Leaders ’ ‘ Green ’ Posts
, or of political leaders , that can explain environmental salience on Facebook . Borrowing from studies analyzing the relationship between the economy and the environment , we look at explanations related to the level of economic growth and environmental quality of a country . Alternative explanations are defined at the leaders ’ level and borrowed from research on public opinion polls and party competition ; these hypotheses concern socio-demographic characteristics and party affiliations of the political leaders under consideration .
Economic Well-Being of a Country
The first studies pointing out the relationship between the economy and environmental issues date back to the eighteenth and early nineteenth century where classical economists called upon social and environmental limits to economic growth e . g ., Malthus ’ Essay on the Principle of Population ( 1878 ), De Sismondi ’ s New Principles of Political Economy ( 1991 ), and Mill ’ s Principles of Political Economy ( 1882 ). A century later , Carson ( 1962 ) and Meadows et al . ( 1972 ) questioned the feasibility of a continued economic growth which could have had environmental and natural exhaustion consequences ( Cole 2000 ). Nevertheless , other studies did not find evidence of environmental quality deterioration correlated with economic growth ( Arrow et al . 1995 ; Cole , Rayner , and Bates 1997 ; Dasgupta et al . 2001 ; Fiorino 2011 ; Grossman and Krueger 1995 ; Selden and Song 1994 ).
The 1970s were also characterized by discussions on value changes and value prioritization in relation to economic growth and environmental attitudes . This debate was led by Ronald Inglehart who emphasized a shift from material wellbeing to ( post-materialist ) quality of life values during times of economic growth claiming that “ countries with high levels of prosperity should have relatively high levels of post-materialist values ” ( Inglehart 1997 , 143 ). In other words , after reaching a certain level of wealth , citizens preferred a better quality of life and thus were keener to support environmental issues ( Arrow et al . 1995 ; Beckerman 1992 ; Fiorino 2011 ; Franzen and Vogl 2013 ). Additionally , as Fiorino ( 2011 ) pointed out , wealthier societies were also more inclined to invest in environmental protection . Therefore , with economic prosperity , citizens more often demanded their governments to invest in pollution control and conservation measures ( Fiorino 2011 , 32 ).
Whereas there has been some criticism on this hypothesis in explaining the rise of environmentalism in developing countries ( for example , see Aoyagi-Usui , Vinken , and Kuribayashi 2003 ; Brechin and Kempton 1997 ; Dunlap and Mertig 1997 ; Kidd and Lee 1997 ), a large number of studies suggested a positive correlation between the economic wealth of a country and environmental salience . Hence , we hypothesize that :
H1 ( a ) High levels of a country ’ s economic well-being will positively affect the salience of environmental issues .
Although scholars recognized an existing relationship between economic well-being and environmental protection ( i . e ., post-materialist values ), studies emphasized how environmental issues can become less important in times of economic de-growth , e . g . during the economic and financial crisis that started in the United States in 2007 and
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