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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.
KeyWords: Political Ideology; Environmental Concern; South Korea
I. Introduction
The Earth is experiencing abnormal environmental crises like climate change due to explosive population growth and the industrial system of mass production and consumption. Amid a growing sense of urgency that these environmental crises may yendanger the human race, governments, businesses, and citizens worldwide are working to solve environmental problems. As the threat of environmental crises becomes a reality, environmental issues are considered among the most important social issues in politics and economics. Sustainable development, therefore, has emerged as a new norm for social and national development (Dunlap & York 2008; Jorgenson & Givens 2014).1 Under these circumstances, environmental concern has garnered and sustained scholarly interest over the past decades (Givens & Jorgenson 2013; Knight & Messer 2012).
"Environmental concern" generally refers to favorable or unfavorable inclinations toward features of environmental problems (Dunlap & Jones 2002). One significant factor for successful environmental policies is examining the level of citizens' environmental concern because citizens play a crucial role in alleviating said concern. Understanding citizens' environmental concern can be the basis for predicting their support and determining a direction and means of environmental policies. Many studies have reported that individuals' eco-friendly beliefs and attitudes can lead to environmentally responsible behaviors and contribute to the success of environmental policies (Blake 2001; Clark et al. 2003; Inglehart 1995). Thus, examining citizens' environmental concern can be a preemptive measure to...