The research project THERAPY examines how voters respond to environment, energy and climate policies ("environmental policies", for short). Anecdotal evidence, such as the Yellow vests and Nok er nok! movements in France and Norway, suggests that environmental policies can cause rifts between people and politicians. Meanwhile, the window of opportunity for avoiding dangerous climate change is closing, and it is therefore important to identify environmental policies that people are ready to accept. Identifying such policies may lead to accelerated environmental policy output and avoidance of unjust environmental policies.
We assume that people are dissatisfied with public policies if they vote against incumbent parties, and we assume that people are dissatisfied with the political system in general if they do not to vote. With these assumptions in mind, we analyze how environmental policies affect people?s satisfaction with public policy and the political system, with data describing the placement of environmental and energy infrastructure such as wind turbines and road tolls. Our analyses consider electoral participation and electoral results over several years, countries and political entities. Additionally, we will field surveys and perform qualitative interviews.
