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Public support of transport policy instruments, perceived transport quality and satisfaction with democracy. What is the relationship?

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  • Christiansen, Petter

Abstract

Lack of public support is regarded as a major barrier for implementing restrictive transport policy instruments. Recent studies have therefore analyzed factors explaining variations in public support and examined strategies to increase support of restrictive policy measures. However, few have analyzed whether there is an actual relationship between transportation policies and political legitimacy. This article thus makes two main contributions to the literature. First, it explores whether there is a relationship between support of restrictive instruments and political legitimacy to study the political implications of introducing such instruments. The results show that citizens opposing restrictive measures, such as local road tolls, are more dissatisfied with the performance of local democracy. The effect also appears to be mediated through citizens evaluation of politicians’ and how they evaluate governmental performance at the local level. Second, the article analyzes the importance of transportation policies in particular for local political legitimacy. The results show that citizens dissatisfied with the quality of services within the transport sector are also more dissatisfied with the performance of local democracy.

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  • Christiansen, Petter, 2018. "Public support of transport policy instruments, perceived transport quality and satisfaction with democracy. What is the relationship?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 305-318.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:118:y:2018:i:c:p:305-318
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2018.09.010
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    3. Morton, Craig & Mattioli, Giulio & Anable, Jillian, 2021. "Public acceptability towards Low Emission Zones: The role of attitudes, norms, emotions, and trust," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 256-270.
    4. Christiansen, Petter, 2020. "The effects of transportation priority congruence for political legitimacy," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 61-76.
    5. Akgün, Emine Zehra & Monios, Jason & Rye, Tom & Fonzone, Achille, 2019. "Influences on urban freight transport policy choice by local authorities," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 88-98.
    6. Javier Tarriño-Ortiz & Julio A. Soria-Lara & Juan Gómez & José Manuel Vassallo, 2021. "Public Acceptability of Low Emission Zones: The Case of “Madrid Central”," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-17, March.

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