Ecological modernization is emerging as a new paradigm for the environmental improvement of advanced nations. Rather than emphasize the use of remedial technologies as has been customary since the 1970s, this approach reframes the relationship between economics and the environment to overcome the zero-sum antagonism of the earlier era. This transformation faces numerous obstacles, and ultimate success will depend on a wide range of predisposing national characteristics, including institutional design and economic organization. The current analysis focuses specifically on an often overlooked third factor, cultural endowment, examining the extent to which it will likely condition the capability of individual nations to meet these challenges. Particularly important cultural attributes for ecological modernization are a strong public commitment to science and a robust environmental consciousness. Using data from several cross-national sources, including the Euro-Barometer, the World Values Survey, and the International Social Survey Programme, this analysis assesses the cultural capacities of a sample of fifteen advanced nations. The Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries, because of widespread lay respect for science and extensive public endorsement of environmental protection, appear to have enhanced cultural potential to pursue ecological modernization.
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The current ban in fact has a sizeable lophole that permits both Japan and Norway to harvest whales ostensibly for scientific purposes. However, the meat from these whales often finds its way into retail markets.
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An exception to this characterization is the environmental justice movement in the United States, which is a relatively new form of ecological expression. This faction is comprised primarily of minority-group members who are campaigning against toxic contamination and other forms of discrimination in their communities. See, for example, R. Bullard, ed., Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice and Communities of Color (San Francisco: Sierra Club Press, 1994).
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Documentation regarding sampling procedures and other methodological issues is available in K. Reif and A. Melich, Euro-Barometer 38.1: Consumer Protection and Perceptions of Science and Technology (Cologne: Zentralarchiv für Sozialforschung, 1995). In the current analysis, references to Germany pertain only to the pre-1989 Federal Republic (West Germany). Data for Britain do not include Northern Ireland, which the Euro-Barometer surveyed separately. This study excludes Euro-Barometer countries Luxembourg and Greece due to the absence of corresponding data on environmental consciousness.
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The following discussion purposely utilizes the term mentalité rather than the more common English “mentality” because this analysis is attempting to tap into a sense of consciousness that extends beyond the narrow connotations normally associated with the English word. Mentality in conventional usage is generally taken to refer more narrowly to intellectual endowment while mentalité in this context is meant to convey a more expansive state of awareness and disposition. Also note that certain questions were deleted from each module comprising the original survey because they had little bearing on scientific mentalité. Other items were deleted because of redundancy or indeterminacy concerning the appropriate way to frame the responses. For instance, it was not clear whether agreement or disagreement with the statement “Thanks to scientific and technological advances the Earth's natural resources will be inexhaustible,” would be consistent with a strong scientific mentalité.
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These data represent the percentage of the public in the three countries that “disagreed to some extent” or “strongly disagreed” with the Euro-Barometer statement: “Science makes our way of life change too fast.”
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The exact wording of the question posed on the Euro-Barometer survey was slightly different: “Are you very interested, moderately interested, or not at all interested in news on new inventions and technologies?”
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The seemingly anomalous quality of the Japanese case has been the subject of considerable speculation. One explanation attributes Japan's poor performance on surveys of the public understanding of science to the fact that the country has been characterized for much of its modern history by a de facto one-party political system, and this structure tends to dampen the expression of strong policy attitudes. See J. Miller, Public Understanding of Science and Technology in OECD Countries: A Comparative Analysis, OECD Symposium on Public Understanding of Science and Technology, Tokyo, 5-6 November 1996.
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