Explaining environmental activism by national cultures
Résumé
According to literary and popular stereotypes, Northern European countries are expected to be ecologically friendly with a high level of environmental activism, while Mediterranean ones would be less committed, with few militants. The aim of this paper is to verify the existence of national cultures and explain their origin, using the ISSP 2010 data. After reviewing the explanatory variables of environmental commitment such as income, postmaterialism, cognitive mobilization, trust in others and religious affiliation, we find a mysterious and irreducible residue, specific to each country. We propose the hypothesis of hysteresis to explain it, as an indicator of national cultures.