Psychological determinants of public support for environmental policies: a cognitive approach to enhance understanding of citizen preferences

In the field of environmental public policies, there can be large divergence between the effectiveness of political measures as estimated by economists and their social acceptability, which nevertheless conditions their real impact. In France, the public opposition to the planned increase in the carbon tax that gave rise to the Yellow Vests movement in 2018 is a striking example of this divergence. However, very few studies have used a cognitive science approach in order to analyze the acceptability of environmental policy. This PhD aimed to fill this gap by studying the psychological origins of citizens’ acceptability judgments in relation to three environmental policy domains: a) climate policy, taking carbon taxation as a case study, b) energy policy, taking energy subsidies as a case study, and c) biodiversity protection and nature conservation policy. For the first two domains, online experimental studies on representative samples of the British and French adult population were conducted. For the third domain, a PRISMA systematic review of existing literature was performed. Based on the results obtained, recommendations are issued to policy-makers to facilitate the integration of citizens’ preferences in the design and implementation of environmental policies.

Jury de thèse :

Katheline SCHUBERT, Présidente du jury
PU, Ecole d’Economie de Paris, Examinatrice

Malcolm FAIRBROTHER
Professor, Uppsala University, Rapporteur

Ghozlane FLEURY-BAHI
PU, Université de Nantes, Rapportrice

Ulf HAHNEL
Professor, University of Basel, Examinateur

Hugo MERCIER
DR, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Co-directeur de thèse

Coralie CHEVALLIER
DR, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Co-directrice de thèse