Fairness Motivations and Tradeoffs Underlying Public Support for Government Environmental Spending in Nine Nations

Public support for government spending on the environment in nine countries was assessed by examining responses to surveys conducted in each of these countries as part of the International Social Survey Program. Both absolute and relative levels of support were assessed. Aggregate level analysis showed considerable variability across countries. Within countries, the young and more educated were more supportive of environmental spending, even at the expense of other social programs. Prosocialist values were associated with higher levels of support for environmental spending, while probusiness and government social responsibility values were associated with less support. However, those endorsing both prosocialist and government responsibility values were less likely to endorse spending on the environment at the expense of other social programs. The linkage of resource distributions tradeoffs to values supports a psychological model of public opinion about the environment based on distributive fairness considerations.