Divesting, Fast and Slow: Affective and Cognitive Drivers of Fading Voter Support for a Nuclear Phase-Out

Journal
Ecological Economics
ISSN
0921-8009
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2018
Author(s)
;
DOI
Abstract (De)
Overcoming reliance on non-renewable resources is a key concern of energy transitions worldwide. But as the literature on carbon lock-in has shown, overcoming path dependence is all but trivial. Even well-minded decision-makers tend to relapse into inertia when it comes to making concrete divestment decisions. We investigate one specific case, the 2016 Swiss popular initiative to phase out nuclear power, to explore the cognitive and affective drivers of energy path dependence on the individual level. Within eight weeks of an intense political
campaign, support for this initiative dropped from more than 60 to just 45.8% of Swiss voters. Based on a representative longitudinal survey (N=1014), we show that changes in perceived risk and benefit of nuclear power play key roles in explaining fading voter support for nuclear divestment, and that affect is in turn a significant driver of those changes. By framing it as a choice between the lesser evil of nuclear power or importing German coal power, opponents of the phase-out managed to introduce an asymmetrically dominated option into voters' choice set, leading many to change their original voting intentions. Our paper responds to calls for integrating dual-process theories (“thinking fast and slow”) into research in Ecological Economics.
Language
English
Keywords
Divestment
Nuclear Power
Voting behavior
dual-process models
affect heuristic
asymmetric dominance effect
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
HSG Profile Area
SoM - Business Innovation
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
Elsevier
Publisher place
Amsterdam
Volume
152
Start page
51
End page
61
Pages
11
URL
Subject(s)

political science

Division(s)

IWOE - Institute for ...

University of St.Gall...

Eprints ID
255023
File(s)
Thumbnail Image

open.access

Name

Rinscheid_Wuestenhagen (2018) Divesting, Fast and Slow Affective and Cognitive Drivers of Fading Voter Support for a Nuclear Phase out_EcolEcon_152_51-61 .pdf

Size

1.32 MB

Format

Adobe PDF

Checksum (MD5)

5d5505d5011907d61538853f6e7002e5

Thumbnail Image

open.access

Name

pii/S0921800917313605

Size

7.39 KB

Format

HTML

Checksum (MD5)

f214d94a7e52360bc4649b330e9b0436