THE ROLE OF POLITICAL TRUST ON POLICY ACCEPTABILITY AND PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR A CLIMATE TAX ON MEAT CONSUMPTION A Survey Experiment in Sweden and Turkey

Abstract: Human consumption of meat, specifically ruminants, is argued to be one of the major drivers of climate change. Individual and societal behavioural changes are considered necessary to tackle the overconsumption of animal products. This, in turn, requires a greater level of support for state interventions and acceptability of climate diet policies that aim to change people’s daily dietary patterns. For a policy to be acceptable by the public, political trust is one of the essentials to be ensured. The lack of confidence in politics is considered to have a negative influence on public attitudes towards environmental interventions. In contrast, high trust in politics is argued to have a positive impact on public attitudes towards environmental policies. Scholars have devoted substantial attention in recent years to the concept of political trust around the acceptability of policies, mostly in the energy and transportation sector. However, insufficient attention has been directed to the food sector that contributes up to 30% of total greenhouse gas emissions. In this study, I introduce a new policy type for the regulation of human’s dietary pattern where there are few studies. Hence, I tested the role of political trust on policy acceptability and public support for a climate tax levied on meat consumption by using an experimental method in Turkey and Sweden. The following survey experiment showed that higher political trust caused higher policy acceptability and public support for this specific proposal in both countries. This study contributes to the understanding of the role of political trust on public attitudes towards the regulation of meat consumption.