The role and limits of strategic framing for promoting sustainable consumption and policy

Strategic issue framing is widely regarded as an effective communication strategy to alter public opinion and citizens’ policy support. However, it is unclear to what extent strategic framing can increase support for ambitious demand-side actions and policies that make the cost of mitigation perceptible in citizens’ everyday lives. Taking an exploratory approach, we conducted qualitative interviews and a comparative framing experiment with 9,750 survey respondents from China, Germany, and the United States. We analyzed strategic issue framing effects in two areas known to be key for increasing the sustainability of consumption: meat/fish consumption, and fossil-fuel car usage. Employing both classical linear regressions and advanced Bayesian sparse estimations, we show that in all three countries widespread arguments in favor of reduced meat/fish consumption and car use are unlikely to substantially alter citizens’ concern, willingness to pay, behavioral intentions and policy support for demand-side action. Our findings suggest that in the absence of a broader behavioral change campaign, strategic issue framing alone is unlikely to be effective in changing entrenched attitudes and behaviors. On its own, it is also unlikely to substantially increase public support for demand-side policies to reduce consumption. More careful research is needed to help policymakers understand the role and limits of different strategic framing techniques

Systematic mapping of climate and environmental framing experiments and re-analysis with computational methods points to omitted interaction bias

Ambitious climate policy requires acceptance by millions of people whose daily lives would be affected in costly ways. In turn, this requires an understanding of how to get the mass public on board and prevent a political backlash against costly climate policies. Many scholars regard ‘framing’, specially tailored messages emphasizing specific subsets of political arguments to certain population subgroups, as an effective communication strategy for changing climate beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. In contrast, other scholars argue that people hold relatively stable opinions and doubt that framing can alter public opinion on salient issues like climate change. We contribute to this debate in two ways: First, we conduct a systematic mapping of 121 experimental studies on climate and environmental policy framing, published in 46 peer-reviewed journals and present results of a survey with authors of these studies. Second, we illustrate the use of novel computational methods to check for the robustness of subgroup effects and identify omitted interaction bias. We find that most experiments report significant main and subgroup effects but rarely use advanced methods to account for potential omitted interaction bias. Moreover, only a few studies make their data publicly available to easily replicate them. Our survey of framing researchers suggests that when scholars successfully publish non-significant effects, these were typically bundled together with other, significant effects to increase publication chances. Finally, using a Bayesian computational sparse regression technique, we offer an illustrative re-analysis of 10 studies focusing on subgroup framing differences by partisanship (a key driver of climate change attitudes) and show that these effects are often not robust when accounting for omitted interaction bias

Enabling Tipping Dynamics in Food System Transformation: How Information and Experience with Novel Meat Substitutes Can Create Positive Political Feedbacks

The food system causes more than a third of the global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, of which half are from livestock. Shifting towards plant-based diets could significantly reduce deforestation, protect biodiversity, and contribute to achieving the Paris climate targets. Yet, deep-rooted eating habits, pleasure, cultural status symbols, and personal freedom are just a few of many bottlenecks to reduce meat consumption. Here, we argue that technological innovation in meat substitutes, if successfully combined with effective informational triggers for behavioral changes, can foster positive political feedbacks to transform the food system. We are particularly interested in assessing the effects of such triggers on accelerating people's reduction of meat consumption and increasing public support for respective food policies. Using advanced machine learning and survey experiments with citizens (N= 2590) in China and the US, the globally largest meat markets, we find that personal experience with new plant-based meat substitutes strongly predicts individuals' intentions to reduce their meat consumption, eat more substitutes, and support public policies that catalyze a transition to more plant-based diets. We also find that in both countries information about the benefits of plant-based diets can increase citizens' behavioral change intentions and policy support. In China, emphasizing social norms in favor of plant-based diets has particularly strong effects on policy support. In the US, prior experience with innovative meat substitutes potentially can boost the positive effects of informational campaigns on public support for meat reduction policies. Overall, the results offer promising implications for a policy sequencing strategy to create positive political feedbacks and enable socio-technical tipping dynamics for food system transformation by fostering innovation in and experience with meat substitutes and highlighting the co-benefits of plant-based diets

It's the Motivation Stupid!

This paper attempts to explain the success of secondary currencies. Success is defined as the degree to which the initiators of these currencies manage to reach their original goals. In order to do so, we draw on two explanatory factors: the motivation of a currency’s founder and the degree of organization. We employed a combination of qualitative interviews, secondary literature review and standardized questionnaires with seven secondary currency projects in Croatia (CROM), Germany (KannWas, Engelgeld), Greece (Ovolos, TEM) and the United Kingdom (Bristol Pound, Brixton Pound). The main findings are that projects which pursue several different motivations are more successful than those with fewer goals. As for the degree of organization, projects which score high on all dimensions of organization are correlated with higher project success. Building on this we propose a typology of two groups: Type 1 cases have low diversity of motivation and organization (CROM and Engelgeld) and Type 2 cases have high diversity of motivation and organization (Bristol Pound, Brixton Pound, and TEM). The two remaining cases, the Ovolos and the KannWas cannot be clearly assigned to any of the types. The "motivation-organization typology" can guide future research on the motivation of founding and using secondary currencies

Wege in die Ernährungszukunft der Schweiz - Leitfaden zu den grössten Hebeln und politischen Pfaden für ein nachhaltiges Ernährungssystem

Aus wissenschaftlicher Sicht ist klar: Unser Ernährungssystem ist nicht nachhaltig. Um unsere Lebens- und Wirtschaftsgrundlagen zu erhalten, braucht es eine Neuausrichtung über die gesamte Wertschöpfungskette. Diese ist gleichzeitig ein Schlüssel zur Erreichung der Agenda 2030 für nachhaltige Entwicklung. SDSN Schweiz hat das wissenschaftliche Gremium Ernährungszukunft Schweiz initiiert, um einen Wegweiser zu entwickeln. Er soll es der Schweiz erlauben, Chancen rechtzeitig anzupacken und unkontrollierbare Kostenfolgen zu vermeiden. Das wissenschaftliche Gremium hat international wegweisende Pionierarbeit geleistet. In einem interdisziplinären wissenschaftlichen Prozess wurde zum ersten Mal für ein Land ein umfassender Handlungspfad zur Neuausrichtung des Ernährungssystems im Einklang mit den Zielen für nachhaltige Entwicklung ausgearbeitet. Die beteiligten Forschenden schaffen damit eine wichtige Grundlage für die weitere politische Diskussion in der Schweiz und international

The Effects of Policy Design Complexity on Public Support for Climate Policy

Many important policy challenges like climate change, pandemics or digitalization require transformative policy responses that take the form of complex policy packages. Nevertheless, most public opinion research has studied public support for single policy instruments, while it remains unclear to what extent citizens evaluate isolated and combined policies differently. In this study, I argue that both the increased complexity of policy designs and the packaging of costly and compensatory measures can substantially affect public opinion. I employ a novel two-stage conjoint-based experimental approach in the United States and Germany to test this argument. In contrast to my expectations based on framing theory, the results show that policy packaging can increase support for climate policies, but that the complexity of policy designs per se does not substantially shift public opinion. Facing complex policy packages, respondents still make rational choices and compensatory policy designs are key to explaining shifts in public support

Governing Urban Food Systems in the Long Run: Comparing Best Practices in Sustainable Food Procurement Regulations

Today’s food and agricultural systems are closely linked to pressing challenges for sustainable human life. Longer-term policy-making is seriously needed. Urban decision-makers have considerable power to shape the food and agricultural sector by, among other things, changing public food procurements towards greater sustainability. The aim of this comparative study is to explain variation in the ambitiousness of policy targets and the successful implementation of urban food policies in the cities of Zurich, Munich and Nuremberg. I conducted an in-depth process-tracing analysis of the mechanisms behind the adoption and implementation of 13 sustainable food procurement regulations officially adopted by the city councils from 2003 to 2014. In all 13 cases, high electoral safety, credible expectations of long-term policy benefits and high executive institutional capacity are necessary conditions for the adoption of long-term policies. However, they do not explain variation in target’s ambition and implementation’s success. Based on theory-building process-tracing, I argue that the variation in the degree of adoption and implementation success of long-term policies can be explained by five policy process and design features: 1. deliberative and corporatist governance mechanisms, 2. a high level of central coordination for crosscutting policy implementation, 3. involvement of decision-makers in policy networks, 4. strong use of evidence-based instruments, 5. bundling of short-term and long-term benefits.ISSN:0940-555