Três ensaios em desenvolvimento e meio ambiente : democracia, valores humanos e felicidade no contexto ambiental contemporâneo

Abstract

The thesis focuses on three different themes that constitute the debate on society and environment. The thesis’ central hypothesis is that socioeconomic, cultural and political factors and contexts condition behaviours at different levels of engagement, shaping different perceptions of sustainability. The hypothesis arises from the argument that there are different societal relations that manifest themselves at the macro and micro-scalar levels, so that it becomes equivocated structuring the environmental debate from a single linear relationship. In order of verifying if the hypothesis can be support, the thesis is structured in 3 essay. Essay 1 addresses the relationship between income inequality, democracy and environmental performance in different countries. From a panel econometric model with fixed effects, three main evidences were found: i) democracy as a political regime does not induce greater commitment to the environment, necessarily, ii) reducing income inequality does not guarantee better social and environmental relations, necessarily and iii) freer countries tend to have better environmental performance. Essay 2 argues that there is good evidence to indicate that personal contexts inform and affect many decisions that individuals need to make, including those associated with the environment arena. The results indicate that a person can maintain a set of pro-environmental values but still not engage in sustainable practices. Similarly, a person may be characterized as having a non-environmental profile, but having contextual factors in his or her life that encourages them to be involved with sustainability. Essay 3 examines the relationship between environmental performance and global happiness. The analysis shows that environmental performance plays a significant role as a predictor of happiness. While we observed that freer countries exhibited significant and positive links between environment and happiness, partially free countries show the opposite with some statistically insignificant associations. Non-free countries, in turn, exhibited no significant impact of environmental performance on the level of happiness.