Deliberation and climate change- A quantitative analysis of potential relationships between deliberation and countries’ efforts in mitigating climate change

Abstract

The debate whether democracy and its procedures are capable of tackling climate change has been going on for years. One mechanism that has been claimed to yield improved environmental performance is deliberation. Meetings between civil society and politicians are assumed to generate more ambitious environmental policy. The field have been characterised by normative and qualitative research. Conducting quantitative studies has however not been possible due to lack of data of deliberation. Thanks to the Varieties of Democracy institute data on deliberation is now available. This study contributes to the discussion regarding potential relationships between deliberation and increased efforts of climate change mitigation. This is done by statistical analysis of deliberation and emissions of carbon dioxide per capita (CO2). The results do not indicate any relationship between deliberation and CO2 emissions per capita. The robustness of the model can be discussed signifying that further research should be done, possibly with different operationalisations. Measuring democratic indicators are questionable making further research necessary.