IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ratsoc/v16y2004i2p149-190.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Public Attention, Political Action: the Example of Environmental Regulation

Author

Listed:
  • Jens Newig

    (Institute of Environmental Systems Research, University of Osnabrück,Albrechtstr.28,Osnabrück,Germany jens.newig@usf.uni-osnabrueck.de)

Abstract

In this paper, a rational choice model of the dynamics of public attention to politically relevant issues is proposed, responding to the following research questions: When and why does public attention arise in the .rst place? Do ‘issue attention cycles’ really exist? What issues are likely to attain which degree of public attention? How can public attention be measured soundly? In which way does public attention in.uence regulatory action, and how, in turn, is public attention affected by political action? To this end, the paper sets off with a discussion of the concepts of ‘public’, ‘issue’, ‘attention’ and ‘cycle’. Key variables of the causal model include the acuteness/severity and accessibility/visibility of the issue at stake, as well as the ability to ‘solve’ the underlying problem. In an empirical study, several environmental issues and their corresponding regulation in Germany are examined in order to test the theoretical conjectures which could, for the most part, be empirically supported.

Suggested Citation

  • Jens Newig, 2004. "Public Attention, Political Action: the Example of Environmental Regulation," Rationality and Society, , vol. 16(2), pages 149-190, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:16:y:2004:i:2:p:149-190
    DOI: 10.1177/1043463104043713
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1043463104043713
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1043463104043713?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. George J. Stigler, 1971. "The Theory of Economic Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 2(1), pages 3-21, Spring.
    2. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    3. Werner G³th, 2001. "How Ultimatum Offers Emerge: A Study in Bounded Rationality," Homo Oeconomicus, Institute of SocioEconomics, vol. 18, pages 91-110.
    4. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. H. Igor Ansoff, 1980. "Strategic issue management," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 1(2), pages 131-148, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shawn Pope & Jonathan Peillex & Imane El Ouadghiri & Mathieu Gomes, 2024. "Floodlight or Spotlight? Public Attention and the Selective Disclosure of Environmental Information," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 1230-1265, June.
    2. Frank W. Geels, 2013. "The Impact of the Financial and Economic Crisis on Sustainability Transitions: Financial Investment, Governance and Public Discourse. WWWforEurope Working Paper No. 39," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 47014, January.
    3. Zhang, Jian & Qiao, Jun & Wu, Wenruo & Sheng, Yan & Su, Jingqi, 2023. "Public attention and analyst visits: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    4. Zhou, Bo & Ding, Hao, 2023. "How public attention drives corporate environmental protection: Effects and channels," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    5. Ehlers, Melf-Hinrich & Sutherland, Lee-Ann, 2016. "Patterns of attention to renewable energy in the British farming press from 1980 to 2013," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 959-973.
    6. Jiuchang Wei & Wanling Zhan & Xiumei Guo & Dora Marinova, 2017. "Public attention to the great smog event: a case study of the 2013 smog event in Harbin, China," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 89(2), pages 923-938, November.
    7. repec:osf:osfxxx:s39h2_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Yingfei He & Guoliang Zhang & Lijuan Chen, 2020. "Analysis of News Coverage of Haze in China in the Context of Sustainable Development: The Case of China Daily," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-15, January.
    9. Stevens, T.M. & Aarts, N. & Termeer, C.J.A.M. & Dewulf, A., 2018. "Social media hypes about agro-food issues: Activism, scandals and conflicts," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 23-34.
    10. Ostertag, Katrin & Bodenheimer, Miriam & Neuhäusler, Peter & Helmich, Patricia & Walz, Rainer, 2018. "Organisational innovations, social innovations and societal acceptability in the context of sustainability," Studien zum deutschen Innovationssystem 8-2018, Expertenkommission Forschung und Innovation (EFI) - Commission of Experts for Research and Innovation, Berlin.
    11. Zhichao Li & Bojia Liu, 2023. "Understanding Carbon Emissions Reduction in China: Perspectives of Political Mobility," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-18, April.
    12. Luo, Juan & Jin, Xiaoman & Hu, Yiming, 2024. "Top-down or bottom-up? Government policies, public awareness and carbon reduction," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 118-129.
    13. Jin, Sensen & Deng, Feng, 2024. "Impact of public environmental concern on urban-rural economic income inequality," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1131-1143.
    14. Mohamed M. Mostafa, 2016. "Post-materialism, Religiosity, Political Orientation, Locus of Control and Concern for Global Warming: A Multilevel Analysis Across 40 Nations," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(3), pages 1273-1298, September.
    15. Mohamed M. Mostafa, 2020. "Catastrophe Theory Predicts International Concern for Global Warming," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 18(3), pages 709-731, September.
    16. Penna, Caetano C.R. & Geels, Frank W., 2015. "Climate change and the slow reorientation of the American car industry (1979–2012): An application and extension of the Dialectic Issue LifeCycle (DILC) model," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(5), pages 1029-1048.
    17. Geels, Frank W. & Penna, Caetano C.R., 2015. "Societal problems and industry reorientation: Elaborating the Dialectic Issue LifeCycle (DILC) model and a case study of car safety in the USA (1900–1995)," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 67-82.
    18. Chen, Hong & Chen, Feiyu & Huang, Xinru & Long, Ruyin & Li, Wenjie, 2017. "Are individuals’ environmental behavior always consistent?—An analysis based on spatial difference," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 25-36.
    19. Yuhui Dang & Jian Sun & Yang Zhao, 2024. "Retail shareholder activism and corporate innovation: evidence from investor interaction platforms in China," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 1827-1858, April.
    20. Anna Dóra Sæþórsdóttir & C. Michael Hall & Margrét Wendt, 2020. "Overtourism in Iceland: Fantasy or Reality?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-25, September.
    21. Geels, Frank W. & Ayoub, Martina, 2023. "A socio-technical transition perspective on positive tipping points in climate change mitigation: Analysing seven interacting feedback loops in offshore wind and electric vehicles acceleration," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    22. Fremeth, Adam R. & Holburn, Guy L. F. & Piazza, Alessandro, 2021. "Activist Protest Spillovers into the Regulatory Domain: Theory and Evidence from the U.S. Nuclear Power Generation Industry," OSF Preprints s39h2, Center for Open Science.
    23. Sun, Kunpeng & Wang, Dan & Xiao, Xing, 2022. "Another victory of retail investors: Social media's monitoring role on firms' earnings management," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    24. Platania, Federico & Toscano Hernandez, Celina & Moreno, Manuel & Appio, Francesco, 2023. "The impact of public attention during the COVID-19 pandemic," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(PA).
    25. Yihong Liu & Rami Hin†yeung Chan, 2018. "The Framework of Crisis†Induced Agenda Setting in China," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(1), pages 18-33, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Schnellenbach, Jan & Schubert, Christian, 2015. "Behavioral political economy: A survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 395-417.
    2. James Alm & Carolyn J. Bourdeaux, 2013. "Applying Behavioral Economics to the Public Sector," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 206(3), pages 91-134, September.
    3. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    4. Hibbs, Douglas A, Jr, 2000. "Bread and Peace Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 104(1-2), pages 149-180, July.
    5. Rausser, Gordon C. & de Janvry, Alain & Schmitz, Andrew & Zilberman, David D., 1980. "Principal issues in the evaluation of public research in agriculture," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt74v9m7dh, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    6. Josh Ederington & Jenny Minier, 2003. "Is environmental policy a secondary trade barrier? An empirical analysis," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(1), pages 137-154, March.
    7. Claudio Balestri, 2014. "Political Organizations, Interest Groups and Citizens Engagement: An Integrated Model of Democracy," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 533-543, December.
    8. Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto & Maria Petrova & Ruben Enikolopov, 2008. "The Dracula effect: voter information and trade policy," Economics Working Papers 1296, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Oct 2020.
    9. Saito, Hiroharu, 2022. "Loss aversion for the value of voting rights: WTA/WTP ratios for a ballot," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    10. Nolan Ritter & Julia Anna Bingler, 2021. "Do homo sapiens know their prices? Insights on dysfunctional price mechanisms from a large field experiment," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 21/348, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    11. Elert, Niklas & Henrekson, Magnus & Stenkula, Mikael, 2017. "Institutional Reform for Innovation and Entrepreneurship: An Agenda for Europe," Working Paper Series 1150, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 16 Feb 2017.
    12. Giacomo Ponzetto, 2008. "Asymmetric information and trade policy," Economics Working Papers 1253, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Oct 2010.
    13. Serge Blondel & Louis Lévy-garboua, 2011. "Can non-expected utility theories explain the paradox of not voting?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(4), pages 3158-3168.
    14. Andrew Abbott & Philip Jones, 2024. "Are government expenditures more cyclical the more they finance the provision of public goods?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 77(3), pages 574-592, August.
    15. Bruno Frey, 1985. "State and prospect of public choice: A European view," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 141-161, January.
    16. Bjørnskov, Christian, 2016. "Economic freedom and economic crises," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(S), pages 11-23.
    17. Randall G. Holcombe, 2020. "Progressive Democracy: the ideology of the modern predatory state," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 182(3), pages 287-301, March.
    18. Martínez-Mora, Francisco & Puy, M. Socorro, 2014. "The determinants and electoral consequences of asymmetric preferences," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 85-97.
    19. Matthew D. Mitchell, 2019. "Uncontestable favoritism," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 181(1), pages 167-190, October.
    20. Gawel, Erik & Lehmann, Paul & Strunz, Sebastian & Heuson, Clemens, 2018. "Public Choice barriers to efficient climate adaptation – theoretical insights and lessons learned from German flood disasters," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(3), pages 473-499, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:16:y:2004:i:2:p:149-190. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.