The determinants of local government involvement in nature conservation programs : Evidence from Swedish municipalities

Abstract: Environmental degradation is a coining issue of our time. Hardly any place in the world is spared from its repercussions. Governments on all administrative levels have begun to take action. It has been acknowledged that local governments are playing a key role in combating the sources and adverse effects of environmental degradation. However, there is considerable variation in the extent to which local governments adopt environmental policies and activities. This paper investigates the determinants of local government involvement in the Local Nature Conservation Program (LONA), a nature protection initiative in Sweden, by analyzing a panel data set covering all 290 Swedishmunicipalities from 2010 to 2019. The study aims to contribute to the longstanding debate in the field whether economic or political variables matter more for explaining local differences in environmental policy adoption. For that purpose, four hypotheses have been derived from four competing theories of urban politics - capacity theory; the economic imperatives model; pluralist theory; and regime theory. The hypotheses are tested by building four statistical models using Poisson fixed effects estimation techniques and including functional form transformations and interaction effects. The results found cultural diversity in the local polity, political interest in the constituency, and socioeconomic characteristics of the residents to be the strongest predictors of municipal LONA-involvement. Contrary to previous research findings, municipal administrative capacity and population size are found to have no effect. The influences of fiscal capacity and political orientation of the governing coalition are ambivalent. Hence, whether economic or political variables are more important for LONAinvolvement is inconclusive. Findings suggest that both matter but that their explanatory power seems more pronounced when considering their joint effects. It appears that fiscal characteristics function as opportunity constraints but that the way local governments manage these circumstances is causing the differences between municipal LONAapplication outcomes. Moreover, it seems that LONA has been successful in engaging smaller and fiscally strapped municipalities by helping them overcome the barriers usually associated with these constraints.