Historical Legitimacy and Climate Change Policies: International Evidence

Abstract

National climate change policies vary considerably from one country to another. This study examines the extent to which a country’s climate change policy is influenced by the degree of continuity between its pre- and post-colonial institutions. To do this, the study employs ordinary and two-stage least squares estimation techniques with data from 63 countries. The results show that states with greater historical legitimacy (more continuity between pre- and post-colonial institutions) implement more stringent climate change policies. In addition, the results also highlight that historically legitimate states implement more rigorous climate change policies because of their low and high level of fragility and human development, respectively. Based on these findings, our study proposes that historically illegitimate states implement human development and fragility reduction strategies to mitigate the negative effects of the lack of continuity between pre- and post-colonial institutions.