Political Ideology and Environmental Concern: Evidence from South Korea*

As environmental crises such as climate change emerge around the world, the success of eco-friendly policies hinges on understanding people ' s environmental consciousness. Focusing on a political determinant of environmental concerns in the case of South Korea, which has rapidly developed and democratized, this study develops and tests a theory of the relationship between political ideology and environmental concern. We conducted an empirical analysis of the Korea Environment Institute ' s 2018 and 2020 surveys of Korean citizens using multivariate regression. After controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, we find that individuals ' environmental concern diverges with their political ideology. Specifically, conservative ideology is closely associated with less environmental concern, such as less environmental awareness, non-priority for environmental issues, substitute belief between environment protection and economic growth, and less eco-friendly activities. These results suggest that governments should consider citizens ' political ideology to establish environmental policies successfully.