Environmental Behavior: Global and national influences

We propose to analyze the development of environmental behavior through the lenses of world society and social movement theory with additional attention to Austria. For this purpose, we will analyze the three environmental modules of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) of 1993, 2000, and 2010. This research idea is driven by the following considerations: Firstly, both environmental problems and our social lives have an increasingly global dimension. The global dimension of ideas is considered within world society thesis. The success of social actions, however, also depends on national and local circumstances. Social movement literature focuses on factors such as the national political opportunity structure that promote or restrict social actions. There are, however, only very few studies applying both world societal and social movement theory assumptions to environmental behavior. Our study, thus, would contribute a. to social theory by integrating social movement and world society thesis assumptions and b. social research on environment behavior by analyzing longitudinal data. Secondly, there is a lack of research on environmental behavior and attitudes of the general public in Austria despite a continuous interest in this topic at the international level: No articles on general environmentalism were published within the two main national sociological journals "Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie" and "SWS Rundschau" since 2003; there is also no entry at the Austrian national library on general environmental attitudes and behavior. Publishing results on Austrians` environmental attitudes and behavior in national journals and media, thus, would close a considerable knowledge gap in this respect. Thirdly, this project would utilize data collected by ISSP. This research consortium currently has 45 member countries and has already fielded two surveys on environmental behavior and attitudes in 1993 and 2000. A third survey will be implemented in 2010. ISSP has, however, no central funding and the actual number of countries that collect data depends on their success in obtaining funding. The funding of this proposal would ensure that the data is collected in Austria. The fielding and analysis of the 2010 environment module in Austria, would contribute in two ways: First, the Austrian scientific community and the general public would gain insight into Austrian attitudes and behaviors and changes in them since 1995. Second, the international scientific community would benefit by a strengthened ISSP dataset since the inclusion of Austria would widen the basis for time-comparative and cross-national analyses.

We propose to analyze the development of environmental behavior through the lenses of world society and social movement theory with additional attention to Austria. For this purpose, we will analyze the three environmental modules of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) of 1993, 2000, and 2010. This research idea is driven by the following considerations: Firstly, both environmental problems and our social lives have an increasingly global dimension. The global dimension of ideas is considered within world society thesis. The success of social actions, however, also depends on national and local circumstances. Social movement literature focuses on factors such as the national political opportunity structure that promote or restrict social actions. There are, however, only very few studies applying both world societal and social movement theory assumptions to environmental behavior. Our study, thus, would contribute a. to social theory by integrating social movement and world society thesis assumptions and b. social research on environment behavior by analyzing longitudinal data. Secondly, there is a lack of research on environmental behavior and attitudes of the general public in Austria despite a continuous interest in this topic at the international level: No articles on general environmentalism were published within the two main national sociological journals "Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie" and "SWS Rundschau" since 2003; there is also no entry at the Austrian national library on general environmental attitudes and behavior. Publishing results on Austrians` environmental attitudes and behavior in national journals and media, thus, would close a considerable knowledge gap in this respect. Thirdly, this project would utilize data collected by ISSP. This research consortium currently has 45 member countries and has already fielded two surveys on environmental behavior and attitudes in 1993 and 2000. A third survey will be implemented in 2010. ISSP has, however, no central funding and the actual number of countries that collect data depends on their success in obtaining funding. The funding of this proposal would ensure that the data is collected in Austria. The fielding and analysis of the 2010 environment module in Austria, would contribute in two ways: First, the Austrian scientific community and the general public would gain insight into Austrian attitudes and behaviors and changes in them since 1995. Second, the international scientific community would benefit by a strengthened ISSP dataset since the inclusion of Austria would widen the basis for time-comparative and cross-national analyses.