The Waste War: on the electoral costs of local sustainability policies

Abstract

Sometimes, environmentally successful policies fail, not because of personal attitudes or technical feasibility, but because of the electoral dispute. Using fixed effects, Difference-in-Difference estimators and opinion polls, this paper scrutinizes the electoral cost of introducing a door-to-door (D-t-D) waste collection system in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa (Spain). D-t-D aimed to raise sorting rates in order to make the construction of an incinerator redundant. Separate collection improved significantly, but estimates show that the main opposition party increased its vote share by 12 percentage points in the following municipal elections as a result of the policy. Seeking the reasons for the opposition’s success, opinion polls reveal that D-t-D was surrounded by controversy and lack of information that even led citizens to perceive it as environmentally less efficient. In this context, citizens were unwilling to accept the change in habits that the new waste collection system entailed if they saw their efforts diluted in the electoral dispute. The article concludes that not only the environmental performance, but also the perceived effectiveness of the policy, a climate of social trust and the provision of participation mechanisms are determinants for the electoral success of green policies.