Economic and Environmental Risk Perceptions: Determinants of Environmental Policy in Transitional Societies

所有社会都面临着关于环境保护和经济发展之间关系的决定，而所有社会都有不同的文化，历史和政治背景，这些决定必须发生。 尝试在不同系统之间进行概括是有启发性的，但并不确定，部分原因是研究设计往往集中在类似系统之间的比较上，或者是因为基本理论没有得到很好的解决。 例如，根据“后物质主义”的论点，“对环境的广泛关注只有在一个社会达到了相对较高的生活水平，并满足了其他可能更基本的需求时才会出现。 这与经济增长与环境政策相冲突的普遍看法是一致的。 如果后唯物主义是正确的，环境保护主义应该只随着经济福利的增加而增加。 保加利亚和世界其他国家的最新数据表明，即使面对经济困境，对环境的担忧仍然很高。在过去十年里，东欧长期存在的政治政权垮台时，环境活动主义似乎是经济和政治变革背后的驱动力。 保加利亚的布尔加斯地区特别适合于研究这些影响，因为它现在正在经历迅速的经济和政治结构调整，并遭受了欧洲最大的Neftochim石化厂造成的相当大的环境破坏。 此外，该地区有大量使用农药和化肥的历史。 因此，从经济、环境、政治和政策角度对风险认知和环境政策的强调更加突出。 虽然有多种社会学理论被提出来解释环境主义的变异性，但这些理论并不涉及个人层面的信仰，决定和行动。 在个人层面上，对风险的看法和采取行动减少风险的意图被假设为风险的两个属性的结果：（1）对风险暴露的看法，以及（2）对个人和社会从危害中获得的成本和收益的看法，由（a）对风险背后的危害的知识和信念（即，心理模型），（B）对个人或团体或组织减少或增加风险的能力的信念，以及（c）对风险的不确定性。 该项目将有助于风险认知和环境政策文献，通过表征风险认知，地方环境政策，以及对这些政策的态度在转型社会的背景下。

All societies face decisions about the relationship between environmental protection and economic development, and all societies differ in the cultural, historical, and political context in which those decisions must occur. Attempts to generalize across systems have been illuminating but inconclusive, in part because study designs often have focused on comparisons across similar systems, or because underlying theory was poorly addressed. For example, according to the `postmaterialist thesis,` wide-spread concern about the environment only emerges in a society when it has achieved a relatively high standard of living, and satisfied other, presumably more basic, needs. This is consistent with the commonly held belief that economic growth conflicts with environmental policy. If post-materialism is correct, environmentalism should increase only as economic welfare increases. Recent data from Bulgaria and other countries around the world indicate that concerns about the environment remain high even in the face of economic woes. When long-standing political regimes fell in Eastern Europe this last decade, it appeared that environmental activism was a driving force behind economic and political change. The Burgas area of Bulgaria is particularly suited to a study of these influences, because it is now undergoing rapid economic and political restructuring, and has suffered considerable environmental damage from the Neftochim petrochemical plant, the largest such plant in Europe. In addition, there is a history of heavy pesticide and fertilizer use in the area. Thus the stresses on risk perceptions and environmental policy from economic, environmental, political and policy contexts are heightened. Although multiple sociological theories have been proposed to explain variability in environmentalism, these theories do not address individual level beliefs, decisions and actions. At the individual level, perceptions of riskiness and intentions to act to reduce a risk are hypothesized to be the result of two attributes of the risk: (1) perceptions of exposure to the risk, and (2) perceptions of costs and benefits to individuals and to society from the hazard, moderated by (a) knowledge and beliefs about the hazard underlying the risk (i.e., mental models), (b) beliefs about the ability of individuals or of groups or organizations to reduce or increase the risk, and (c) uncertainty about the risk. This project will contribute to the risk perception and environmental policy literatures, by characterizing risk perceptions, local environmental policies, and attitudes toward those policies in the context of a transitional society.