Environmental disasters and public-opinion formation: A natural experiment

Abstract

This study leverages the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident as natural experiment to determine the causal impact environmental disasters may have on the formation of environmental public opinion. Using Eurobarometer data on more than 60,000 individuals’ attitudes toward environmental salience before and after the incident, I find that Fukushima had indeed a causal effect on whether people see the environment as a salient policy item. This impact is more strongly pronounced for what respondents think dominates the political agenda than for personal priorities. These results have important implications for the understanding of how public opinion about the environment is formed, and they have crucial consequences for the suspected link between policymaking and public opinion.