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2015 Graduate Student Research Conference
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Apr 18th, 12:20 PM - 12:40 PM
Does a democracy improve environmental quality?
Yoonsoo Nam
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Yoonsoo Nam
Abstract
Does a democracy improve environmental quality? Albert Gore, the 2007 Nobel
Peace Prize winner, has said that “an essential prerequisite for saving the environment is
the spread of democratic government to more nations of the world.”1 This topic is
important because a democracy has been conceded as one of potential determinants of
good environmental quality.
As compared to an autocracy, there are several theoretical reasons why a
democracy may improve environmental quality. Democratic citizens have more access to
information regarding environmental quality (Schultz and Crockett 1990; Payne 1995), and
more freedom of speech and organization allowing them to organize then appeal to their
governments (Kotov and Nikitina 1995; Payne 1995). As a result, these governments can be
held accountable for their ignorance of environmental quality if there is a noticeable
degradation of environmental quality (Payne 1995).
What are the effects of political institutions on environmental quality comprised of
global air quality, land quality and natural resources, and sustainable development policies?
Since past research addressing this topic has provided mixed results, this paper offers a
fresh perspective by incorporating three different types of composite indicators consisting
of a revised combined Polity score, an institutionalized autocracy and an institutionalized
democracy that form political institutions. Furthermore, this paper implements four
different component variables comprised of a competitiveness of executive recruitment, an
openness of executive recruitment, executive constraints and a competitiveness of political
participation that form an institutionalized democracy, which is one of the aforementioned
three composite indicators. These composite indicators and component variables are
named and managed through the Polity IV Project by the Center for Systematic Peace.
In a hope of finding some important relationships between political institutions and
environmental quality, a panel data set covering periods from 1990 to 2010 for 127
countries is used. However, instead of using yearly data as other past research has done,
since political institutions are less likely to vary over short periods of time, a panel data set
for periods with a 5-year interval (i.e., the years 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005 and 2010) is used.
For global air quality, CO2 emissions (kt) is used. For land quality and natural
resources, a negative annual change rate of the forest area (1,000 ha) and terrestrial
protected areas (% of total land area) are used. For the sustainable development policies,
improved water sources (% of population with access) is used. GDP per capita - PPP
(constant 2011 international $) and its squared value, manufacturing - value added (% of
GDP), trade (% of GDP), total population, and urban population (% of total) are used as
controls to verify the results. Furthermore, for an estimation methodology, a country- and
year-fixed effects model is implemented to mitigate unobserved characteristics in each of
the 127 countries and the 5 different time periods.
The results using the three composite indicators suggest that a revised combined
Polity score worsens land quality and natural resources by decreasing terrestrial protected
areas, but improves sustainable development policies by increasing improved water sources.
1
Gore 1992, 179.
An institutionalized autocracy increases terrestrial protected areas, but decreases improved
water sources. An institutionalized democracy increases improved water sources. The
results using the four component variables suggest that a competitiveness of political
participation decreases terrestrial protected areas, but increases improved water sources.
Finally, executive constraints increase improved water sources.
The positive associations among the two composite indicators representing a
democracy (henceforth, democratic indicators), the four component variables and improved
water sources agree with the findings by Yoon (2014), who find that a democracy improves
sustainable development policies. However, there are negative associations among the two
democratic indicators, the four component variables and terrestrial protected areas. These
results agree with the findings by Mark and Lew (2011), who find that a democracy
increases deforestation damage. The researchers explain their findings by stating that more
tightly controlled (autocratic) governments may be better at managing land quality and
natural resources if the governments receive some benefits from managing these
environmental quality. The researchers also state that autocratic countries do not
necessarily improve global air quality because they do not usually receive benefits, but incur
costs from reducing emissions. This last explanation might explain insignificant associations
among the three composite indicators, the four component variables, and CO2 emissions.
The results by this paper may have some important policy implications. Furthermore,
since variables implemented in this paper are related to economics, environmental studies
and political science, the results from this paper may be informative and hope to act as
bridges among these important disciplines.
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