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Public Support for Environmental Protection: ObjectiveProblems and Subjective Values in 43 Societies

Ronald Inglehart, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor

Policies designed to solve environmental problems are unlikely tosucceed unless they have broadpublic support, but the motives formass support are poorly understood. The problem is global inscope, but most of the relevantpublic opinion research done so farhas been carried out in advancedindustrial societies, usually Western democracies. Moreover, muchof this research is limited to the tipof the iceberg, focusing on whatpeople think about environmentalproblems without probing into whythey think it or how deeply they

are committed.The analysis of mass attitudes

toward environmental problems inthis article uses evidence from representative national surveys ofcountries representing the entiredevelopmental spectrum, from richto poor nations, including not onlyWestern democracies but authoritarian regimes and recently emerging democracies from the formercommunist bloc. The data comefrom the 1990-93 World Valuessurvey, carried out in 43 countriescontaining 70% of the world's pop

ulation. Our goal is to determinewhy given publics areor are notsufficiently concerned about environmental problems that they arewilling to make financial sacrificesand undertake other actions in order to help protect the environment.

Two key findings emerge:(1) As one would expect, mass

support for environmental protection tends to be greatest in countries that have relatively severe ob

ject ive problems (as indicated bylevels of air pollution and waterpollution). This finding fits a "challenge-response" model, which is

the interpretation a naive environmental activist would probably emphasize: people are concernedabout the environment becausethey face serious objective problems. This is, indeed, part of theanswerthe publics of countrieswith relatively severe pollution dotend to be relatively willing tomake financial sacrifices in order toprotect the environment. But this isonly part of the story.

(2) Public support for environmental protection is also shaped bysubjective cultural factors. Thepublics of certain cultural regions

tend to rank relatively high on support for environmental protection.And, as previous research hasfound, within given countries, people with "Postmaterialist" valuesemphasizing self-expression and thequality of lifeare much more aptto give high priority to protectingthe environment (and are muchmore likely to be active membersof environmentalist groups), thanthose with "Materialist" valuesemphasizing economic and physicalsecurity above all(Inglehart 1990;Mueller-Rommel 1990; Betz 1990,

Bennulf and Holmberg 1990; Hoff-mann-Martinot 1991). As this analysis shows, this also holds true atthe national level: countries thathave relatively Postmaterialisticpublics, rank relatively high in theirreadiness to make financial sacrifices for the sake of environmentalprotection.

This subjective factor seems tohave at least as much influence onrelative support levels as does theobjective level of pollution. Despitethe fact that they have some of theworld's lowest levels of air and wa

ter pollution, the publics of the

Nordic countries and The Netherlands rank highest of all 43 publicsin support for protecting the environment. This can be traced to thefact that .these countries have relatively high proportions of Postma-terialists.in their publics. Objectiveproblems and subjective predispositions are both involved; the available evidence indicates that both ofthese factors are about equally important.

Environmental Problems

in High-Income and

Low-Income Countries

Pollution has become a globalproblem. To a greater extent thanis generally recognized, countriesin the early stages of industrialization now have environmental problems that are as severe as, or evenmore severe than, those of advanced industrial societies. Thishas not always been the case. Butmost industrialized countries haveachieved substantial improvementsin environmental quality since1970. Access to clean water, ade

quate sanitation, and municipalwaste disposal is now virtually universal according to a recent OECDreport (OECD 1991). Air quality inOECD countries is vastly improved; particulate emissions havedeclined by 60% and sulfur oxidesby 38% since 1970. Lead emissionshave fallen by 85% in North America and by 50% in most Europeancities. Japan has achieved the largest improvement in air quality:emissions of sulfur oxides, particulates, and nitrogen oxides as ashare of GDP in Japan arc less than

one-quarter of OECD averages.

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But the situation is dramatically

different in low-income countries.As a recent World Bank reportnotes,

For the 1 billion people in developing countries who do not haveaccess to clean water and the 1.7billion who lack access to sanitation,these are the most important environmental problems of all. Their effects on health are shocking: theyare major contributors to the 900million cases of diarrheal diseasesevery year, which cause the deathsof more than 3 million children; 2million of these deaths could be prevented if adequate sanitation and

clean water were available. At anytime 200 million are suffering fromschistosomiasis or bilharzia and 900million from hookworm. Cholera,typhoid, and paratyphoid also continue to wreak havoc with humanwelfare. Providing access to sanitation and clean water would not eradicate all these diseases, but it wouldbe the single most effective means ofalleviating human distress (WorldBank 1992, 5).

In the developing countries, water quality has continued to deteriorate despite substantial progress in

bringing sanitation services to theworld's population. Little has beendone to expand the treatment ofhuman sewage. In Latin Americaonly about 2% of sewage receivesany treatment. Moreover, despitethe expansion of sanitation services, the absolute number of people in urban areas without accessto these services has probablygrown by more than 70 million inthe 1980s. The net result is that bythe 1990s, water pollution in low-income and middle-income countries was far worse than in high-income societies, as Figure 1

demonstrates.

The situation was similar in regard to air pollution problems.Though air quality has improvedsubstantially in advanced industrialsocieties, it is deteriorating in low-income countries.

In those developing countries nowin the throes of industrialization,city air pollution is far worse than intoday's industrial countries. In theearly 1980s cities such as Bangkok,Beijing, Calcutta, New Delhi, andTehran exceeded on more than 200days a year the SPM [suspended

particulate matter] concentrations

FIGURE 1

Water Purity in Rivers, late 1980s

14

Q>C5

>X

ot J CD 5o *w*r O=5c3

o =

COk .

CDil!

12

10

8

6

4

2

l;i;:ll Low-income countries

Wfk Middle-income countries

I High-income countries

Acceptable

"j^rgmirUnacceptable

Adapted from World Bank, Development and the Environment, New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1992, p. 46.

that World Health Organizationguidelines indicate should not beexceeded more than seven days a

year. Where adequate data exist, itappears that cities in low-incomecountries have SPM levels muchhigher than those in more developedcountries. Indeed, pollution levelsfor even the worst quartile of high-income cities are better than for thebest quartile of low-income cities.The gap widened marginally overthe past decade; high-income countries took measures to manage emissions, while pollution levels deteriorated in low-income countries(World Bank, 1992, 50-51).

As Figure 2 illustrates, urban airpollution has become far worse in

low-income countries than in high-income industrial societies.

Findings from the 1990/91

World Values Survey

In view of these facts, it ishardly surprising that the publics ofmost low-income countries showhigh levels of concern for protecting the environment. When asked ifthey approved or disapproved ofthe ecology movement, across the43 societies included in the 1990-93

World Values survey, practically

everyonea total of 96%was favorable: 62% said that they"strongly approve" of the ecology

movement, and another 34% saidthey "approve." As Table 1 indicates, support was particularlystrong in Eastern Europe and LatinAmerica; and noticeably less so inthe Nordic countries, the UnitedStates and Great Britain.

Gratifying though it is to find almost universal ap proval of the eco logical cause, these responses donot tell us anything about howdeeply this attitude is held. It iseasy to agree with this questionbecause it does not ask whether therespondent is willing to make any

sacrifice for the sake of environmental purity. The overwhelmingapproval of the environmentalmovement that these responses reveal may reflect nothing more thanlip service. How solid is publicsupport for environmental protection policies that may impose realcosts?

The World Values survey alsoincluded a battery of questionswhich measured the extent towhich those interviewed would bewilling to make direct financial sacrifices in order to protect the envi

ronment. This proves to be a par-

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Public Support for Environmental Protection

FIGURE 2

Urban Air Pollution in 1980s

350 -

CO

ov.G>

CD

E

bic

3OL .

CDa

ECOk .CO

ok_u2

300

250

200

150

100

50

0Adapted from

Press, 1992, p

irrnTl Low-income countries

Middle-income countries

High-income countries

Unacceptable

Marginal

Acceptable

World Bank, Development and the Environment, New York: Oxford University. 46.

ticularly revealing aspect of massattitudes on this subject: as thisand previous surveys have shown,

the vast majority of most publicsapprove of environmental protection in general; but they are farmore reluctant to support it whenquestions are raised about howmuch they are willing to pay.

Inquiring into where people arewilling to draw the line, when itcomes to the tradeoff between economic costs and environmentalbenefits, is realistic. Sometimes itis possible to protect the environment without incurring any economic costsand in such cases,policy choices are easy to make.

The crunch comes when a difficultchoice is needed between roads ortrees, dams or endangered species,to burn fossil fuels that may lead toglobal warming or to remain nonin-dustrialized. It is when a society isforced to make difficult choices likethese, that environmental protection becomes a political issue.

The question reported in Table 2asks whether the respondent agreesor disagrees with the statement: "Iwould be willing to pay more taxesif I were certain that the moneywould be used to prevent environ

mental pollution."

Posed in this form, the level ofagreement drops substantially, although across the combined global

sample, 65% still say they wouldagree to an increase in taxes forthis purpose. The rank ordering ofthe respective countries changessignificantly, too. The East European countries no longer rank atthe top, and the publics of the Nordic nations rise from a positionnear the bottom, in Table I, torank among those highest in willingness to make financial sacrificesfor the sake of environmental protection.

Table 3 shows the responses to aquestion that seems to be a mirrorimage of the one shown in Table 2.It asks whether the respondentagrees that: "The government hasto reduce environmental pollution,but it should not cost me anymoney."

Like the preceding question, thisversion asks whether the respondent is willing to make financialsacrifices in order to protect theenvironment, but unlike the preceding question, it does so in a formatwhich makes it easier to say " N o ; "and by changing polarity, it minimizes the impact of response set.

This simple change of format has a

significant effect on registered lev

els of support for environmentalprotection: globally, only 45% ofthose interviewed express theirwillingness to make sacrifices forenvironmental protection by disagreeing with this statementabout 20% fewer than supportedenvironmental protection in response to the preceding question.The reader should bear in mindthat in Table 3, those countries thatrank lowest on the table (Sweden,Denmark, Iceland and The Netherlands), have the publics that aremost willing to make financial sac-

TABLE1Approval-'of Ecology Movement

(Percentage who "stronglyapprove" of the EcologyMovement)

MoscowPolandBrazilEast Germany

BelarusArgentinaChile

PortugalBulgariaSouth KoreaAustriaRussiaSouth AfricaWest GermanyHungaryMexicoSpainJapanNigeriaChinaRomaniaCzechoslovakiaCanadaNetherlandsLithuania

SloveniaIndiaTurkeySwitzerlandItalyFranceIrelandBelgiumEstoniaLatviaNorwayBritainUnited StatesSwedenNorthern IrelandIcelandDenmarkFinland

%

8381S0

n

11

767574737371707070685959565654545454

545252515150504949484747474138373028

Source: 1990/91 World Values Survey.

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TABLE 2

Willingness to Sacrifice forEnvironmental Protection

(Percentage willing to pay highertaxes to prevent environmentalpollution)

ChinaSwedenSouth KoreaChileNorwayTurkeyBrazilDenmarkBritain

BulgariaLithuaniaSloveniaNetherlandsMoscowMexicoBelarusCzechoslovakiaRussiaNorthern IrelandPortugalUnited StatesCanadaLatvia

S ^.u^eria

IndiaEast GermanyFranceAustriaIrelandJapan

ArgentinaWest GermanyBelgiumHungary

%787776767371717070

707070696967676767656564646460595757

565655555452515150494135


rifices for the sake of environmental protection.

It would be pointless to arguewhether the "real" proportion ofthe global public who are pro-environmentalist is 96% (as suggestedby the results in Table 1), or 65%(as suggested by Table 2) or 45%.as the responses in Table 3 mightseem to indicate). Each of theseitems provides useful informationabout the extent of environmentalsupport: the diverging results simply reflect the fact that the way aquestion is formulated helps shapethe responses. Rather than rely onany one indicator, subsequent anal

yses will be based on a multi-item

index which reflects responses tofour questions concerning environmental protection.

What do we find? Table 4 showsthe relative willingness of publicsthroughout the world to pay aneconomic price in order to protectthe environment. These results(like those in the following analyses) sum up these publics' responses to four particularly sensitive indicators, drawn from a seriesof six questions about environmental problems. The text of theseitems, and details of index construction, are given at the foot ofTable 4. The entries in this table

show the percentage of each publicthat ranks "high" in emphasis onenvironmental protection: these arethe respondents who consistentlygive priority to environmental pro-

,.- tection over economic gains, in response to all four questions.

There is a wide range of variation across these nations. In Sweden, fully 69% of the public consistently gives priority toenvironmental protection, even atthe cost of less income or highertaxes. In Hungary, only 24% do so.

All of these countries show considerable public concern for the environment: even in Nigeria, one ofthe poorest countries with a 1990per capita income of $310, we findthat a significant minority of thepublic is willing to give priority toenvironmental protection in response to all four questions. InSweden (with an annual per capitaincome over $25,000), a heavy ma

jo ri ty cons is tent ly give pr io ri ty toenvironmental protection.

Some of the highest-rankingcountries are among the world's

most severely polluted countries.South Korea has been an astounding success story in terms of economic growth: among the 121 countries for which the World Bankpublishes statistics; only one (Singapore) showed a higher growthrate from 1965 to 1988 (World Bank1990). But South Korea is a small,crowded country about the size ofIndiana, and its rapid growth hasbeen won at the cost of massivepollution.

Czechoslovakia, though industrialized far earlier and lacking rapid

growth in recent years, is also one

TABLE 3

Unwillingness to Sacrifice forEnvironmental Protection

(Percentage agreeing that "thegovernment has to reduceenvironmental pollution but itshould not cost me any money")

PortugalSpainItalyHungaryFranceBulgariaArgentinaBelarus

EstoniaMoscowLatviaLithuaniaBrazil/"NigeriaIndia -Northern IrelandBelgium

AustriaIcelandChileSloveniaJapanBritainTurkeyWest GermanyUnited States

CanadaFinlandSouth KoreaRussiaEast GermanyCzechoslovakiaNorwayChinaMexicoSwedenDenmarkIcelandNetherlands

%9276757574747272

727171696565646362616057565656565654

52515049484644444036292817


of the world's most polluted coun

tries; in Europe, only East Germany has higher levels of air andwater pollutants. Environmentalpollution is very severe in the urban regions of Russia and China,and the publics of both countriesshow high levels of support for environmental protection.

Mexico is less industrialized thanmost of the other high-rankingcountries, but its industry is largelyconcentrated in the immenselyoverpopulated basin around MexicoCity. Atmospheric pollution problems in this region are as severe as

anywhere on earth; when condi-

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TABLE 4

Public Support for EnvironmentalProtection

(Percentage scoring "high" onEnvironmental Protection Index)*

SwedenDenmarkNetherlandsNorwaySouth KoreaIcelandRussiaTurkeyCzechoslovakiaChinaMexicoFinlandBrazilJapanEast GermanyMoscowChileSloveniaIndiaBulgariaLatviaLithuaniaBritainCanadaWest GermanyUnited StatesBelarusAustriaEstoniaNorthern IrelandPortugalIrelandBelgiumItalySpainFranceArgentinaNigeriaHungary

696564595854535352525048484747464646454444434242414040393836363433313030302724

Respondents are classified as "high" onsupport for environmental protection ifthey "agree" or "strongly agree" that:(1) "I would be willing to give part of myincome if I were sure that the moneywould be used to prevent environmentalpollution" AND (2) "I would agree to an

increase in taxes if the extra money isused to prevent environmental pollution"; AND who "disagree" or "strongly disagree" with these statements: (1)"The government should reduce environmental pollution, but it should not costme any money"; and (2) "Protecting theenvironment and fighting pollution is lessurgent than often suggested."Source: 1990/91 World Values Survey.

tions are bad, automobiles witheven-numbered license plates areonly permitted to drive on even-numbered days. And because Mexico City is the political, economic,

cultural, and media center of a

highly centralized society, publicawareness of pollution problemshas reached high levels.

Finally, Japan is similar to SouthKorea in having rapidly attained avery high concentration of industryin a very limited area; but environmental concern may be less acutethere than in Korea because 15years ago, the Japanese began taking strong and effective measuresagainst severe pollution problems.The United States and Canada, onthe other hand, though highly industrialized, are vast and relativelydecentralized societies; they produce a great deal of pollution, but

it is relatively dispersed. Nigeria, atthe other end of the spectrum, isnot only very poor, it remainslargely pre-industrial.

The results in Table 4 suggestthat public support for environmental protection in a given countrytends to reflect that country's ob

jective circumstances: the moreseverely polluted, the greater thepublic concern. This is scarcely asurprising finding; it is more or lesswhat common sense would leadone to expect.

But it is only part of the story.For, as we will demonstrate, quiteapart from the relative severity oftheir objective pollution, a gradualshift toward Postmaterialist valuesis making the publics of these societies increasingly sensitive to environmental quality as time goes by.Many of these countries had evenmore severe air and water pollution10 or 15 years ago than they dotodaybut concern for the environment has been rising, not falling.

Perhaps the most striking findinghere is that the publics of three

Scandinavian countries (Sweden,Denmark and Norway), togetherwith The Netherlands, show thegreatest willingness to make sacrifices for environmental protection.The point is clear: support for environmental protection is not limitedto those countries with the mostserious pollution problemsforthese four are prosperous countrieswith relatively pristine environments. It is also no coincidence,we believe, that these are four ofthe most advanced welfare states inthe world. Table 4 suggests that

cultural changes associated with

prosperity and security have animportant linkage with support forenvironmental protection. Thoughthe Nordic countries and The Netherlands do not have relatively highlevels of atmospheric and waterpollution, their publics are relatively sensitive to these problems,because of a gradual cultural shiftthat is reshaping the priorities ofmass publics around the world. Letus review the reasons for this shift.

The Shift Toward

Postmaterialist Values

A growing body of evidence indicates that what people want out oflife is changing. Throughout industrial socjety, people's basic valuesand goals are gradually shiftingfrom giving top priority to economic growth and consumption, toplacing increasing emphasis on thequality of life. The incentives thatonce motivated the work force arebecoming less effective than theywere; the policies that once gaverise to broad political support nolonger work as readily as they did;even the values that once shapedsexual behavior and child rearingare giving way to new norms.

In large part, this reflects a process of intergenerational valuechange; it is invisible to the nakedeye and tends to pass unnoticedunless it is measured by systematic, longitudinal survey research.But its impact is pervasive. It ischanging social, political, and economic life. And because it is transforming entire life styles, includingconsumer patterns, fertility rates,and the priority that people give to

environmental protection, it constitutes a major component of globalchange.

Human activities have become amajor factor influencing changes inthe geophysical environment. Andif the motivations underlying human activities are changing, it isessential to understand the direction and rate of these changes inorder to assess future globalchange.

A substantial body of evidenceindicates that the value shift dealtwith here is taking place through

out industrial society, including na-

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FIGURE 3Value Type by Age Group, among the Publics of Britain, France, West

Germany, Italy, Belgium and The Netherlands in 1970

Materialist

Post-Materi8ltst

UJQ.

rtUJ3

ZUJ

>e?

za.3O

cc< j

UJ

ar Germany

^ Oenmork

Britain

I i 1

-5 0 - 4 0 -3 0 -2 0 -10 0 10

% Postmaterialists minus % Materialists

Source: Euro-Barometer survey 25 (April 1986).

level). Postmaterialist values areonly one component of a broadercultural syndrome involving religious orientations, norms concerning the role of women and attitudestoward child bearing, but they are agood indicator of this syndrome.The data suggest that a broad process of intergenerational changehas contributed to declining fertilityrates in advanced industrialsocieties.

The Imp act of Cha ngi ng

Human Values on the PhysicalEnvironment

Human fertility patterns haveundergone a major transition duringthe past two decades, with mostThird World countries having falling fertility rates and all advancedindustrial societies now having be-low-replacement fertility rates. Thischange is not explained by the traditional economic model (whichwould predict rising fertility ratesin times of economic growth); itseems to reflect cultural changesthat are linked with economic andtechnical changes, but exert impor

tant influences of their own.Change s in the role of wom en, andin the value placed on family liferelative to life outside the home,seem to have contributed to declining fertility rateswith obviousimplications for population growth,pollution, and resource consumption.

Related cultural changes seem tobe reshaping consumer patterns,leading to an outlook that placesless emphasis on maximizing economic growth, and more emphasison the quality of life in general, and

of the physical environment in particular. The rise of environmentalistparties in some societies, and thegrowing salience of environmentalissues throughout advanced industrial societies is one consequenceof this development.

Changing cultural factors such asthese interact with technologicaland environmental factors, and efforts to solve problems in theglobal environment must take account of both sets of factors. Thecase of nuclear power provides adramatic illustration of this point.Billions of dollars were invested inresearch and development of nu

clear power plants; nevertheless,

many of these plants have nevergone into operation or have beenconverted to conventional fuels because public opinion, in most Western countries, has not accepted nuclear power.

A human component of subjective values and perceptions interacts with the hard science side,sometimes in a decisive way. Thusfar, these subjective factors remainpoorly understood.

The Need to Monitor

Changing Mass Priorit ies

The theory that launched the research reported here has been controversial: during the past 20 years,a good deal of the research onvalue change has been designed todisprove the thesis of a Materialist/Postmaterialist shift. Even the labels "Materialist" and "Postmaterialist" have led to debate: givenwidespread popular perceptionsthat contemporary Western youthare highly materialistic (though not

in the sense used here: primarilydriven by concern for meeting survival needs), it might be simpler touse other labels such as "scarcityvalues" and "self-expression"; or"security values" and "quality oflife values." We continue to usethe original terminology here simply because it has become widelyknown among social scientists.

It is unnecessary to resolve thesedisputes here. We need not assumethat the specific theoretical formulation and labels used in the litera

ture on Postmaterialist values arenecessarily correct. To some extent, the question is out of date because recent evidence makes itclear that the Materialist/Postmate-rialist shift is itself only one aspectof a much broader value shift.Enough evidence has now accumulated to make it clear that pervasive changes are taking place inbasic values of the publics of industrialized and industrializing societies throughout the worldand thatthese changes seem to be linkedwith intergenerational populationreplacement processes, whichmeans that they are gradual but

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FIGURE 10

Fertility Rates by Value Priorities in 33 Societies

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OECD. 1991. The State of the Environment.

Paris: OECD.Topfer, Klaus. 1991. "The Environmental

Challenge in Eastern Europe." Occasional paper series number 13-19, Kon-rad Adenauer Foundation, Washington,D.C.

World Bank. 1992. World Development Report, 1992. New York: Oxford University Press.

About the AuthorRonald Inglehart is aprofessor of politicalscience and programdirector in the Institute for Social Research at the Univer-sity of Michigan andauthor of more than100 publications. Hisbook, Culture Shiftin Advanced Industrial Society (1990),was published in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, andJapanese. He was co-founder of the Euro-

Barometer surveys. Since 1988 he has been

global coordinator of the World Values surveys, the 1990 wave of which was carriedout in 43 societies containing 70% of theworld's population; a third wave of thisstudy will be carried out in 1995.

Why Amer ican s Hat e Politics an d Politicians

Michael Nelson, Rhodes College

Do psychiatrists still use word-association techniques with theirpatients? I sometimes do word association with my students, usuallyon the first day of my introductoryAmerican government classes atRhodes College. The first word Isay is "politics," and here is whatthey come back with: corrupt,dirty, games-playing, ego trip, awaste. (The nicest thing I heard thelast time I did this was "boring".)Here is what they say in responseto "politician": selfish, ambitious,mediocre, unprincipled.1

The teacher in me wants to despair when students associatewords like these with politics. Iknow, as did Aristotle, that politicsis a vital and sometimes noble hu

man activity. I know that politicswas at the heart of our birth as anation. (As John Roche [1961] haspointed out, the founding fathersmay be described in many ways,but no description is accurate thatleaves out the word "politician.") Iknow that politics was the vehiclethat integrated generations of ourimmigrant ancestors into the mainstream of American societythe

job on the city road crew that myGerman grandfather got from theFrank Hague machine in JerseyCity is the reason that my father

and then I were later able to buildcareers of our own in the private

sector. And I know that it is politics that secures the basic freedomsthat allow my students to say critical things about politics.

The teacher in me also hopes

that, as the semester wears on, themore students learn about theAmerican political systemwartsand allthe less cynical and indifferent they will become. A democracy can accommodate many thingsin its peoplepassion, ambition,selfishness, even corruption. But itcannot long endure on a foundationof public cynicism and indifference,especially among those who are thebest educated.

That's the teacher in me. Thepolitical scientist in me is interestedin understandingmy students' ini

tial attitudes toward politics andpoliticians. After all, these are theattitudes that they bring in from theworld, having breathed them in athome, at their high schools, at themall, from theZeitgeist. Studentsarrive in my classroom politicallycynical and indifferent because thelarger society is cynical and indifferent.

In 1992, for example, when National Election Studies pollstersasked a random sample of Americans questions like "How much ofthe time do you think you can trust

the government in Washington todo the right thing?" and "Would

you say the government is prettymuch run by a few big interestslooking out for themselves or thatit is run for the benefit of all thepeople?," the share of respondentsthat gave cynical answers was any

where from 15 to 59 percentagepoints greater than the share thatgave trusting answers. Comparethese results with those from, say,1964, when the share of peoplewho gave trusting answers wasmuch larger than the share thatgave cynical answers, by a marginof from 37 to 56 percentage points(Stanley and Niemi 1994, 169).

The data on voter turnout are' equally disturbing. As recently asthe early 1960s, the turnout rate ina typical presidential election was

roughly two-thirds of the voting agepopulationthis at a time whenmillions of African Americans weredisenfranchised in the South andwhen registering to vote was inconvenient for everyone. Now, despitefull voting rights and registrationprocedures as easy as a visit to themotor vehicles bureau, voter turnout is around half the voting agepopulation, and commentators actually get excited when 55% vote,as they did in 1992. In midtermcongressional and gubernatorialelections, about half the eligible

voters used to turn out; now it iscloser to one-third.

72 PS: Political Science & Politics

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