环境污染与居民政治态度

The Impacts of Pollution on People's Political Attitude in China

在财政竞争和以GDP为核心的政绩考核体系的推动下,中国地方政府获得了不惜代价(包括牺牲环境)推动经济增长的强劲动力。对于受到污染侵权的居民来说,民主和法治不完善使得其自身的合法权益难以得到保障,这会诱发居民政治态度的改变。利用CGSS2006家户调查与城市相匹配的数据,本文检验了环境污染对中国居民政治态度的影响。研究发现:(1)在遭受环境污染侵权之后,居民对政府权威的认可度将显著降低,对民主制度和司法独立的诉求会增强,对政府应加强对企业规制的认同度则没有明显变化。(2)上述政治效应随着经济发展水平的提高有逐步强化的趋势;然而,随着环境侵权威胁的加剧,经济发展提高政府权威、降低居民对民主制度需求的效应却会衰减。

Apart from fiscal competition and the performance evaluation system with GDP as core performance index,lack of supervision and control of local governments＇power and judicial independence might be the more important reasons leading to the difficulties of people to protect their rights.For people suffering from pollution,the imperfectness of democracy and the rule of law make it difficult to safeguard their legitimate rights and interests,which will induce changes in their political attitudes.In this paper we study the impacts of environmental pollution on people＇s political attitudes with CGSS2006 household data merged with city level factors.Our study shows that：（1）Environmental pollution victims have significantly lower level of recognition of government authority,more intensive demand of democracy and the rule of law,while indifferent to whether the government should strength the regulation of private enterprises.Analysis on people＇s protective actions and results further supports the findings above.（2）The political effect of pollution is strengthened with the economic development.Regional economic growth enhances the prestige of local governments and reduces people＇s demand for democracy,but this effect will be weakened with environmental deterioration.