The literature suggests that democracy positively affects environmental policy stringency. Using the method of propensity score matching, we find that this result appears to be largely driven by the parliamentary democracies (as opposed to the presidential-congressional, proportional or majority systems). Moreover, it appears that presidential-congressional systems often set environmental policies not significantly different from autocracies. These are novel contributions to the literature. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007Political institutions, Democracy, Environmental policy, Propensity score matching,

No abstract

No abstract

Summary High party discipline and high party strength induce legislators to stay committed to the party's promised policies after their election. This is because party leaders are able to punish deviations and reward behavior that is in the party's interest. Higher political stability induces party leaders to take a longer‐term perspective. We investigate the following interrelated hypotheses: (i) the effects of party discipline and party strength on environmental policy are conditional on the degree of political stability; and (ii) the effect of political stability is conditional on the levels of party discipline and party strength. Our empirical findings support these hypotheses.

No abstract