Abstract
This article investigates whether and to what extent unfavorable local environmental conditions furnish an important motivator for environmental protest. We do so using individual-level data on objective and subjectively perceived residential road traffic and aircraft noise pollution, pertaining to the cities of Mainz (Germany) and Zurich (Switzerland). By referring to fine-grained noise data, we are able to test the predictive power of grievances and self-interest in explaining protest participation more stringently than has been the case in most previous studies. Theoretically, our study is inspired by Klandermans’ socio-psychological framework of political protest, the pressure-response approach, the self-interest perspective, and the collective-interest model. Our empirical findings only partially confirm the grievances assumption that unfavorable local environmental conditions in the form of residential road traffic and aircraft noise stimulate environmental protest. Noise caused by airplanes seems to be more “protest-inducing” than that produced by road traffic. It is not so much the objectively measurable noise level as its subjective perception and evaluation that are deciding factors. However, in line with Klandermans’ protest framework and other theories of political protest, there are more influential drivers of environmental protest, such as environmental concerns and a left-wing political ideology. Thus, the effects of residential road traffic and aircraft noise turn out to be relatively moderate. Ultimately, this means that our tailored measures of grievances corroborate a relatively well-established finding of protest research.
Highlights
Local environmental conditions have improved in many OECD countries over the last 50 years, the progress made so far still leaves room for improvement, as it has been of limited scope, counteracted by opposing developments, and is far from sustainable (OECD 1991, 2008, 2012)
Levels of objective road traffic noise are similar in the two cities, whereas objective aircraft noise is higher in Mainz than in Zurich
The average aircraft noise is above the WHO recommendation in Mainz (47.6 dB(A)) and at the WHO limit in Zurich (45.3 dB(A))
Summary
Local environmental conditions have improved in many OECD countries over the last 50 years, the progress made so far still leaves room for improvement, as it has been of limited scope, counteracted by opposing developments, and is far from sustainable (OECD 1991, 2008, 2012). To investigate the link between exposure to traffic/aircraft noise and environmental protest, the article draws on empirical data from two cities: Mainz in Germany and Zurich in Switzerland. An innovative aspect is that our study includes survey data pertaining to subjectively perceived environmental annoyances and potential reactions, and objectively measured local environmental conditions, that is, actual exposure to road traffic and aircraft noise. This enables us to examine the relationship between objective and subjectively perceived noise and to explore their combined effects on protest activities. The article concludes with remarks on the more general relevance of the research topic, a summary of our findings, and potential limitations of the study (Sect. 5)
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