
stopped in the 1990s in some of the countries under investigation. In Austria,
Finland, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland, the governments adopted
less environmentally friendly positions than in the decades before. In Belgium,
Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland and the Netherlands, by contrast, environmental protection continuously became more important, but on a lower level.
The United States, together with Portugal and Japan, show no clear trend in
either direction. In these countries, the governments are most sceptical with
regard to environmental issues (see Table 2).
When turning to the positions of the governments on the left-right axis for
the four points in time, no clear patterns emerge (Figure 2 and Table 2). In
Austria, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, for
instance, the governments' position moved to the right on the overall left-right
axis. Only in Greece, Portugal and France did the governmental parties continuously adopt more leftist positions over time. In the remaining countries the
position of the centres of gravity of governments changed between slightly
left-wing and slightly right-wing positions over our four observation points.
For the - potential- impact of ministerial discretion on the policy output of
a government (Laver & Shepsle 1990,1996), the Cusack & Engelhardt (2002)
dataset enables us to identify whether a ministry dealing with environmental
affairs existed. Furthermore, the dataset allows for the identification of the
party that controlled that portfolio and hence allows us to assign a policy
position to that minister. While by 1970, no cabinet with a portfolio for environmental affairs existed, this number rose to nine by 1980. The number of
environmental ministries further increased to 12 in 1990 (66.7 per cent) and IS
(83.3 per cent) in 2000, with only the Austrian, Swiss and American cabinets
remaining without an exclusively environmental minister.
While the data described so far allow for testing the connection between
the left-right position of governments and their environmental policy orientation, the inclusion of further data that reflect economic integration and domestic problem pressure is required. To account for problem pressure, we include
data for the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, energy use and population density for the years 1970,1980,1990 and 2000. Figures are taken from
the World Development Indicators (World Bank 2007).5With regard to international influences on environmental policy outputs, we include information
on the EU membership of the countries under study. Another variable
317
identifies those countries that became members of the EU in the following
decade, so that potentially existing adaptation effects are covered. To measure
economic openness, we rely on a country's trade volume as a percentage of
GDP (also taken from the World Development Indicators).6 Additionally, we
control for the participation of green parties in government. Information on
the latter is derived from the comparative study on coalition governments by
Muller & Str0m (2000).
We end up with 18 countries for which data on all variables for almost all
points in time are available (see Table 1 above). In the case of Greece, Portugal
and Spain the year 1970 cannot be included in the analysis because there are
no data on party policy positions during the time of authoritarian regimes in
those three countries.
Analysis
To test the hypotheses formulated above, we calculate a number of linear
regression models that take into account the panel character of our data (Beck
& Katz 1995; Pltimper et al. 2005). Our dependent variable is the number of
environmental policies adopted in one country at one point in time - that is, in
1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000. Obviously, the number of policies in force at time
point ( depends on the number of policies that already had been enacted at
time point (-1. Strategies to cope with this problem are the inclusion of the
lagged dependent variable as a further explanatory variable in each model or
the selection of the difference between the numbers of policies in force
between two points in time as the dependent variable. Both strategies bear the
risk of the 'small N, large V' problem. In both cases, we would lose one
observation per country, implying a reduction of case numbers from 69 to 5l.
Apart from this, the methodological question of whether the inclusion of a
lagged dependent variable actually captures dynamic effects in political processes is still highly contested (e.g., Achen 2000; Keele & Kelly 2006).
One may argue, by contrast, that the number of policies already adopted
represents the status quo and should therefore be included as an explanatory
variable, either as a lagged dependent variable or by using the change in the
number of policies in force between two points in time. We therefore recalculate our first bloc of regression models, in which the number of policies
adopted is used as the dependent variable and which do not include the lagged
dependent variable as an explanatory factor (see Table 3). Models 8-14, presented in Table 4, include the lagged dependent variable as a further independent variable. In models 15- 21, we use the change of environmental policies
enacted between two points in time as the dependent variable (see Table 5).As
Table 3. Determinants on the number of enacted environmental policies
International integration and
problem pressure
(I)
Unified model
Political and institutional factors
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
International integration
9.580 (1.980)'"
9.160 (1.795)'"
9.337 (2.266)'"
4.511 (3.235)
0.573 (1.860)
0.323 (1.936)
0.781 (1.880)
Energy use pe r capita
-{l.101 (0.056)"
-{l.129 (0.059)"
-{l.132 (0.063)"
-{l.153 (0.061)**
Population densi ty
-1.494 (0.520)'"
-{l.836 (0.343)"
-{l.769 (0.454)'
- 1.136 (0.406)'"
ECiEU member
Expected EUIEC membe r
12.386 (2.292)'"
Socia-economic development
GDP per capita
0.103 (0.014)'"
0.079 (0.019)'"
0.083 (0.017)'"
Trade in % of GDP
0.025 (0.QJ8)
0.001 (0.022)
0.017 (0.020)
0.075 (0.019)'"
-{l.001 (0.024)
TdeologicaVpolicy factors
Centre of gravity of
1.129 (0.434)'"
1.137 (0.476)"
0.939 (0.370)"
1.005 (0.361)'"
governmen t parties
(environmental policy
dimension)
1.060 (0.350)' "
0.863 (0.484)'
Minimal environmental policy
salie ncy of government
parties
Centre of gravity o f
governme nt parties (left-right
dimension)
0.103 (0.080)
0.104 (0.079)
-{l.009 (0.036)
0.087 (0.109)
Most left-wing position of
-{l.022 (0.035)
-{l.029 (0.035)
gove rnme nt parties
Green or left-libertarian party
in governmen t
9.070 (4.357)**
9.361 (4.762)"
8.691 (4.754)'
7.220 (2.371)'"
7.520 (2.310)'"
6.650 (2.902)"
Ministerial discretion
Existence of environmental
ministry
6.865 (2.218)'*'
Environmental issue saliency of
environmental minister
8.044 (2.867)" "
-0.039 (0.126)
-0.012 (0.124)
- 2.735 (6.586)
2.163 (5.477)
6.959 (2.346)***
-0.026 (0.134)
1.208 (1.361)
1.215 (1.520)
-0.013 (0.087)
-0.005 (0.088)
- 16.090 (7.640)"
- 14.293 (7.978) '
2.472 (1.322)'
-0.016 (0.095)
Institutional constraints
Polcon V-Index (Henisz)
Executive dominance
0.400 (0.188)--
0.300 (0.240)
(Lijphart)
Constant
- 7.302 (3.797)*
N
69
69
69
69
69
69
69
Number of groups (countries)
18
18
18
18
18
18
18
R'
WaldX'
Prob > X'
0.614
75.62
0.000
8.673 (6.180)
0.531
97.70
0.000
8.526 (5.599)
0.475
109.94
0.000
5.412 (2.625)*-
0.535
594.91
0.000
7.886 (4.620)-
0.770
13401.01
0.000
Notes: Panel-corrected standard errors in parentheses,:r. Significant at 10 per cent level; :t::r. Significant at 5 per cent level; :r.** Significant at 1 per cent level.
5.724 (4.552)
0.760
3394.94
0.000
- 3.069 (4.239)
0.756
3038.42
0.000
VJ
N
o
Table 4. Determinants on the number of enacted environmental policies including a lagged dependent variable
International integration and
(8)
Unified model
Political and institutional factors
problem pressure
(9)
(10)
(II)
(12)
(13)
(14)
International integration
ECiEU member
Expected EUIEC member
3.001 (1.579)-
4.513 (1.171)**'
-{I.128 (1.637)
3.319 (0.993)'- -
- 1.510 (2.229)
- 1.339 (1.906)
4.534 (1.590)"- 1.970 (2.429)
Socio-econonllc development
Energy use per capita
-{I.088 (0.027) ' "
-{I.068 (0.037)'
-{I.076 (0.045)-
-{I.091 (0.031)'"
Population density
-{I.873 (0.380) - *
-{I.710 (0.402)*
-{I.615 (0.419)
-{I.979 (0.385)*'
GDP per capita
0.015 (0.014)
0.Q28 (0.014)--
0.023 (0.014)*
0.022 (0.013)*
Trade in % of GDP
0.030 (0.007)"-
0.024 (0.009)'"
0.034 (0.010)' "
0.019 (0.011)'
IdeologicaUpolicy factors
Centre of gravity of
0.004 (0.138)
0.092 (0.140)
0.344 (0.197)-
0.349 (0.205)-
government parties
(environmental policy
dimension)
0.341 (0.188)-
0.006 (0.143)
Minimal environmental policy
saliency of government
parties
Centre of gravity of
government (Jeft-right
dimension)parties
-{I.016 (0.034)
-{I.OIO (0.028)
-{I.OOO (0.030)
0.036 (0.040)
Most left-wing position of
-{I.045 (0.024)-
-{I.048 (0.020)'-
government parties
Green or left-libertarian party
in government
1.567 (1.523)
1.518 (1.341)
0.697 (2.005 )
0.622 (1.429)
1.103 (1.221)
0.Q35 (1.720)
Ministerial discretion
Existence of environmental
ministry
Environmental issue saliency of
environmental minister
- M22 (1.377)
0.035 (1.632)
0.729 (1.658)
...{J.724 (0.755)
...{J.654 (0.998)
0.289 (1.204)
0.023 (0.076)
0.005 (0.082)
0.032 (0.062)
0.057 (0.053)
0.038 (0.047)
0.051 (0.062)
- 14.977 (2.277)'"
- 13.833 (1.586)'"
- 14.195 (6.451)"
- 13.487 (7.436)'
Institutional constraints
Polcon V-Index (Henisz)
Executive strength (Lijphart)
0.251 (0.177)
0.107 (0.218)
Lagged dependent variable
Environmental policy standards
in force at t- l
1.221 (0.104)'"
1.292 (0.122)'"
1.269 (0.155)' "
1.128 (0.124)'"
9.990 (1.389)'"
10.935 (1.974)'"
1.123 (0.125)' "
16.223 (1.444)'"
16.477 (1.806)'"
51
51
51
51
51
51
51
Number of groups (countries)
18
18
18
18
18
18
18
R2
Wald X2
Prob> X2
0.869
777.22
0.000
0.834
1287.95
0.000
3.940 (1.754)"
1.110 (0.127)'"
N
Constant
3.489 (3.487)
1.290 (0.125)'"
0.835
316.86
0.813
1045.08
0.000
Notes: Panel-corrected standard errors in parentheses. * Significant at 10 per cent level; ** Significant at 5 per cent
0.000
level ~
0.896
31.07
0.000
*** Significant at 1 per cent level.
0.891
95.59
0.000
0.938 (4.063)
0.882
22.91
0.001
Table 5. Determinants on the change in numbers of environmental policies in force between time point t and time point (-1
International integration and
problem pressure
(15)
Unified model
Political and institutional factors
(1 6)
(17)
(18)
(19)
(20)
(21)
International integration
ECiEU member
4.682'" (1.448)
Expected EUIEC member
1.288 (1.868)
5.265'" (1.210)
4.181 ,., (0.869)
5.387*" (1.840)
-1.409 (2.271)
-1.074 (1.999)
- 1.861 (2.517)
Socia-economic development
Energy use per capita
-{J.095··* (0.022)
-{J.075** (0.032)
-{J.084** (0.042)
-{J.099**· (0.024)
Population density
-{J.909·· (0.410)
-{J.725* (0.4OS)
-{J.623 (0.433)
-{).999** (0.3 96)
GDP per capita
0.030" (0.012)
0.034*** (0.011)
0.031'** (0.010)
0.029*'* (0.011)
Trade in % of GDP
0.028"* (0.009)
0.021 * (0.012)
0.032'*' (0.012)
0.Dl5 (0.015)
Ideological/policy factors
Centre of gravity of
government panies
(environmental policy
dimension)
0.172 (0.144)
0.265* (0.148)
0.418*' (0.172)
0.136 (0.143)
Minimal environmt!ntal policy
0.428** (0.1 93)
0.424'* (0.1 78)
saliency of government
parties
Centre of gravity of
0.0165 (0.0535)
0.025 (0.052)
-{).045** (0.023)
-{).047*** (0.018)
government
parties (left-right dimension)
Green or left-libertarian party
in government
-{).DD4 (0.029)
0.044 (0.058)
Most left-wing position of
government parties
3.512* (1.801)
3.477** (1.609)
2.529 (2.093)
1.185 (0.946)
1.808** (0.S73)
0.659 (1.318)
Ministerial discretion
Existence of environmental
ministry
Environmental issue saliency of
environmental minis te r
0.424 (1.341)
0.857 (1.600)
1.438 (1.695)
-{).576 (0.685)
-{).004 (0.077)
-{).006 (0.077)
0.008 (0.064)
0.050 (0.055)
- 14.06*** (3.651)
- 11.72*** (2.668)
-{).547 (0.927)
0.472 (1.065)
0.424 (1.341)
0.0323 (0.045)
0.043 (0.064)
-{).003 (0.077)
-14.44** (6.464)
- 13.79* (7.416)
Institutional constraints
Polcon V-Index (Henisz)
Executive dominance
0.289" (0.139)
0.101 (0.217)
(Lijpbart)
Constant
2.033 (3.445)
17.01'" (2.642)
16.93'" (2.999)
N
51
51
51
51
51
51
51
Num ber of groups (co untries)
18
18
18
18
18
18
18
R'
Wa1dX'
Prob.> X 2
0.395
124.49
0.000
0.196
1283.89
0.000
0.181
1202.16
0.000
5.224'" (1.608)
0.120
213.46
0.000
9.513'" (2.055)
0.554
51.38
0.000
Notes: Panel-corrected standard errors in parentheses.:II Significant at 10 per cent level; ** Significant at 5 per cen t level; **'1: Significant at 1 per cent level.
10.24'" (2.548)
0.529
74.90
0.000
0.261 (3.887)
0.49 1
26.49
0.001
324
the results show, all regression models deliver similar results that are broadly
in line with our hypotheses despite the loss of 18 cases and one observation
period per country.
In each table, the first model accounts for factors that reflect the international institutional and economic integration of a country and the domestic
problem pressure. The independent variables included refer to EU membership or EU applicant status, trade openness, GDP per capita, energy use as well
as population density. We expected the actual and the prospective EU membership of a country to increase the number of environmental policies
adopted, while a country's economic openness, should have a positive impact
as well. We further hypothesised that higher overall economic development
results in more policy adoptions. A similar relationship should exist for the
problem pressure variables. The results of the first regression model, which
explains more than 60 per cent of the variance, show that if a country is a
member of the EU, the number of environmental policies enacted significantly
increases. There is no statistically significant effect for applicant states, but the
coefficient of this variable has the expected positive sign. 7 However, the regression models presented in Table 3 show no statistically significant impact of
trade volume on the number of policies adopted.
With respect to our socio-economic and problem pressure variables, in two
of three cases we get results that contradict our hypotheses. While we see the
expected positive effect of GDP per capita, the remaining variables that cover
information on the energy use per capita and the population density of a
country display statistically significant negative signs. This implies that a high
popUlation density and a strong demand for energy per capita result in a lower
environmental policy output. This finding contradicts the results of other
studies that emphasise problem pressure (e.g., Weidner & Janicke 2002). A
possible reason for this might be our focus on the number of policies adopted
rather than the regulatory stringency of these measures.
The second group of models (models 2,3 and 4) covers variables that reflect
the ideological approach, the portfolio allocation model and institutional constraints. The independent variables are the governments' centres of gravity on
the ideological left-right dimension and on the environmental policy dimension. 8 To test whether the 'centre of gravity' is a misleading measure, we refer
in the third model to the policy position of the least pro-environmental governmental party. Furthermore, we use the most leftist governmental party and
its position on the left-right-axis as an indicator for the whole government's
ideological orientation. If the left-right position of political actors is of more
relevance for the environmental policy output of a government than the
saliency of environmental issues, the estimated coefficient of the left-right
position of the government rather than the coefficient for the environmental
325
issue saliency measure should be statistically significant from zero. Moreover,
we account for the fact that administrative structures have an effect on the
policy outputs by including a dummy variable that is coded '1' if a separate
ministry for environmental affairs existed and '0' otherwise. Additionally, we
include an interaction effect of the existence of an environmental ministry with
the environmental policy position of the respective minister's party. The policy
distance between the minister who controls the environmental policy department and the 'centre of gravity' of the government on the environmental
dimension allows us to test not only whether the structure of the administration influences environmental policy making, but also whether a more environmentally friendly minister pushes the adoption of new policies. The latter
aspect allows for testing the portfolio allocation model. The inclusion of the
green government party dummy enables us to analyse whether it is sufficient
to look only at the partisan composition of a government or whether a more
detailed measurement of the programmatic orientation of political parties and
the government structure is required to account for changes in environmental
policy outputs. We further control for the partisan composition of the government by including a dummy variable that is coded as '1' if an ecological party
or a left-libertarian party was part of country's government during at least one
of the decades under study.9To account for institutional constraints, we incorporate the PoIcon V index (Henisz 2000, 2002) and the index of executive
dominance developed by Lijphart (1999).
As the results of the models 2, 3 and 4 reveal, three of the five variables
that reflect the ideological and 'politics' viewpoint have an impact on the
number of policies enacted. Variables with an ideological background
explain roughly 50 per cent of the overall variance. All variables have the
expected sign. Not only the inclusion of green parties in a coalition government, but also the extent to which governmental parties stress environmentalism in their election manifestos, have positive and significant impacts on
the number of policy adoptions. There is, however, no evidence that governments with a more left-wing ideological 'centre of gravity' or a strong leftwing party positively influence the number of policy adoptions. The
estimated coefficient is not significantly different from zero. In addition, the
existence of an environmental ministry has a positive and significant impact
on the number of policies adopted. By contrast, we find no impact of the
policy position of the minister that controls the environmental portfolio.
While the cabinet structure matters for environmental policy outputs, our
statistical analysis provides no support for the relevance of ministerial discretion, as would have been expected from Laver & Shepsle (1990, 1996).
There is also evidence that institutional arrangements in the form of the
strength of the executive play a role for the overall number of policy
326
adoptions. While the Polcon V index is not statistically significant, the
Lijphart index of executive dominance yields positive and significant results.
Do these results remain stable when controlling for international integration and the socio-economic development of a country by combining the first
model with models 2, 3 and 4? As the results of our third group of regression
models show, the inclusion of these variables increases the share of explained
variance to more than 75 per cent. There is no major change in the statistical
significance or the direction of the coefficients when comparing them to the
first and the second model. It is only the variable that identifies whether an
environmental ministry exists that is significant in model 7. Furthermore,
Lijphart's executive strength index is no longer significant. The Polcon V index,
however, has now a statistically significant and negative direction: the higher
the score of the Polcon V index (i.e., the less discretion a government has), the
lower is the number of environmental policies that are in force. This result,
confirming HS, is in line with the veto players approach by Tsebelis (2002) and
contradicts H6 based on Lijphart's arguments. Indeed, not only factors like
international integration, macro-economic development and measures for
problem pressure affect the level of environmental policy outputs, but also the
cabinet structure, the institutional design and the environmental policy
saliency of members of government seem to matter. The latter is the case for
both the presence of a green and libertarian party in the government and the
degree of environmental issue saliency of the government, regardless of
whether it is measured by the centre of gravity or the preference of the most
sceptical government party on environmental issues.
As already mentioned, the use of the mere number of adopted policies at
one point in time may yield misleading results. We therefore replicate the
regression models presented in Table 3 by including the lagged dependent
variable as an explanatory variable (see Table 4). In addition, we use the
difference between the numbers of environmental policies in force between
two time points as the dependent variable (see Table 5). The inclusion of the
lagged dependent variable does not result in major changes in the direction or
significance of the coefficients presented in Table 3. While the number of
environmental policies in force at t-1 has a highly significant and positive
impact on the number of adopted policies at t, we still find evidence for our
argument that the environmental issue saliency of governments plays a positive and significant role at least in the unified models that include variables
from all theoretical accounts discussed in this article (see Table 4). This holds
true despite the fact that we lose 18 observations due to the inclusion of the
lagged dependent variable. There are, however, two major differences. First,
the dummy variable that provides information on the participation of a green
or left-libertarian party is no longer significant. Second, the centre of gravity of
327
the government on the left-right dimension now has a significant and negative
impact according to the results of models 12-14 and 19-21. This implies that in contrast to the unified models presented in Table 3 - more leftist governments adopt more environmental policies than governments located on the
right of the ideological spectrum. While the alternative measurement in the
form of the most left-wing government party does not show any significant
impact, the results presented in Table 4 do not support the insignificance of the
general left-right orientation for the number of environmental policies
adopted as was indicated by the regressions models in Table 3 (contradiction
of H2). Furthermore, the share of trade on GDP in each country now has a
significantly positive impact: the more a country is involved in international
trade, the more environmental policies are adopted (HS) .
To further cross-validate our results, we refer to the change in the number
of environmental policies between 1970 and 1980,1980 and 1990, and 1990 and
the year 2000 as the dependent variable (see Table 5). The results are very
similar to the findings based on the inclusion of the lagged dependent variable.
All macro-economic factors and variables that reflect international integration
have a similar direction and - mostly - similar level of significance as in the
models presented in Tables 3 and 4. According to models 1,5 and 6 in Table 5,
economic openness - measured by the share of trade on the GDP - has a
significant and positive impact on the number of environmental policy standards. Also institutional constraints - measured with the Polcon V index - still
have a significant impact in the same direction as reported in the regression
models presented in Tables 3 and 4. This is also the case for the environmental
issue saliency of governmental parties. The more they stress environmental
issues in their election manifestos, the more environmental policies are
adopted. Similar to the results in Table 4, we find that more left-wing governments are likely to adopt more environmental policies than right-wing governments. This finding, though in contrast to our expectation, is in line with the
conventional point of view (see, e.g., Neumayer 2003). It implies that the
general ideological conflict is of relevance for governmental policy outputs.
However, as the regression models with their different measures of the dependent and the ideological variables display, it is not only the left-right orientation of political actors that has an impact on policy outputs, but also the
sector-specific policy preference of the parties that constitute the executive.
Considering the roots of environmentalism in developed democracies, this
finding seems plausible. In line with the results reported by Neumayer (2004),
who identified left-libertarian parties as more environmentally friendly than
other left-wing parties, one can argue that belonging to a specific party family
and also the metric positioning of parties on a left-right axis help to
explain their position on environmental protection (Dalton 2009: 166-170).
328
Table 6. Summary of the hypotheses tested
Hypothesis
111 : Governmental parties/environmental positions
112: Governmental parties/left-right (no impact)
113: Environmental ministry existence
114: Environmental minister's environmental policy position
115: Institutional constraints/hinder policy adoptions
116: Institutional constraints/boost policy adoptions
117: EU membership or application status
118: Economic openness
119: Economic development
1110: Ecological problem pressure
Confirmed(+)/not
confirmed(- )
+
+/-
+
+/-
+
+
Christian-democratic parties, for instance, favour environmental protection
because of their 'creationist' religious background (Zolleis 2008: 83-85), but
are normally located slightly to the right of the centre on a left-right dimension. The finding that sector-specific dimensions or indices are at least as
powerful as the overall left-right dimension indicates the need to explain
policy outputs from other sectors on the basis of sector-specific measures of the
political actors' preferences.
To sum up, we find mixed support for our ten hypotheses (see Table 6).While
the environmental preferences of government parties playa significant role for
policy output (HI), there is no clear evidence that the existence of an environmental ministry has an impact on the number of the environmental policies
(H3). There is, in addition, no evidence that the respective minister's environmental policy preference is of significant relevance, so that our fourth hypothesis has to be rejected. Contrary to our expectations, the left-right dimension is
not unimportant (H2). The analysis also supports Tsebelis' (1995,2002) rather
than Lijphart's (1999) argument (H5 and H6): the less discretion a government
has (the more veto players exist), the less likely is a change of the status quo in
terms of the number of policies. Being a member of the EU significantly
increases the number of environmental policies enacted, while there is no
indication that applicant status already results in a higher number of adoptions
(H7) . Concerning economic factors (H8 and H9), we find support for our
expectation on economic openness and economic development. Both variables
positively influence the number of environmental policy standards. There is, by
contrast, no indication that environmental problem pressure, as measured here,
results in a higher number of enacted environmental policies (HlO).
329
Conclusion
The central objective of this article was to analyse the influence of political
parties and their policy preferences on national environmental policy outputs.
In contrast to existing studies that rely on the problematic proxy of environmental performance rather than legislative and executive outputs, the underlying analysis addresses an important research gap. Moreover, the objective
was to investigate the influence of party politics in a policy field that is characterised by a high degree of internationalisation.
We derived hypotheses from five major theoretical backgrounds - the
partisan politics approach; the ministerial discretion approach; institutional
constraints; international and economic integration; and domestic problem
pressure - to explain the number of environmental policies adopted in 18
OEeD countries. We tested our expectations by using a unique dataset that
contains information on the number of policy adoptions in 40 predefined
environmental issue areas at four points in time (1970,1980,1990 and 2000).
The results show that not only international integration, economic development and problem pressure, but also party politics influence the number of
adopted policies. More specifically, the number of environmental measures
increases if the governmental parties adopt more pro-environmentalist policy
positions. This effect remains robust even when controlling for the institutional
strength of governments, the left-right position of parties in government, the
inclusion of an ecological or left-libertarian party inside the (coalition) government and the presence of a portfolio that deals exclusively with environmental
issues. Furthermore, variations in the measurement of the dependent variable
and the sample of independent variables resulted in very similar results.
The stability and robustness of our findings is not only highly relevant for
studies on outputs in other policy areas, especially regulatory policies, but also
implies that merely focusing on the left-right position of political actors is
insufficient for a proper understanding of the legislative and executive output
in policy fields over time and across countries. The latter should be especially
relevant for other issue areas that cut across a left-right conflict dimension, like
policies regarding moral questions such as euthanasia, stem cell research or
tobacco consumption.
Notes
1. Australia, Canada and New Zealand are not included in the ENVIPOLCON dataset. We
exclude transition countries, part of the dataset, in our study. As the output data are based
on national policy adoptions, countries with strong decentralisation of environmental
330
policy competencies might display a lower number of adoptions. However, legislative
environmental federa lism is hardly relevant in most federal countries of our sample. This
holds true for Switzerland and Belgium (in the latter case, at least until the mid-1990s).
The only difficult case is the United States. We hence additionally calculated our regression models by excluding the United States. This did not change either the significance or
the direction of the estimated coefficients.
2. The CMP dataset also provides a measure of the degree of economic liberalism of an
election manifesto ('markecon'). Since we are interested in the relationship between the
environmentalist orientation of a party and its position on a general left-right dimension,
we refer to the additive left-right index 'rile' provided by the CMP dataset and also used
in the studies by Neumayer (2003,2004) . We recalculated all regression models with the
markecon-dimension instead of 'rile', which led to only minor changes in the significance
level of the estimated coefficients.
3. As governments are the dominant agenda-setter in legislative decision making (see, e.g.,
Brauninger & Debus 2009; Tsebelis 2002: 91-115), we focus on the policy preferences of
government parties rather than of all parties that are represented in parliament.
4. There are, of course, a number of further options to model the expected policy position of
a (coalition) government. One could, for instance, focus on the policy positions of key
ministers (e.g. , Laver & Shepsle, 1996), or on the preferences mentioned in the policy
agreement or government declaration of the coalition government (see, e.g., MOiler &
Strf)m 2008; Warwick 2001). For our purpose it is sufficient to stick with the very simple
and conservative measure that the least environmental friendly coalition party sets the
government's policy agenda for environmental issues.
5. The GOP per capita is measured in 2000 constant international dollars, while the indicator for energy use is the consumption of oil in kg equivalent per capita. Population density
is simply estimated by the number of people per square kilometre. In the case of Germany
in 1970, data on the GOP are not available from the WOI. We refer to data for 1971 to fill
this gap.
6. Trade is measured by the sum of exports and imports of goods and services divided by the
GOP.
7. Additionally, we tested whether 'quasi EU membership' has an impact on the number of
environmental policies enacted (not reported in the regression tables) . We included an
additional variable that identifies Norway and Switzerland in the years 1990 and 2000 as
'quasi E U members'. The variable itself has no significant impact and does not change the
direction or significance level of the remaining explanatory variables.
8. Note that the correlation between these variables for our country sample and the selected
time period is 0.138 (Pearson's r) . We therefore include both variables in our model to
identify the relevant conflict measure for the adoption of environmental policies.
9. The classification of parties follows Swank (2002) (see, for an overview, Neumayer 2004:
169).
References
Achen, C.H. (2000). Why Lagged-dependent Variables can Suppress the Explanatory Power
of Other Independent Variables. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the political
methodology section of the American Political Science Association, Los Angeles, 20-22
July.
331
Allan, 1.p. & Scruggs, L. (2004). Political partisanship and welfare state reform in advanced
industrial societies. American fournal of Political Science 48(3): 496-512.
Alvarez, RM., Garrett, G. & Lange, P. (1991). Government partisanship, labor organization
and macroeconomic performance. American Political Science Review 85(2): 539556.
Andeweg, RB. (1993). A model of the cabinet system: The dimensions of cabinet decisionmaking processes. In 1. Blondel & E MUller-Rommel (eds), Governing together: The
extent and limits of joint decision-making in Western European cabinets. New York: St
Martin 's Press.
Axelrod, R (1970). Conftict of interest. Chicago, IL: Markham.
Beck, N. & Katz,J.N. (1995) . What to do (and not to do) with time-series cross-section data.
American Political Science Review 89(3): 634-647.
Benoit, K., Laver, M. & Mikhaylov, S. (2009). Treating words as data with error: Uncertainty
in text statements of policy positions. American fournal of Political Science 53(2): 495513.
Bernauer, T. et al. (2007). Explaining green innovation. Ten years after Porter's win-win
proposition: How to study the effects of regulation on corporate environmental innovation? In K. Jacob & E Biermann (eds), Politik und Umwelt. Politische Vierteljahresschrift
Sonderheft 39. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag fUr Sozialwissenschaften.
Blais, A., Blake, D. & Dion, S. (1993): Do parties make a difference? Parties and the size of
government in liberal democracies. American Political Science Review 37(1): 40-62.
Briiuninger, T. (2005). A partisan model of government expenditure. Public Choice 125(3-4):
409-429.
Briiuninger, T. & Debus, M. (2009). Legislative agenda-setting in parliamentary democracies. European fournal of Political Research 48(6): 804-839.
Budge, I. & Klingemann, H.-D. (2001). Finally! Comparative over-time mapping of party
policy movement. In I. Budge et al. (eds), Mapping policy preferences: Estimates for
parties, electors and governments, 1945- 1998. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Budge, I. et al. (eds) (2001). Mapping policy preferences: Estimates for parties, electors and
governments, 1945- 1998. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Budge, I. & Laver, M. (1993). The policy basis of government coalitions: A comparative
investigation . British fournal of Political Science 23(4): 499-519.
Castles, EG. (ed.) (1982). The impact of parties: Politics and policies in developed democratic
states. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Cusack, T.R (1997). Partisan politics and public finance: Changes in public spending in the
industrialized democracies, 1955-1989. Public Choice 91(3-4): 375- 395.
Cusack, T.R (2001). Partisanship in the setting and coordination of fiscal and monetary
policies. European fournal of Political Research 40(5): 93-115.
Cusack, T.R & Beramendi, P. (2006) . Taxing work. European fournal of Political Research
45(1): 43-73.
Cusack, T.R & Engelhardt, L. (2002). The PG L file collection: File structures and procedures.
Berlin: Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fUr Sozialforschung. Available online at: www.wzberlin.de/mplism/people/misc/cusack/d_sets.en.htm#data
Dalton, R (2009). Economics, environmentalism and party alignments: A note on partisan
change in advanced industrial democracies. European fournal of Political Research
48(2): 161- 175.
Davis, F.L. & Wurth, A. (2003). Voting preferences and the environment in the American
electorate: The discussion extended. Society and Natural Resources 16(8): 729-740.
332
Debus, M. (2007). Bestimmungsfaktoren des Wahlverhaltens bei den Bundestagswahlen
1987,1998 und 2002: Eine Anwendung des Modells von Adams, Merrill und Grofman.
Politische Vierteljahresschrift 48(2): 269- 292.
Debus, M. (2009). Pre-electoral commitments and government formation. Public Choice
138(1): 35--M
De Sombre, E.R. (2008). Globalization, competition and convergence: Shipping and the race
to the middle. Global Governance 14(2): 179-198.
De Swaan, A (1973). Coalition theories and cabinet formation. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Downs, A (1957). An economic theory of democracy. New York: Harper.
Franzese, R.I. Jr. (2002). E lectoral and partisan cycles in economic policies and outcomes.
Annual Review of Political Science 5: 369--421.
Gallagher, M., Laver, M. & Mair, P. (2006). Representative government in modern Europe.
New York: McGraw-Hill.
Gross, D.A & Sigelman, L. (1984). Comparing party systems: A multidimensional approach.
Comparative Politics 16(4): 463--479.
Guber, D.L. (2001). Voting preferences and the environment in the American electorate.
Society and Natural Resources 14(6): 455--469.
Harrington, w., Morgenstern, R.D. & Sterner, T. (eds) (2005). Choosing environmental
policy: Comparing instruments and outcomes in the United States and Europe. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future.
Heichel, S. et al. (2008). Research design, variables and data. In K. Holzinger, e. Knill & B.
Arts (eds), Environmental policy convergence in Europe: The impact of international
institutions and trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Henisz, W.I. (2000). The institutional environment for economic growth. Economics and
Politics 12(1): 1-31.
Henisz, W.I. (2002) . The institutional environment for infrastructure investment. Industrial
and Corporate Change 11(2): 355- 389.
Hibbs, D.A (1977). Political parties and macroeconomic policy. American Political Science
Review 71(4): 1467-1487.
Hibbs, D.A (1992). Partisan theory after fifteen years. European Journal of Political
Economy 8(4): 361-373.
Hicks, AM. & Swank, D.H. (1992). Politics, institutions and welfare spending in
industrialized democracies, 1960-82. American Political Science Review 86(3): 658674.
Holzinger, K. (2003) . Common goods, matrix games and institutional solutions. European
Journal of International Relations 9(2): 173- 212.
Holzinger, K. & Knill, e. (2005). Causes and conditions of cross-national policy convergence.
Journal of European Public Policy 12(5): 775-796.
Holzinger, K., Knill, e. & Arts, B. (eds.) (2008a). Environmental policy convergence
in Europe: The impact of international institutions and trade. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Holzinger, K., Knill, e. & Sommerer, T. (2008b). Environmental policy convergence: The
impact of international harmonization, transnational communication and regulatory
competition. International Organization 62(4): 553-587.
Hooghe, L. , Marks, G. & Wilson, e.J. (2002). Does left/right structure party positions on
European integration? Comparative Political Studies 35(8): 965- 983.
Huang, H. & Labys, w.e. (2002). Environment and trade: A review of issues and methods.
International Journal of Global Environmental Issues 2(1-2): 100-159.
333
Huber, E., Ragin, C. & Stephens, J.D. (1993). Social democracy, Christian democracy, constitutional structure and the welfare state. American Sociological Review 99(3): 711- 749.
Inglehart, R. (1995). Public support for environmental protection: Objective problems and
subjective values in 43 societies. PS: Political Science & Politics 28(1): 57-72.
Inglehart, R. (1997). Modernization and postmodernization: Cultural, economic and political
change in 43 societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Jahn, D. (1998). Environmental performance and policy regimes: Explaining variations in 18
OECD countries. Policy Sciences 31(2): 107-131.
Jahn, D. (2000). Patterns and correlates of environmental politics in Western democracies. In
S.c. Young (ed.), The emergence of ecological modernisation: Integrating the environment
and the economy? LondonfNew York: Routledge.
Janicke, M. & Jacob, K. (2004). Lead markets for environmental innovations: A new role for
the nation state. Global Environmental Politics 4(1): 29-46.
Janicke, M. & Weidner, H. (eds) (1997) . National environmental policies: A comparative
study of capacity-building. Berlin: Springer.
Jordan, A. & Liefferink, D. (eds) (2004) . Environmental policy in Europe: The Europeanisation of national environmental policy. London/New York: Routledge.
Keele, L. & Kelly, N.J. (2006). Dynamic models for dynamic theories: The ins and outs of
lagged dependent variables. Political Analysis 14(2): 186-205.
Kernan, H. (2002). Policy-making capacities of European party government. In K. R. Luther
& F. MUller-Rommel (eds), Political parties in the new Europe: Political and analytical
challenges. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
King, R.F. & Borchardt, A. (1994). Red and green: Air pollution levels and left party power
in OECD countries. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 12(2): 225241.
Kirkpatrick, C. & Scrieciu, S.S. (2008) . Is trade liberalisation bad for the environment? A
review of the economic evidence. lournal of Environmental Planning and Management
51(4): 497-510.
Klingemann, H.-D., Hofferbert, R. & Budge, I. (1994). Parties, policies and democracy.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Klingemann, H.-D. et al. (2006). Mapping policy preferences I/: Estimates for parties, electors
and governments in Eastern Europe, European Union and DECD, 1990-2003. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Knill, C. (2001). The Europeanization of national administrations. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Knutsen, O. (1989). Cleavage dimensions in ten West European countries: A comparative
empirical analysis. Comparative Political Studies 21(4): 495-534.
Laver, M. (2001). Position and salience in the policies of political actors. In Estimating the
policy positions of political actors. London/New York: Routledge.
Laver, M. & Garry, J. (2000). Estimating policy positions from political texts. American
lournal of Political Science 44(3) : 619-634.
Laver, M. & Schofield, N. (1998). Multiparty government: The politics of coalition in Europe.
Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Laver, M. & Shepsle, K.A. (1990). Coalitions and cabinet government. American Political
Science Review 84(3): 873-890.
Laver, M. & Shepsle, K.A. (1994). Cabinet ministers and government formation in parliamentary democracies. In Cabinet ministers and parliamentary government. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
334
Laver, M. & Shepsle, KA. (1996). Making and breaking governments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Laver, M. & Shepsle, K.A. (1998). Events, equilibria and government survival. American
Journal of Political Science 42(1): 28-54.
Laver, M., Benoit, K & Garry,J. (2003). Extracting policy positions from political texts using
words as data. American Political Science Review 97(2): 311-331.
Lijphart, A. (1999). Palterns of democracy: Government forms and performance in thirty-six
countries. New Haven, Cf: Yale University Press.
List, J.A. & Sturm, D.M. (2006). How elections matter: Theory and evidence from environmental policy. Quarterly Journal of Economics 121(4): 1249-1281.
Mair, P. & Mudde, e. (1998). The party family and its study. Annual Review of Political
Science 1: 211-229.
Martin, L. & Simmons, B. (1998). Theories and empirical studies of international institutions.
International Organization 52(4): 729-754.
Martin, L.W & Stevenson, R.T. (2001). Government formation in parliamentary democracies. American Journal of Political Science 45(1): 33-50.
Martin, L.W & Vanberg, G. (2004). Policing the bargain: Coalition government and parliamentary scrutiny. American Journal of Political Science 48(1): 13-27.
McDonald, M. & Budge, I. (2005). Elections, parties, democracy: Conferring the median
mandate. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Miles, E.L. et al. (2002). Environmental regime effectiveness: Confronting theory with evidence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Mikhaylov, S., Benoit, K & Laver, M. (2008). Coder Reliability and Misclassification in
Comparative Manifesto Project Codings. Paper presented at the 66th MPSA Annual
National Conference, Chicago, 3-6 April.
MUller, we. & Str!i!m, K (eds) (1999). Policy, office or votes? How political parties in Western
Europe make hard decisions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
MUller, We. & Str!i!m, K (eds) (2000). Coalition governments in Western Europe. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
MUller, We. & Str!i!m, K (2008). Coalition agreements and cabinet governance. In K Str!i!m,
We. MUller & T. Bergman (eds), Cabinets and coalition bargaining: The democratic life
cycle in Western Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
MUller-Rommel, F. (ed.) (1989). New politics in Western Europe: The rise and success of green
parties and alternative lists. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Neumayer, E . (2003). Are left-wing party strength and corporatism good for the environment? Evidence from panel analysis of air pollution in OECD countries? Ecological
Economics 45: 203-220.
Neumayer, E . (2004). The environment and left-wing political orientation. Ecological Economics 51 : 167-175.
Peleg, B. (1981). Coalition formation in simple games with dominant players. International
Journal of Game Theory 10: 11-33.
PlUmper, T., Troeger, Y.E. & Manow, P. (2005). Panel data analysis in comparative politics:
Linking method to theory. European Journal of Political Research 44(2): 327-354.
Porter, M.E. & Van der Linde, e. (1995). Toward a new conception of the environmentcompetitiveness relationship. Journal of Economic Perspectives 9(4): 97-118.
Richardson, D. & Rootes, e. (eds) (1995). The development of green parties in Europe.
London/New York: Routledge.
Riker, W (1962). The theory of political coalitions. New Haven, Cf: Yale University Press.
335
Rohrschneider, R. (1988). Citizens' attitudes toward environmental issues: Selfish or selfless? Comparative Political Studies 21(3): 347-367.
Rohrschneider, R. (1993). New party versus old left realignment: Environmental attitudes,
party policies and partisan affiliation in four West European countries.lournal of Politics
55(3): 682-701.
Schimmelfennig F. & Sedelmeier U. (2004). Governance by conditionality: EU rule transfer
to the candidate countries of Central and Eastern Europe. lournal of European Public
Policy 11(4): 661-{579.
Schmidt, M.G. (1996). When parties matter: A review of the possibilities and limits of partisan
influence on public policy. European lournal of Political Research 30(2): 155-186.
Schmidt, M.G. (2002). The impact of political parties, constitutional structures and veto
players on public policy. In H. Kernan (ed.), Comparative democratic politics: A guide to
contemporary theory and research. London: Sage.
Scruggs, L. (1999). Institutions and environmental performance in seventeen Western
democracies. British lournal of Political Science 29(1): 1-31.
Scruggs, L. (2003). Sustaining abundance: Environmental performance in industrial democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Slapin, 1. & Proksch, S. (2008). A scaling model for estimating time-series party positions
from texts. American lournal of Political Science 52(3): 705-722.
Str¢m, K. (1990). Minority government and majority rule. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Swank, D. (2002). Political strength of political parties by ideological group in capitalist
democracies: 21-nation pooled time-series dataset. Available online at: www.
marquette.edu/polisci/documents/part19502006code.pdf
Timmermans, A. (1998) . Conflicts, agreements and coalition governance. Acta Politica 33:
409-432.
Timmermans, A. (2006). Standing apart and sitting together: Enforcing coalition agreements
in multiparty systems. European lournal of Political Research 45(2): 263-283.
Tsebelis, G. (1995). Decision making in political systems: Veto players in presidentialism,
parliamentarism, multicameralism and mUltipartyism. British lournal of Political Science
25(3): 289-325.
Tsebelis, G. (2002). Veto-players: How political institutions work. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Tufte, E .R. (1978). The political control of the economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
Van Deemen, A. (1989). Dominant players and minimum size coalitions. European lournal
of Political Research 17: 313-332.
Vogel, D. (1995). Trading up: Consumer and environmental protection in a global economy.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Von Neumann, 1. & Morgenstern, O. (1944). Theory of games and economic behavior.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Warwick, p.y. (2001). Coalition policy in parliamentary democracies: Who gets how much
and why. Comparative Political Studies 34: 1212-1236.
Warwick, P.Y. (2006). Policy horizons and parliamentary government. Houndmills: Palgrave.
Weidner, H. & Janicke, M. (eds) (2002). Capacity building in national environmental policy:
A comparative study of 17 countries. Berlin: Springer.
World Bank. (2007). World Development Indicators 2007. Washington, DC: International
Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
336
Zolleis, U. (2008). Die CDU: Das politische L eitbUd im Wandel der Zeit. Wiesbaden: VS
Verlag fUr Sozialwissenschaften.
Address for correspondence: Christoph Knill, Chair of Comparative Public Policy and
Administration, Department of Politics and Management, University of Konstanz, Fach 0
91,0-78457 Konstanz, Germany. Tel.: ++49 7531 883553; Fax: ++ 49 7531 882381; E-mail:
c.knill@uni-konstanz.de; Website: http://www.uni-konstanz.de/FuFNerwiss/knill/