Environmental dilemmas and policy design / Huib Pellikaan and Robert J. van der Veen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pellikaan, Huib, author.

Veen, Robert J. van der, author.

Series:

Theories of institutional design.

Theories of institutional design

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Environmental policy--Netherlands.

Environmental policy.

Environmental protection--Netherlands--Citizen participation.

Environmental protection.

Rational choice theory.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 247 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Environmental Dilemmas & Policy Design

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

According to the logic of collective action, mere awareness of the causes of environmental degradation will not motivate rational agents to reduce pollution. Yet some government policies aim to enlist citizens in schemes of voluntary cooperation, drawing on an ethos of collective responsibility. Are such policies doomed to failure? This book provides a novel application of rational choice theory to a large-scale survey of environmental attitudes in The Netherlands. Its main findings are that rational citizens are motivated to cooperate towards a less polluted environment to a large extent, but that their willingness to assume responsibility depends on the social context of the collective action problem they face. This empirical study is an important volume in the development of a more consistent foundation for rational choice theory in policy analysis, which seeks to clarify major theoretical issues concerning the role of moral commitment, self-interest and reciprocity in environmental behaviour.

Contents:

Part I. Background

Environmental pollution as a problem of collective action

Dutch approach: self-regulation as a policy concept

Actor's perspective on collective action

Part II. The survey

Preference orderings and measurement

Rational choice

Consistency of motives and preferences

Non-equivalence of the cases

Reported behaviour

Part III. Conclusions: theory and policy

Do people accept self-regulation policy?

Do people agree with the environmental ethos?

Moral commitment and rational cooperation

Reciprocity and cooperation in environmental dilemmas

Assessing self-regulation policies.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-238) and index.

ISBN:

1-107-11481-0

1-280-41877-X

0-511-17748-8

0-511-03999-9

0-511-14784-8

0-511-33012-X

0-511-49106-9

0-511-05040-2

OCLC:

475915734