On the Role of Ideas of Human Nature in Shaping AttitudesTowards Environmental Governance

摘要

Attitudes towards the management of thenatural environment have been described mainly asbuilding on individuals' images of nature and thehuman—nature relationship. However, in previous qualita-tive research I found strong evidence that in order tounderstand public views on environmental policies wealso need to understand individuals' beliefs about theirfellow humans. The present study tested the hypothesisthat beliefs about human nature and preferences forcertain governance approaches—such as regulations andcollective actionare related to individuals' attitudestowards concrete management measures. Survey results(n=155), analysed by means of structural equationmodelling, suggest that effects of beliefs about humannature are discernible, but not significant. I could,however, identify generic preferences for particularapproaches to environmental governance. These signifi-cantly explained variation in attitudes towards environ-mental governance in an applied context, suggesting astrong need for further research in this politically highlyrelevant field.