Environmental activism and pro-environmental behaviours: a comparative perspective

Environmental activism and other pro-environmental behaviours have emerged as one of the major civic action and concern forms among lay public, scientists, and politicians across the globe. This paper is focused on several important aspects of this issue: the participation in environmental NGOs and the pro-environmental behaviours of citizens. The paper discusses several research questions: ▪️ What are determinants of environmental activism and other pro-environmental behaviours? The factors influencing public and private environmental behaviour can be of micro (individual) or macro (country’s) levels. The question is what are these determinants. ▪️ What are the patterns of environmental activism and other pro-environmental behaviours across different European countries? Groups whose main aim is to preserve or protect the environment usually connect people with strong environmentally‐oriented behaviour but the question remains whether these groups are similar in different countries; ▪️ What are the patterns of environmental activism and other pro-environmental behaviours across time? This paper employs data from the International Social Survey Programme module Environment III (conducted in 2010) and Environment IV (conducted in 2020 (first release)) as well as other data sources in trying to explain cross-national variations of public involvement in pro-environmental groups in 14 countries across the globe. The study results show that environmentally – oriented behaviours are not fully determined by individual level determinants. Rather, the behaviours are even more determined by country’s social and economic context – e.g. gross domestic product (GDP) per capita or democracy level in the country. At the macro-national level, people who live in a more rich country are more likely to exhibit pro-environmental behaviour. In other words, the wealthier the country, the more pro-environmental behaviour can be observed in it. And this pattern goes across the time.