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Quality of Democracy and Climate Change Policy Outcomes among Established Democracies
Type of Session
Individual Paper Presentation
Abstract
Countries throughout the world are taking varying levels of action to confront the growing threat of climate change. Different economic, cultural, and political theories have been offered to explain this variation. This paper focuses on the relationship between quality of democracy and national climate change policy outcomes among established democracies. Datasets from the Democracy Barometer and the Environmental Performance Index are utilized to conduct a cross national statistical analysis among twenty five established democracies. The results indicate that quality of democracy has a significant effect on climate change policy outcomes among advanced democracies even when controlling for cultural and economic factors. Countries that score higher on quality of democracy measurements also tend to exhibit better climate change policy outcomes. Furthermore, the effect of quality of democracy on climate change policy outcomes is greater than the effects of economic and cultural variables.