Research project grants
Climate Risk, Land Loss, and Migration: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment in Bangladesh (Swiss National Science Foundation, 01.09.2019 – 31.08.2023, 442’284 CHF) (Co-led with V. Koubi)
[Abstract]Global climate change is one of the most important and severe challenges the international community has ever faced. Existing evidence shows that it will have far-reaching repercussions for ecosystems and humans alike. Moreover, climate change is expected to induce mass-population dislocations, i.e., migration, due to droughts, sea level rise, or extreme weather events, such as stronger and more frequent storms or floods, particularly in developing countries with low capacity to protect themselves and adapt to climate change. However, recent studies on climate change induced human displacement do not account for the possibility that people might adapt to changing climatic conditions. This is particularly relevant to slow-onset environmental changes, such as sea-level rise, where individuals and societies can anticipate such changes and take precautionary measures. With this project, we aim at contributing to a better understanding of whether, when, and how environmental changes lead to human migration. First, we will offer a theoretical micro-foundation for the environment-migration nexus that highlights the different (i.e., behavioral, structural, and environmental) factors that induce people to migrate or stay. In particular, our framework proposes that there are multiple drivers behind decisions to migrate and that environmental changes are just one of them, which can have both direct effects on migration as well as indirect ones through impacts on other factors, such as individual/household economic well-being. Consequently, our framework seeks to bring analytical rigor to a field that has been dominated by unsubstantiated and casual empiricism. Second, we seek to provide credible empirical inferences concerning rates of migration due to livelihood losses caused by environmental changes. Since human exposure to environmental stress, whether induced by climatic changes or other factors, is non-randomly assigned, using observational data to empirically examine environmental migration is challenging. To cope with this challenge, we will focus on a particular case and develop risk maps for riverbank erosion along the Jamuna River in Bangladesh, and we will collect micro-level data to compare affected and unaffected populations at a similar baseline risk, as well as migrants and non-migrants from the very same area. The aim is to isolate the causal effect of deteriorating environmental livelihoods on migration.The project will not only identify the effect of environmental stress on migration behavior of individuals and communities in a particular case. It will also provide valuable insights of broader relevance into whether and how societies react, or could react, to slow-onset climatic changes such as se-level rise, drought, and soil/water salinity. Moreover, the methodology developed in the project can be applied in other cases and can inform prediction models of future climate-induced migration rates. The findings can be utilized by institutional actors at both local and international levels when seeking to identify policy options to increase the adaptive capacity of populations vulnerable to climatic changes.
Einstellungen zu Waffenhandel in Deutschland und Frankreich – A Conjoint Experiment on the Comparative Legitimacy of Arms Exports in Germany and France (German Foundation for Peace Research, 01.06.2020 – 31.05.2021, 24’000 € (Co-PI, with P. Thurner)
[Abstract]The export of arms is severely contested between the German political parties and in the German public. A major argument by opposing civil society groups and mainly leftist parties is the reference to the supposed implications of such transfers: the triggering of civil and international conflict, the prolongation of such conflicts and their aggravation in terms of human losses, the violations of human rights, and the stabilization of non-democratic regimes. It is open, however, whether the political discussion of such arguments is also reflected in citizens’ attitudes towards arms exports. There is also no research on the question whether such attitudes differ systematically across countries. E.g., it seems that other Western democracies with a dominant role in the international arms transfer system like the US, the UK and France are less strongly opposing such exports. We want to provide a thorough empirical foundation for these anecdotal claims which is currently lacking in both scientific and public debate. Thus, a cross-country comparison of voter reactions towards arms exports is especially important for testing the assumption of the presence of a German specificity, but also for the internal reliability of alliances like NATO, or of a recently proposed European Defense Policy including the respective research and development initiatives like the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO). If decisions to transfers arms to countries like Saudi-Arabia, to the Kurds etc. cannot be supported by the German government due specific attitudes in its civil society, this will have consequences for the design of future cooperative defense and security regimes. In the case of France and Germany, open disputes over principles of the exports of jointly developed weapons have even led both countries to settle their conflict in the their Aachen Treaty in 2019, and in more detail in a Franco-German agreement on export controls in October 2019 (see Décret n° 2019-1168 du 13 novembre 2019). This pilot project seeks to provide answers to these essential questions building on an innovative methodical approach. It will use conjoint experiments to be implemented in two selected countries – Germany and France. According to SIPRIs 2019 Weapons transfer statistics, these two countries belong to the top 5 group of exporters of major weapons. In France, these exports are rather seldom a topic of political debates, in Germany that’s repeatedly the contrary.
Conjoint experiments allow to implement an experimental setting within a survey format. Respondents are several times confronted with multidimensional hypothetical decisions between choice sets which differ according to several dimensions (choice attributes). These decision tasks are designed in a way that they mimick concrete policy design options. Respondents are then asked to rate the individual choices and they select their preferred option. Attribute levels, i.e. the concrete description of the situation, are randomly assigned within choice sets. This enables the researcher to identify how choice characteristics causally affect both the rating and choice probability of a policy package in a within subject and between subject-design. We can thereby determine the causal effect of the manipulated dimensions of these scenarios. The project will for the first time focus on the comparative relevance of moral, economic and security aspects on the assessment of the legitimacy of weapons exports in Germany and France. It will derive value trade-offs between the perceived economic welfare impact (jobs, innovation etc.) and normative considerations (risk or presence of conflicts, human rights violations, regime characteristics of the importer). We expect these latter aspects to decrease the acceptance of arms exports in general. However, we anticipate these effects to be smaller or inexistent (ceteris paribus) in the case of France due to a different political history and culture. If this expectation is refuted, than it is rather institutional background conditions like the electoral system and the consequence of a low politicization in such settings of party competition. The pilot character of this study would may invite us to extend this design to more countries (especially to France and to the US) in later periods, and to elaborate in a more detailed way on the time- and context dependent interplay between economic and normative considerations in weapons exports.
Working papers (submitted/conference drafts)
International norms and public demand for home-country regulation of multinational firms abroad (with T. Bernauer, and D. Kolcava) (R and R)
[Link to Manuscript] [Abstract]Vastly increased transnational business activity in recent decades has been accompanied by controversy over how to cope with its social and environmental impacts, particularly in the context of firms from high-income countries operating in less developed nations. The most prominent policy response thus far consists of new international soft law, e.g.\ the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. It remains open, however, whether and how such soft law could bring about more responsible corporate behavior abroad. We submit that the most effective mechanism to this end may operate through stricter home-country regulation of corporate behavior abroad. Exploiting a unique national initiative on this subject in Switzerland, we use a choice experiment with a large representative sample of voters (N=3010) to study public demand for such regulation. Contrary to conventional wisdom emphasizing fear of sovereignty loss and/or economic disadvantages from unilateral regulation of transnational activity, our results show that citizens prefer very strict and unilateral rules, while correctly assessing their consequences. Mechanism tests with survey-experimental vignettes reveal that citizens are aware that such rules are economically costly, entailing competitive disadvantages, but would be more effective in tackling the problem, normatively appropriate and reputation enhancing for the home country. Moreover, exposure to information highlighting international norm-setting in this area leads to even stronger demand for stricter rules. These findings indicate surprisingly strong public support for making international soft law effective via enforceable domestic regulation, even if direct regulatory benefits accrue abroad while regulatory costs materialize at home. They also suggest that effective communication of international norms is one pathway through which international soft law can effectively change business behavior.
Can sociodemographic characteristics serve as cues to infer candidate issue positions? (with T. Däubler, and F. Quoß) (R and R)
[Link to Manuscript] [Abstract]In open-list PR systems, choosing candidates based on issue proximity can improve policy congruence. However, in practice, voters may not know enough about individual candidates to do so. Hence, we examine whether individual positions can be inferred from cues provided on ballots, namely age and residence. Studying the Swiss parliamentary elections of 2019, we focus on environmental policy, both the most salient issue and featuring considerable intra-party heterogeneity of positions. We combine comprehensive candidate data with a representative voter survey and conduct a survey-embedded experiment (N=10758). We fi nd that citizens have indeed little knowledge of candidate positions.However, ballot cues predict policy differences among candidates within parties only to a limited extent, and the experiment does not suggest that voters use ballot information to predict positions directly. Instead, as suggested by additional analyses, citizens perceive candidates who resemble their own socio-demographic pro file as having positions closer to their own.
Environmental concern leads to trade scepticism for the political left and right (with T. Bernauer, F. Quoß, and R. Buchs) (under review)
[Link to Manuscript] [Abstract]Evermore apparent environmental impacts of vastly increased international trade have been met both by public backlash against further trade liberalization and by efforts at greening international trade. Because public support is essential to environmental and trade policy-making alike, we examine the trade-environment nexus from a public opinion perspective. Our focus lies on whether negative attitudes towards trade are fueled by concern over its environmental consequences. We argue that environmental concern affects how citizens evaluate the costs and benefits of international trade, and that such evaluation is moderated by political ideology. The empirical analysis relies on a population-based survey experiment and a large representative survey in a small open economy, Switzerland. The results show that environmental concern (serenity) leads to decreasing (increasing) appreciation of and support for international trade. Political beliefs (ideology) moderate these effects, resulting in different manifestations of trade skepticism on the political right and left. Another interesting finding given the increasingly salient debate over environmental footprints of consumption and pollution havens is that we do not find evidence for the presumption that citizens care more about environmental damage at home than abroad when forming trade policy preferences. The main policy implication of our findings is that policy-makers should assign high priority to green global supply chains if they wish to sustain public support for liberal international trade policy.
Selecting Good Types or Holding Incumbents Accountable? Evidence from Reoccurring Floods
[Abstract]A growing literature draws on natural disasters to assess how voters hold governments accountable and finds that good management benefits incumbents. This suggests that voters see disaster management as a test case that acts as an information shock, revealing unobserved incumbent quality. Theoretically, this depends on the perception and attribution of incumbent responsibility. Additionally, past experience with exposure should moderate voters’ appraisal, as should the current level of esteem the incumbent holds. I provide evidence that the electoral response to disaster management is heterogeneous along these dimensions. Drawing on the exceptional case of four centennial floods in Germany, occurring within a decade and right before elections, I show that exposure leads to vote gains for federal and state incumbents. The response of indirectly affected voters indicates strong ‘demonstration effects’. I then discuss evidence that explains heterogeneity across the floods. Overall, the case allows to infer whether voters select prospectively or retrospectively.
The comparative legitimacy of arms exports – A survey experiment in Germany and France (with M. Freitag, and P. Thurner)
[Link to Manuscript] [Pre-Registration] [Abstract] Despite fierce politicization and heated public debates in arms-exporting democracies, systematic research on mass public preferences on arms trade is lacking. Combining political economy models of arms trade with the literatures on trade preferences and foreign policy attitudes, we argue that citizens trade off economic incentives, strategic interests and moral considerations when assessing arms trade and that deeply rooted `strategic cultures’ lead to differences in citizen preferences between countries. To derive the implicit weighting of different features of arms trade, we draw on population-representative conjoint survey experiments (N=6,617), fielded in November/December 2020 in two of the global top-5 exporting countries of major arms: Germany and France. We find that both country populations show structured preferences towards arms exports which predominantly center around their moral repercussions. However, German respondents place more weight on moral consequences and, compared to French respondents, a larger share is in fundamental opposition. We conclude that these diverging preferences potentially conflict with plans of a common European defense and security policy.
Citizens support ambitious but costly food waste governance (with L. Fesenfeld, and T. Bernauer)
[Link to Manuscript] [Abstract] About one-third of all food produced for human consumption world wide is wasted, particularly in high-income countries. Reducing this waste is key to decreasing negative environmental impacts from the food sector and increasing food security in developing countries. Yet, achieving food waste reduction is challenging. It is widely presumed that efforts at stronger food waste governance may increase food prices, and hence consumer and citizen opposition that renders effective governance politically unfeasible. Here, we assess this critical presumption and argue that policy framing and design can ensure public support for ambitious but costly food waste governance, while policy feedbacks from voluntary firm actions are unlikely to diminish public support.Our empirical analysis uses survey experiments with a population-representative sample (N=3’329) from a typical high-income country with a unique direct democratic tradition, Switzerland. First, in a combined framing and conjoint experiment, we show that messages emphasizing national or international social norms in favor of reducing food waste (policy framing) can increase public support for more ambitious reduction targets. We also show that a majority of citizens support food waste governance that leads to substantial increases in food prices, but only if such policies set stringent reduction targets and are transparently monitored (policy design). Finally, in a vignette experiment, we show that voluntary industry initiatives do not crowd out individuals’ intentions to reduce their food waste nor support for stronger governmental regulation, but even crowd public support in if industry initiatives are unambitious (policy feedback). Our research offers an analytical template for studying public support for food waste governance and shows that there is more political room for adopting ambitious policies than hitherto presumed.
Work in progress (original survey data collection completed)
Economic Inequality, Immigration and Redistribution: A Survey Experiment in Germany (research-led teaching project, LMU Munich)
[Pre-Registration]
Ordering effects vs. cognitive burden – How should we structure attributes in conjoint experiments (with M. Freitag, and P. Thurner)
[Pre-Registration]
NIMBYism and mass public preferences in public goods provision – evidence from mobile phone mast placement in Switzerland (with F. Quoß, and T. Bernauer)
Footprint shifting, concern for trade impacts and trade policy preferences (with D. Presberger, F. Quoß, and T. Bernauer)
Information and Environmental Issue Voting in Open Lists – Survey Experimental Evidence from Switzerland (with F. Quoß, and T. Däubler)
Do Extreme Weather Events affect Climate Change Policy Attitudes and Preferences? Dual Evidence from a Natural Experiment and a Survey Experiment in Switzerland (with F. Quoß)