Most human beings believe in anthropogenic climate change, and still the support for measurements introducing mitigation and adaptation like higher taxation for greenhouse gas intensive industries is low[1]. This seems rather ambivalent, seeing the increasing amount of people fighting against climate change on the streets. One aspect of this discrepancy is, that many societies have a major trust issue. Trust allows us to cooperate and enables us to conduct unified actions[2]. When people trust responsibility will be shared and individual abilities can be enhanced. If we trust, we do not fear, that another person will free ride on our actions[2]. Trust thereby is a bilateral agreement on a horizontal level[3]. To visualize this, one only has to think about friendships, family bonds, or even encounters with strangers on the street. Because we trust in the actions of the other, we are able to build this relationships in the first place, no matter if it is between a vendor and a costumer or if it is between two friends.<\/p>\n
However, political trust is different. Political trust adds a vertical component to the equation[3]. This component, is based on the invisibility of the opposite to the politician\/decision maker and thus adds a higher level of uncertainty in the relationship[3]. While citizens put trust in the politicians, they do not have the everyday encounter and therefore can not mirror the trust given to them. And this in the end is, why we fear taxes. If we do not trust, we are just not certain that introduced actions are necessary. However, it is proven, that if societies have a high level of trust towards politicians, the acceptance of actions, which in the first place sound unappealing, is higher[1]. And this level of acceptance is independent of the fact that people do or do not believe in climate change[1]. So in some ways it is not important how certain scientific models are, it is more important how certain we are, that our decision makers take decisions for the common good.<\/p>\n
But how can and should politicians reduce the uncertainty in the relationship to citizens? How can they strengthen the trust?<\/p>\n
How the discrepancy between horizontal and vertical trust relationships are related to these questions is illustrated by referring to the one on one encounters of politicians, especially with lobbyists. No matter what we think about them, it is really likely that they are definitely part of the problem due to two main aspects. First, lobbyists have a one on one relationship with politicians. Therefore, this superficial trust relationship is more dominant in the mind of decision makers. It is therefore important that decision makers reevaluate all their meetings and come back to the point where they see that the focus of their work is to find the best solution for all, not for a few. Second, the loudest lobbyists are the ones who normally have a short term loss due to climate change action[4]. And of course it is clear by now, that many actions which are necessary to act against climate change will have short term losers and will be connected to change. And change, is scary. However, if this change will lead to long term winners (all of us), decision makers have to show that they see that, and that they are willing to risk losing the approval of an old elite.<\/p>\n
If decision makers keep this in mind, it will be easier to have an open communication about the decision process and the reasons for decisions and thus trust will be established.<\/p>\n
But what are the consequences in a society of trust, if a certain measurement turns out to be bad (maybe due to uncertainties in scientific models or due to the overall uncertainty in a complex world)? I guess, society would forgive. As trust is established, the civil society would know that this was not on purpose and would know that the decision makers are keen on finding new solutions and thus further reduce the uncertainty in their intentions.<\/p>\n
In this short text I do not want to say that the process is easy, but rather that societies are capable of renounce and adaptation to changes. We have to allow ourselves to think good about others and about their intentions. If decision makers then invest into a trust based relationship, the whole society can mirror this behavior and integrate it in their value set.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
References:<\/p>\n
[1] Malcolm Fairbrother, Ingemar Johansson Sev\u00e4, Joakim Kulin. Political trust and the relationship between climate change beliefs and support for fossil fuel taxes: Evidence from a survey of 23 European countries. Global Environmental Change. Volume 59. 2019. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.gloenvcha.2019.102003.<\/p>\n
[2] Sundblad E-L, Biel A, G\u00e4rling T. Knowledge and Confidence in Knowledge About Climate Change Among Experts, Journalists, Politicians, and Laypersons.\u00a0Environment and Behavior<\/em>. 2009;41(2):281-302. doi:10.1177\/0013916508314998.<\/p>\n [3] Schnaudt C. (2019) The Concept of Political Confidence. In: Political Confidence and Democracy in Europe. Contributions to Political Science. Springer, Cham. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/978-3-319-89432-4_2.<\/p>\n [4] Christian St\u00f6cker. Uefa und Exon: H\u00f6rt nicht auf die Verlierer. Der Spiegel.2021.07.04.Klimakriese. https:\/\/www.spiegel.de\/wissenschaft\/mensch\/uefa-und-oelkonzern-exxon-hoert-nicht-auf-die-verlierer-a-4437a4f5-b200-4864-9fe1-bb3fdbfbef60?sara_ecid=soci_upd_wbMbjhOSvViISjc8RPU89NcCvtlFcJ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most human beings believe in anthropogenic climate change, and still the support for measurements introducing mitigation and adaptation like higher taxation for greenhouse gas intensive industries is low[1]. This seems rather ambivalent, seeing the increasing amount of people fighting against climate change on the streets. One aspect of this discrepancy is, that many societies haveContinue reading “Why We fear Taxes \u2013 About the Uncertainties in the Politician-Citizen Relationship”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-students-blogs-2021"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2165"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2167,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165\/revisions\/2167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}