Institutions and Environmental Performance in Seventeen Western Democracies

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between national political and economic institutions and environmental performance since the early 1970s in seventeen OECD countries. After presenting hypotheses about some of the effects of the most important structural and institutional variables on performance, I test these hypotheses using a multiple regression analysis. I find that neo-corporatist societies experience much better environmental outcomes than more pluralist systems. However, neither the degree of ‘consensual’ political democracy nor traditional political factors can explain much variation in environmental performance. These relationships hold even after controlling for other structural factors such as income and manufacturing intensity. The results are robust despite perennial small-n statistical problems encountered in comparative political economy.