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The basic income (BI) scheme is a fundamental reform of the welfare state that has recently gained widespread attention. Proposals for different variants of BI schemes have emerged to account for varying political and societal goals. This study investigates what citizens think about the idea of a BI, and to what extent citizens’ perceptions depend on the exact design of such a scheme and the context in which this policy is embedded. Empirically, we rely on conjoint experiments conducted in Finland and Switzerland – the two countries in which the introduction of a BI scheme has recently been discussed most intensely. We find that the level of public support for BI is higher in Finland than it is in Switzerland. Moreover, despite the contrasting designs of the BI proposals in the two countries, both Finnish and Swiss citizens tend to favor more generous schemes restricting non-nationals’ access to the provision.

Whereas ecological economists argue strongly in favor of incentive-based approaches to promote renewable energy sources and reduce energy consumption, those instruments have been shown to be particularly difficult to implement politically. We begin with a recognition that cost perceptions that inherently characterize incentive-based policy instruments are a fundamental reason for their unpopularity. We therefore argue that the crucial question that policymakers need to address is how the benefit–cost ratios of incentive-based instruments can be altered in ways such that their inherent costs become acceptable. By focusing on the various features of these instruments, we propose three strategies for answering this question theoretically: objectively reduce the costs, reduce the visibility of the costs, and identify compensation strategies, i.e., strengthen the benefit side of the equation. Based on a conjoint analysis for Switzerland, our results demonstrate that reducing objective and perceived costs may indeed strengthen support for incentive-based policy instruments, whereas cost compensation does not seem to work as well. We show, moreover, that the latter can be explained by the fact that substantial numbers of voters do not understand or are not convinced by the commonly proposed mechanism of environmental taxes. Given that voters do not believe in the usefulness and efficacy of incentive-based policy measures, no cost compensation is feasible.

Economists advocate carbon pricing as the primary tool to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, very few governments have adopted a carbon tax high enough to meet international emission targets. Political challenges may stem from a number of areas, including political mobilization by policy opponents, consumers’ willingness to pay and the regressivity of many carbon pricing schemes, which might be addressed through rebates. We use a novel carbon tax calculator to provide residents in the US and Switzerland with personalized estimates of the financial costs and benefits associated with carbon pricing policies. Our results indicate that, absent political messaging, rebates increase public support for carbon taxes in both countries by building support among lower income groups. In the US, we find majority support in our sample for both low ( $50/tCO 2 ) and high ($ 230/tCO 2 ) carbon taxes when rebates are included; in Switzerland public support is lower. However, policy is always politicized, and when respondents are exposed to political messages about carbon pricing the effects associated with rebates are dampened or eliminated.

Abstract Public support for ambitious climate policies and carbon prices that have direct costs for voters may depend on policy sequencing. Policy sequencing theory suggests that the strategic ordering of policies into sequences that initially create benefits can subsequently increase support for higher carbon prices. However, systematic quantitative evidence about the effects of sequencing on public support is lacking. We provide novel theoretical and empirical insights on the mechanisms through which strategic policy sequencing affects public support for climate policies. We generated these insights using geospatial data and a representative conjoint experiment with Swiss voters conducted just before the popular vote on an amendment to the Federal Act on the Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in June 2021. Our evidence shows that the perceived effectiveness of prior policy-induced benefits is related to more public support for higher carbon prices across sectors. Moreover, we find that more opportunity structures for low-emission alternatives—like higher EV charging station density—are associated with increased public support for carbon prices in the sector where the former material benefits occur. Our results also imply that positive policy perceptions of prior climate policies are related to increased support, particularly among conservative voters and those who do not regard climate change as a salient issue. Thus, strategic policy sequencing could be an effective strategy for broadening public support for ambitious climate policies.

The decarbonization of energy systems can create both synergies and trade-offs with societal goals such as biodiversity conservation and landscape protection. Although existing research has focused on objective and physical trade-offs, the politics around energy technologies like Alpine photovoltaics (PVs), wind energy, and nuclear energy are not least shaped by how trade-offs are perceived by the people (first-order beliefs about trade-offs), including how respondents believe others in society view them (second-order beliefs about trade-offs). However, these remain insufficiently understood. Here, we conduct a population-representative survey experiment among 1,899 Swiss residents. We find that most participants perceive biodiversity conservation and landscape protection to be synergetic rather than a null-sum trade-off. Furthermore, most participants underestimate others’ preferences for emission reductions over landscape protection. Rural residents—who typically report lower trust in science and are more conservative—are more likely to expect that others favor landscape protection over emission reductions, even though 62% of Swiss residents prefer emission reductions. Strikingly, our survey experiment showing respondents information about the true societal preferences reveals that people are reluctant to revise their own preferences when seeing information about others’ trade-off preferences (social influence) or their acceptance of energy projects, like Alpine PV, wind parks, sustaining nuclear stations, and new nuclear power plants. Non-experimental results show that people’s own trade-off beliefs and perceptions of synergies with landscape protection and biodiversity conservation are more important for energy technology acceptance than second-order beliefs about how others in society view these trade-offs. Thus, people are unlikely to give way to peer pressure. This suggests that political debates may strategically emphasize trade-offs to advance particular agendas. Where renewable energy preferences are polarized, or political awareness is high, as in Switzerland, preferences may remain stable even when individuals learn that others hold different views.

Revenue recycling through lump-sum dividends may help mitigate public opposition to carbon taxes, yet evidence from real-world policies is lacking. Here we use survey data from Canada and Switzerland, the only countries with climate rebate programmes, to show low public awareness and substantial underestimation of climate rebate amounts in both countries. Information was obtained using a five-wave panel survey that tracked public attitudes before, during and after implementation of Canada’s 2019 carbon tax and dividend policy and a large-scale survey of Swiss residents. Experimental provision of individualized information about true rebate amounts had modest impacts on public support in Switzerland but potentially deleterious effects on support in Canada, especially among Conservative voters. In both countries, we find that perceptions of climate rebates are structured less by informed assessments of economic interest than by partisan identities. These results suggest limited effects of existing rebate programmes, to date, in reshaping the politics of carbon taxation.Carbon tax rebate programmes have received increasing interest with the potential to raise public support for carbon pricing. However, results of online surveys based on existing real-world policies demonstrate such programmes have had limited political impacts to date.

Recent research and real-world processes suggest that effective climate change mitigation policies are not feasible without at least a certain degree of public support. Hence, we investigate the link between existing domestic energy policies and individual policy instrument preferences in 21 European countries. We assume a policy feedback perspective and, thus, start from the idea that the current domestic energy context influences what future policies are possible and preferred by citizens. High political trust and strong climate change attitudes are expected to strengthen this relationship. Our results do not lend support to a general link between existing policies and future policy preferences. However, we find evidence of a positive policy feedback in individuals with strong climate change attitudes and/or high levels of political trust, which, depending on each country’s current energy policy, either hinders or facilitates the energy transition.

This article examines how the different education policies in the subnational units of Switzerland—the cantons—affect educational inequality. The article builds on previous research arguing that in order to properly evaluate education policy and its outcomes in decentralized countries, regional disparities must been taken into account. Switzerland has one of the most decentralized education systems in the world and is thus an exemplary case for a subnational analysis. Applying multilevel models the article illustrates that small class size, public investments in education as well as the mobility between ability groups are related to a lower degree of educational inequality. In contrast, longer schooldays strengthen inequality in education, implying that school instruction in the Swiss cantons does not provide equal opportunities to pupils irrespective of social class.

In an increasingly digitized world, vote advice applications (VAAs) seem to be effective in providing voters with personalized information about their own positions vis-à-vis parties’ positions and specific policies. Even though electoral research has increasingly paid attention to the role VAAs play in voter’s opinion formation, very few studies have examined VAAs in the context of direct-democratic decisions. This article fills this gap by providing new insights into how VAAs affect individual decision-making in popular votes theoretically and empirically. We use novel data from the referendum campaign on the 2017 new energy law in Switzerland: a VAA experiment carried out in the framework of a three-wave panel survey. In the third wave, which took place a week before the referendum, respondents were randomly assigned to a treatment group and a control group; only the former was shown the VAA and made to use it. The results indicate two main takeaways. First, that using a VAA has a tangible effect inasmuch as the share of undecided voters is smaller among the treatment than among the control group. Second, VAA usage can have both a persuasive effect (i.e., it can change vote intentions) and an intensifying effect (i.e., it can strengthen voters’ preexisting intentions).

In democracies, public support for policies is crucial to their legitimacy, and the absence can impede necessary reforms, which are needed to keep most disastrous effects of climate change at bay. This study emphasizes the role of policy goal communication as an important but often overlooked dimension of climate policy discourse, arguing that how policy proposals are linked to their intended goals during political debates directly influences public support. We present findings from a novel large-scale (n = 5,655) survey with an embedded randomized experiment that systematically manipulates the type of goal communication and the level of policy goal ambition. Unlike previous studies, the expected policy effectiveness was generated and agreed upon through an iterative process of expert elicitation to provide respondents with a most accurate statement. The results highlight that the presentation of information on policy effectiveness as an inherent element of policy design and not as the larger context in which the policy is proposed significantly increases support for highly ambitious policies renewable energy policies. This study implies that policymakers seeking to promote ambitious climate policies should focus on directly linking proposed policies with the goals these policies should reach.