Social capital, environmental policy attitudes and the mediating role of climate change beliefs

Abstract: In order to combat the potential threats of climate change, effective policy setting and implementation is crucial. A variable which has been shown to have significant explanatory power on the success of different public policy areas is social capital; a multidimensional concept encompassing social relationships and norms ability to mobilize and facilitate common goals. In the context of climate change related research, the relationship between social capital or some of its components to environmental variables typically is studied in a vacuum. This using factor analysis or SEM, at times in combination with other statistical techniques. In this study a more extensive SEM is investigated, examining the potential effect of social capital on environmental policy attitudes, with the mediating component climate change beliefs. The relationship between all three concepts were found to be significant, with the proportion of the total effect which is due to the indirect effect being 23%. This present study contributes to the literature by introducing the use of more extensive models, taking the complex relationships in the area into account to a higher degree, in order for more efficient policy making.