ISTPP Research Scientist Xinsheng Liu has published the research article “Social Capital, Carbon Dependency, and Public Response to Climate Change in 22 European Countries” in Environmental Science and Policy.
In this article, Dr. Liu and his coauthors, Drs. Feng Hao and Jay L. Michaels, theoretically and empirically examine the impacts of personal social capital and national carbon dependency on citizens’ response to climate change in 22 European countries.
Utilizing individual-level data from the 2016 European Social Survey and corresponding country-level data from multiple sources, the authors conduct multilevel regression analyses to test their hypotheses derived from theoretical expectations. The data analyses show that in the 22 European countries, people with higher social capital are more likely to have climate-mitigation behavioral intention and show support for climate policy, while greater national carbon dependency tends to inhibit public response to climate change. In the conclusion, the authors discuss this study’s contributions to the literature and offer suggestions for future research.
Hao, Feng, Xinsheng Liu, and Jay L. Michaels. 2020. “Social Capital, Carbon Dependency, and Public Response to Climate Change in 22 European Countries.” Environmental Science & Policy 114: 64–72.
