Environmental Attitudes in Cross-National Perspective: A Multilevel Analysis of the ISSP 1993 and 2000

This article discusses the determinants and the development of public concern for the state of the natural environment. First, we review some theoretical approaches that try to explain individual as well as cross-national differences in environmental attitudes. Particularly, we discuss Inglehart's theory of post-materialism, Dunlap and Mertig's globalization explanation, and the prosperity hypothesis. Second, we test these hypotheses by applying multilevel analysis to the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) data from the years 1993 and 2000. The results support, above all, the prosperity hypothesis. Individuals with higher relative income within countries display higher levels of environmental concern…