Political Ideology and Environmental Concern: Evidence from South Korea

Abstract

As environmental crises such as climate change emerge around the world, the success of eco-friendly policies hinges on understanding people's environmental consciousness. Focusing on a political determinant of environmental concerns in the case of South Korea, which has rapidly developed and democratized, this study develops and tests a theory of the relationship between political ideology and environmental concern. We conducted an empirical analysis of the Korea Environment Institute's 2018 and 2020 surveys of Korean citizens using multivariate regression. After controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, we find that individuals' environmental concern diverges with their political ideology. Specifically, conservative ideology is closely associated with less environmental concern, such as less environmental awareness, non-priority for environmental issues, substitute belief between environment protection and economic growth, and less eco-friendly activities. These results suggest that governments should consider citizens' political ideology to establish environmental policies successfully.