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Replication Data for: Greenwashing and Public Demand for Government Regulation

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

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Title Replication Data for: Greenwashing and Public Demand for Government Regulation
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/HOT20S
 
Creator Kolcava, Dennis
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description These files replicate the analysis in Kolcava, D (forthcoming), Greenwashing and Public Demand for Government Regulation, Journal of Public Policy

Environmental governance in many high-income democracies relies to some extent
on self-regulation by the private sector. Yet, this policy mode is contested and proponents of top-down government regulation argue that voluntary corporate
sustainability commitments remain shallow and rarely are more than greenwashing.
I assess to what extent firms’ business conduct is subject to societal checks and
balances, in particular, whether public support for regulation constitutes a control
mechanism of corporate contributions to environmental goods. I rely on an original
survey experiment (N=2112) conducted with a representative sample of the Swiss
voting population. The analysis shows that accusing firms of greenwashing reduces
both citizens’ perceived effectiveness of self-regulation and perceived synergy of corporate profits and environmental protection. However, this attitudinal shift only
translates into modest updates in respondents’ policy preference formation. As a result, short-run shifts in public support for regulation are an unlikely societal control
mechanism of business conduct.
 
Subject Social Sciences
Environmental Politics
Regulation
Survey Experiment
 
Contributor Kolcava, Dennis