Çevre Sorunları ve Demokrasi Arasındaki İlişkinin Eski Sosyalist Ülkeler Üzerinde Ampirik Olarak İncelenmesi

Abstract

nvironmental problems have reached an irreversible level and the concerns about the world and future generations’ survival rights have made this issue one of the most important topics of the scientific world. Environmental issues are interdisciplinary research field related to its nature. Environmental problems are closely associated with production and consumption behaviours that prevent ecosystems from renewing themselves. Many alternative approaches have been improved why its realized that its an illusion of economics looking at natural resources as a costless input. The schools of thought which seek the effects of institutional factors on economic behavior have become mainstream has allowed the issue tackeled with different perspective. Political economy debates on environmental problems questioned whether democratic governments find more effective solutions to these problems or not. Thus the feature of democratic governments such as accountability, transparency and participation make easier to access to information supports the idea that democracy contribute environmental problems. solution positively. The aim of this study is to examine empirically whether democracy has any effect on reducing environmental pollution in the post socialist countries that had passed from an autocratic government to a democracy for the period 1995-2018. The main reason why these countries have been chosen as a sample is about the relatively new formation of liberal democratic institutions. While pooled OLS fin408 dings support that democracy reduce the greenhouse gas emission and CO2 emission, the results of the semi-parametric fixed effects model show that democracy does not have any significant effect on environmental pollution.