ISA 2012 National Work-Related Cultural Values and Environmental Policies

Charles LaffiteauUniversity of Texas at Dallas

National Work-Related Cultural Values and Environmental Policies



The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international institution whose mission is to promote policies to improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.

Moreover, one of the most important self-declared aims of the OECD is to cooperate and harmonize policies among its members while also ensuring that “the environmental implications of economic and social development are taken into account.”


In the environmental policy arena, the OECD has been an agent of policy diffusion by promoting regulatory schemes among its member states to deal with a wide range of environmental issues such as water and air pollution, acid rain and banning the use of certain pesticides like DDT.

On a global level the OECD was also very instrumental in forging a consensus on an international treaty (1987 Montreal Protocol) to deal with ozone depletion caused by CFC refrigerants and aerosols.


Over the past 50 years the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by 25%.

160,000 years of glacial ice core and anthropological evidence shows that CO2 levels and temperatures rise in unison.

Melting permafrost in Siberia, Canada and Alaska has led to the destabilization of buildings and homes and forced costly tax payer financed relocations of native peoples.


Soot, methane & hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs contribute 30% of the human-caused rise in global temperatures.

25 % of the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere each year is caused by deforestation.

CO2 gas emissions from coal, oil and gas fossil

fuel burning represent another 45%.


Most of the Kyoto Protocol’s Annex 1 nations (which are committed to reduce their CO2 emissions) are also members of the OECD. Since the more technologically developed nations of the OECD were expected to take the lead in reducing their CO2 emissions, all most all of the OECD nations agreed to meet specific GHG emission reduction targets agreed to in the Kyoto Protocol by 2012.

Mexico, South Korea, Chile and Israel are the only OECD nations that are not Annex 1 nations. The former Communist nations of Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania,

Ukraine and the Russian Federation as well as the European principalities of Liechtenstein and Monaco are the only Annex 1 nations that are not members of the OECD.


Good NewsCosts are known & technologies already exist for

cutting CO2 emissions and adapting to higher temperatures.

Farming in higher latitudes would also improve.Bad News

Farmers in lower latitudes and in arid regions of the world would suffer.

More air conditioning = more CO2 energy useShoreline communities have to be relocated (the

cost of moving Shishmaref Alaska’s 565 residents is estimated at $180 million or $300,000 per resident)


Over the last twenty years virtually every OECD nation has also promoted and even subsidized the production of biofuels as a way to reduce their CO2 carbon emissions. Yet in spite of the abundant evidence that shows using grain to produce biofuels has at best a marginal impact on reducing overall CO2 emissions and a decidedly negative impact on food supplies and prices, biofuel policies persist in some OECD nations.


So why have some OECD nations failed to embrace other more effective types of environmental policies to deal with climate change such as building more nuclear power plants, or the use of New Environmental Policy Instruments (NEPI) like carbon taxes, eco labeling, tradable CO2 emission permits and industry wide environmental management systems?

Why do some OECD nations like U.S. still continue to support biofuels made from grain as a policy response?


Why, given the strongly similar socio-economic profiles of OECD member states on some of the key issues that the policy literature suggests would lead to policy diffusion and convergence (such as economic structures, levels of education, GDP and styles of governance), has there been such a wide variation in the types of environmental policies OECD nations have adopted as well as the relative effectiveness of these policies in reducing the CO2 emissions of individual OECD countries?


The Climate Skeptic Perspective

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Climate skeptics aside, the initiative for climate change policy action stills lies with the OECD states because no one expects a global deal on CO2 emissions without a significant shift in the policy position of the OECD states.

So in an attempt to answer this research question, I conducted a literature review of environmental politics and policy literature as well as the literature on policy diffusion, transfer and convergence to see what, if any, explanations might exist that explain why environmental policy diffusion seems to be stalled in the OECD.


Literature dealing with how national cultures and values influence national policies has also been reviewed to determine what might be the key cultural factors or values that explain the stalling of environmental policy diffusion among the states of the OECD in this policy area.


Overall, the environmental politics and policy literature suggests that complex interactions between a number of different elements influence environmental policy at the global level. Authors like Young, Schofer and Hironaka contend it is international institutions that have a substantial impact on improving environmental policy outcomes, while others like Princen and Finger say it is the influence of environmental NGOs.


But there appears to be no clear cut answer to the question of what influences environmental policy making at the global level. It could be NGOs, international institutions, national (states) factors or public discourse. The research problem is that the literature on the development of CO2 reduction and climate change mitigation policies is still immature and primarily been focused on following and seeking to explain global negotiations for international treaties.


Based on a number of key factors cited in the policy diffusion, policy transfer and policy convergence literature (such as international institutions and norms, similarities in democratic governance institutions, industrial development and per capita GDP as well as membership in the same trade {i.e. WTO, EU, NAFTA} and economic {i. e. OECD} organizations), the policy literature suggests that these nations’ environmental policies should also be comparable.


Marvin Soroos notes that the difficulty in dealing with climate change is the fact that “CO2 and some of the other GHGs are generated by activities that are fundamental to modern societies, in particular those of the energy, manufacturing, transportation and agriculture sectors.”

Marvin S. Soroos. The Endangered Atmosphere: Preserving a Global

Commons. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. 1997.): 277


But Tews et al also cite the influence of regional ties, due at least in part to cultural similarities, in their analysis of policy diffusion writing that the “nearly simultaneous policy adoption of energy/carbon taxes in the Scandinavian countries had been co-ordinated by the Nordic Council.”

Kerstin Tews, Per-Olaf Busch and Helge Jorgens. “The diffusion of new environmental policy instruments.” European Journal of Political Research (Vol. 42 No. 3, 2003): 586


Lenschow et al concluded that new ideas, principles and goals impinge first and foremost on national culture. Therefore, countries that share important aspects of their cultural foundations might be expected to more quickly adopt similar ideas, principles and goals than countries that are culturally less close to each other.”

Andrea Lenschow, Duncan Liefferink and Sietske Veenman. “When the birds sing: A framework for analysing domestic factors behind policy convergence.” Journal of European Public Policy (Vol. 12 No. 5, 2005): 810


The first question one might ask regarding the effect cultural values might have on environmental policies is; “Why might culture matter?

Culture matters because of the influence it has on the personal values and views of citizens raised in a particular society.

“National and ethnic cultures are thus distinguished in their degree of regulation of behavior, attitudes, and values, the domain of regulation, and the consistency and clarity of regulation and tolerance of other cultures.”

David Tse, Kam-hon Lee, Ilan Vertinsky & D. Wehrung. “Does Culture Matter? A Cross-Cultural Study of Executives' Choice, Decisiveness & Risk Adjustment in International Marketing.” The Journal of Marketing. (Vol. 52 No. 4, 1988): 82


Hofstede’s research shows that nations like Germany, which have more of an affinity for the masculine dimension of cultural values, tend to be more performance oriented societies that demonstrate support for members who are strong, aggressive and decisive.

These national cultures also show a preference for adversarial (i.e. mudslinging) politics, money over leisure time, economic growth and bigger organizations.

On the other hand Scandinavian nations that are inclined to the feminine dimension tend to be welfare societies that provide help to the poor and show a preference for coalition politics, leisure time and smaller organizations.

Hofstede, 2001: 135-185


With respect to the cultural dimension of individualism, countries like the United States tend to promote economic self interests, a restrained economic role for government and show a preference for individual freedoms. But countries like Spain that favor the collectivist dimension prefer equality over freedom and want the government to play a more dominant economic role.

Hofstede, 2001: 89-134


The differences that exist in national work-related cultural values also affect each nation’s respective institutions and social organizations because of the way in which these cultural values influence both the roles and the status accorded individuals who occupy various different positions within a nation’s political, economic and legal institutions as well as other types of social organizations within a country. However, even though national cultures and social structures vary widely among both developed and developing countries, they always flow from and develop along parallel lines based on successive levels of causal influence.


For purposes of a robust comparative analysis, a large-N macro level study (using statistical models and regression tests) of the 31 OECD members for whom consistent data is available was conducted seeking to establish a pattern or correlation of the influence the independent variables of cultural values have as inputs compared to other alternative explanations such as; levels of economic and human development, types of democratic electoral governance regimes (presidential, parliamentary, majoritarian, proportional, multi-tier and mixed)


The dependent variable used in this study was the EPI estimates of CO2 emissions reductions of individual member states of the OECD between 2008 and 2013 and the secondary dependent variable of environmental policy outputs; (type and strength of policies and new environmental policy instruments used to reduce their CO2 emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change).


The independent estimates of the reductions of 2008-2013 CO2 emissions of the 33 OECD nations used carbon emissions data sets from the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) jointly developed by the Yale Centre for Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University and the Centre for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University, in collaboration with the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Switzerland and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission in Ispra, Italy.

Environmental Performance Index, 2010.


Since variations in nations’ cultural values appear to have an impact on policies, I would expect to see national cultures which exhibit high levels of individualism adopt environmental policies which minimize the regulatory role of government and are more sensitive to negative economic impacts their climate change policies might have on certain economic sectors.

But in countries with national cultures which favor collectivist cultural values, I would expect them to adopt environmental policies which emphasize the regulatory role of government and are less sensitive to the potential negative economic impacts their climate change policies might have on certain economic sectors.


The Cultural Values Index (CVI) uses Likert-Type Scale Response Anchors on national cultural values surveys data sets developed by Geert Hofstede for thirty one members of the OECD between 1967 and 1973 that was updated and expanded to include a fifth cultural dimension between 1994 and 2000.

UT Dallas MBA students also conducted follow-up national cultural values surveys using Hofstede’s data sets between 2009 and 2011 in an unsuccessful attempt to show that due to the effects of cultural and economic globalization individual nation’s work-related cultural values were no longer as fixed as Hofstede contended.

Hofstede, 2001 Laffiteau, 2010


Independent variable

N- Std. error Std. coefficient Adj. R-sq. P Value

CV Individualism

31 .1956 .42 .1482 .0186

CV Individ.+Masc.

31 .1292 .42 .1562 .0278

CV Masculinity 31 .1675 .19 .0022 .3104

Economic Dev. 31 .0005 .30 .0569 .1084

Human Dev. 31 122.9267 .30 .0559 .1105

Electoral System 31 4.0434 .31 .0660 .0878

Democratic Regime

31 5.5807 .17 .0030 .3482

Post-Material Values

25 .3479 .12 -.0291 .5757

New EPIs 11 3.0282 .43 .0517 .2843


Based on regression tests of nine alternative explanations for the differences in the types and effectiveness of policies used by OECD nations to reduce their CO2 emissions, the only alternative explanations that show statistical significance are the cultural values of individualism and the combination of individualism and masculinity.

I contend that the most likely reason why the diffusion of environmental policies has stalled in the OECD is due to the fact that certain types of fairly effective environmental climate change policies also run counter to the national work-related cultural values of some of the OECD nations.

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ISA 2012 National Work-Related Cultural Values and Environmental Policies