Right-wing populism and attitudes towards environmental issues in Central and Eastern Europe

The relationship between party preferences and environmental position was found statistically significant also in the case of the United Kingdom, where Poortinga Poortinga, Wouter, Alexa Spence, Lorraine Whitmarsh, Stuart Capstick, and Nick F. Pidgeon. 2011. “Uncertain Climate: An Investigation into Public Scepticism about Anthropogenic Climate Change.” Global Environmental Change 21 (3): 1015-1024., Whitmarsh Whitmarsh, Lorraine. 2011. “Scepticism and Uncertainty about Climate Change: Dimensions, Determinants and Change over Time.” Global Environmental Change 21 (2): 690-700. and Clements Carter, Neil, and Ben Clements. 2015. "From `Greenest Government Ever' To `Get Rid Of All The Green Crap': David Cameron, The Conservatives And The Environment". British Politics 10 (2): 204-225. received the same evidence which shows that Conservative party electorate adhere more environmentally skeptical positions that the supporters of those parties, which belongs to the left side of the spectrum. Moreover, in the abovementioned research the connection was found on both national and regional level. Another study, that reveals the strong connection between environmental attitudes and ideological self-orientation is the research conducted by Harring and Sohlberg. Harring, Niklas, and Jacob Sohlberg. 2016. “The Varying Effects of Left-Right Ideology on Support for the Environment: Evidence from a Swedish Survey Experiment.” Environmental Politics 26 (2): 278-300. However, unlike other scholars, mentioned two authors argued that the effect of the ideology is not consistent and may vary by the country. Ibid. Among other findings Harring and Sohlberg noted that the left-right divide regarding environmental attitudes is strengthening when the environmental protection is directly opposed to the economic growth, which, nevertheless, correlates with the wide-spread argument of scholars that was repeatedly mentioned above and proved in a plenty of studies. Ibid. 283-285.

Elite polarization, according to Birch, also plays an important role in the existing ideological divide and its impact on environmental views and positions: “in countries where elites are strongly in favor of or skeptical about environmental protection, we should expect to see only moderate correspondence between citizen ideological orientation and popular support for environmental protection; in contexts where elites are polarized on the environment, we should expect popular ideology to have a strong conditioning effect on citizen environmental attitudes, as politicization of this issue should lead to greater alignment of the environment with other issues”.Birch, Sarah. 2019. "Political Polarization And Environmental Attitudes: A Cross-National Analysis". Environmental Politics: 3. Subsequently, the polarization would lead to the increase of the public support for environmental protection among those, who identify themselves with pro-environmental elites and decrease for those connected with climate-skeptics. Ibid. 7-9.

As could be seen from the provided literature on the political determinants of public environmental concern, it is mostly focused only on examination of 2 main aspects. However, few recent studies suggest that there could be a third dimension, which is partially connected with the ideological left-right divide - populism. The effect of populism on the environmental position of individuals represents an understudied academic subfield. However, several existing studies allows us to suggest, that the right-wing populist pursue climate-skeptical, rather than pro-environmental position. As Norris and Inglehart noted, “climate change, and to some extent environmental degradation, present ideal targets for the populist backlash against globalization. Huber, Robert A. 2020. “The Role of Populist Attitudes in Explaining Climate Change Skepticism and Support for Environmental Protection.” Environmental Politics: 2: Norris, Pippa, and Ronald Inglehart. 2019. Cultural backlash: Trump, Brexit, and authoritarian populism. Cambridge University Press. The theoretical ground for such an assumption was provided by Lockwood, who studied the environmental policy preferences through the lens of the right-wing populism. The hostility of individuals towards climate change and corresponding environmental policies that is represented on the level of party support, from the point of view of the scholar can be explained through the ideological content of right-wing populism, which “combines authoritarian and nationalistic values with anti-elitism, producing hostility to climate change as a cosmopolitan elite agenda”. Lockwood, Matthew. 2018. "Right-wing populism and the climate change agenda: exploring the linkages." Environmental Politics 27 (4): 713. In addition, right-wing populism challenges the credibility of the researches on climate change and the possible climate-change policies aimed at the reducing of the carbon dioxide emissions. Ibid. The latter also connected with the structuralist argument of the author, which presumes that RWP supporters could be characterized as those threatened by different processes, such as globalization and whose living conditions and economic prosperity may be worsened with the environmental policies aimed at decarbonization. Ibid. P. 719. The example provided by Lockwood show that “as the coal-mining industry is `the most carbon intensive', changing the environmental agenda towards lower carbon emissions will negatively affect the socio-economic conditions of the governing right-wing populist parties electorate”. Ibid. One more implication to this argument presumes also “the tendency for RWP leaders in resource-rich countries to have close relationships with fossil fuel industries”. Lockwood, Matthew. 2018. Op. Cit. 719-720. Within the EU context, one of the most prominent examples is Poland, where the political elites, affiliated with ruling Law and Order party have close connections with the coal industry companies. Ibid. Besides, the author note that in both Western and Eastern Europe right-wing populism is aimed at marginalization of the environmental issues and simultaneously prioritization of such issues, as immigration, as the opposition of the country population to the immigrants has become the main aspect of the RWP that stipulated the increase in support for both RWP parties and politicians. Lockwood, Matthew. 2018. "Right-wing populism and the climate change agenda: exploring the linkages." Environmental Politics 27 (4): 723.

Further, based on the Lockwood's argument Huber conducted a research, devoted to the impact of populism on the environmental attitudes of the UK citizens. In terms of his research, Huber defined the relationship between the support of the populist party - UKIP and the environmental concern of the individuals through the `sender-receiver' logic, which presumes that individuals pay attention only to the statements and points of view from the sources which are characterized with the high level of personal confidence. Huber, Robert A. 2020. “The Role of Populist Attitudes in Explaining Climate Change Skepticism and Support for Environmental Protection.” Environmental Politics: 6 The author implied this thesis on the situation with the public support of populist parties and their skeptical position towards environmental protection - “as the climate and environmental politics is abstract and technical, and thus populists can easily portray them as elite-driven and detached from citizens' everyday needs since the topic itself is elite-driven, of interest to richer and better-educated citizens, and is a prime example of post-materialist issues”. Ibid. Therefore, the populist parties, and right-wing populists as well, could easily manipulate the public opinion towards environmental issues and promote climate-skepticism among their electorate. Finally, author's suggestions found statistical evidence: according to Huber, “individuals who strongly exhibit populist attitudes are more likely to be skeptical about climate change”, while the same pattern is distinct for the protection of environment and unwillingness of individuals, who support populist parties to act for the sake of ecology. Ibid. 11.

However, we should emphasize the fact, that in the provided works authors measure populist attitudes on the basis of the variable, made with the factor-analysis, which reflects individual's attitudes towards `corrupt elites', `people's sovereignty' and the understanding of politics in the `good'/'evil' terms, rather than on the basis of individuals' support for the RWP parties through voting. Besides, all those three aspects, according to scholars, constitute the core features of the populism. Akkerman, Agnes, Cas Mudde, and Andrej Zaslove. 2013. "How Populist Are The People? Measuring Populist Attitudes In Voters". Comparative Political Studies 47 (9): 1324-1353.

2. Environmental attitudes in the CEE context

In this section, we will analyze the previously mentioned factors that shapes environmental position of individuals in the context of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe with the subsequent formulation of hypotheses, necessary for testing within the empirical section of this work.

The investigation of the factors that shapes environmental attitudes in CEE states could not be defined as a popular dimension for the research within the academic subfield. Perhaps, most of the existing studies consider the environmental concern predominantly through the prism of social and economic factors, several of which were already mentioned in the previous part of this work. In turn, Marquart-Pyatt claims that individuals in CEE states have the similar level of environmental concern and readiness to make actions towards protecting the environment, though the indicators vary, which is stipulated by the country specific differences within the region. Marquart-Pyatt, Sandra T. 2012. "Environmental concerns in cross-national context: how do mass publics in central and eastern Europe compare with other regions of the world?." Sociologický èasopis/Czech Sociological Review 48 (3): 461 Among the determinants of environmental concern, the author highlights the `sex' - females demonstrates higher level of environmental concern and willingness to act, while “education is revealed as a key factor in the expression of both measures of environmental concern”. Ibid.

Simultaneously, few works reveal the impact of political factors on the environmental attitudes in the Post-Soviet countries. Among them it is worth noting the research by Rohrschneider and Miles, who argued that in contrary to the parties in Western Europe, within the CEE region political parties follow different logic of the formation of their political and socio-economic agenda, especially in regards to important socio-economic issues, and environmentalism in particular. Rohrschneider, Robert, and Matthew R. Miles. 2014. “Representation through Parties? Environmental Attitudes and Party Stances in Europe in 2013.” Environmental Politics 24 (3): 622-623. The scholars also emphasize the fact, that “in Western Europe left parties on the economic dimension also tend to be liberal on sociocultural and environmental issues, and parties that favor market structures also tend to favor culturally conservative programmatic stances on, for example, gay rights, women's issues, and the environment” Ibid., while in the CEE party systems did not correspond to such divide along the left-right dimension, which is stipulated by several factors, such as transition dilemmas. Ibid. 624. The initial assumption of scholars also presumes that the political parties in Central and Easter Europe include the issues of environmental protection, climate change and environmental pollution due to the high level of the latter, which, nevertheless, did not received statistical confirmation. Among the set of findings, Rohrschneider and Miles noted that the ruling parties in CEE “are systematically biased against representing the ecological concerns of voters, which contributes to the lack of party-voter agreement”. Ibid. 625-626. In addition, the absence of the traditional left-right divide's impact on environmental attitudes in the Post-Communist states could be explained through the prism of the economic aspects as the citizens of CEE states prioritized their economic welfare over the environmental issues, especially in the first year of the post-soviet development. Rohrschneider, Robert, and Matthew R. Miles. 2014. “Representation through Parties? Environmental Attitudes and Party Stances in Europe in 2013.” Environmental Politics 24 (3): 617-40.

Similar arguments were provided by McCright, Dunlop and Marquart-Pyatt. Mccright, Aaron M., Riley E. Dunlap, and Sandra T. Marquart-Pyatt. 2015. “Political Ideology and Views about Climate Change in the European Union.” Environmental Politics 25 (2): 338-58. They noted that the existed ideological divide on climate change views peculiar to the Western Europe was not the case for the mass public within the former communist states, which was empirically tested and afterwards statistically proven. Ibid. Moreover, the formation of right-left ideological division in those countries was complicated by the historical reasons, and Communist heritage in particular, due to the fact that those parties that belong to the `left' side of the ideological spectrum did not promote the implementation of social changes and achievement of the equality of the social and economic conditions for the individuals, while the connection between `rights' and the harsh opposition to socio-economic change and “support for a more hierarchical social, political, and economic order” Mccright, Aaron M., Riley E. Dunlap, and Sandra T. Marquart-Pyatt. 2015. “Political Ideology and Views about Climate Change in the European Union.” Environmental Politics 25 (2): 344 : Lipset, Seymour M., et al. 1954. "The psychology of voting: An analysis of political behavior." Handbook of social psychology 2: 1124-1175. See also: Thorisdottir, Hulda, et. al. 2007. “Psychological Needs and Values Underlying Left-Right Political Orientation: Cross-National Evidence from Eastern and Western Europe.” Public Opinion Quarterly 71 (2): 175-203. was also absent. Western left-right ideological divide argument, therefore, could hardly be implied for the cases of the post-communist states from the point of view of the researchers.

One of the most comprehensive studies of political, economic, and social factors that can influence the environmental position of citizens in CEE countries, at the moment, is the study, which was conducted by British scholars Chaisty and Whitefield in 2015. Chaisty, Paul, and Stephen Whitefield. 2015. "Attitudes Towards The Environment: Are Post-Communist Societies (Still) Different?". Environmental Politics 24 (4): 598-616. They built several multilevel models which reflected the possible fixed effects of the Gallagher Index, Human Development Index, Democracy, Voice and Accountability and the Post-Communism on the independent individual predictors of environmental attitudes, such as political activism, post-materialist values, developed by Inglehart and further criticized in the plenty of theoretical works, and left-right positioning of the individuals. Their research covered several time periods to trace the possible changes in the environmental positions of the general publics in both Western and Eastern European countries. Chaisty and Whitefield also assumed that economic and political development, which was stipulated by the democratic transition and the economic growth due to the Europeanization, could be considered as main drivers of environmental attitudinal change within the CEE states' societies. Ibid. 610. However, their hypotheses were confirmed only partly, while one of the most important findings once again proved the fact of the absence of the ideological aspects' impact behind the environmental position formation in regards of the individuals from the Post-Communist states. Ibid.

In accordance with the theoretical arguments, provided above, we could now formulate two hypotheses, which are the following:

H1: Party preferences of the individuals in terms of the left-right scale have no impact on the formation of the environmentally skeptical position in the CEE context

Therefore, it is also logical to expect that:

H2: Left-right self-identification of the individuals in CEE states do not influence the adherence by them of the environmentally skeptical position

Finally, talking about the political correlates of the environmental attitudes of general publics, we could not ignore the recent trend of the `right turn' that has taking place not only in Western Europe, but also in the Central and Eastern European region. The spread of the support for the right-wing populism in the Eastern Europe has led to the political domination of the RWP parties on the national level in such states, as Poland and Hungary. Both states, according to scholars, demonstrate the clear tendency of the democratic backslide and challenging of the fundamental norms and values of the European Union. Bogaards, Matthijs. 2018. "De-Democratization In Hungary: Diffusely Defective Democracy". Democratization 25 (8): 1481-1499. In case of the former, the governing political elites headed by the prime-minister Viktor Orban have included the issues of immigrants and the necessity to protect traditional Hungarian values on the forefront of the state's political agenda. Krekó, Péter, and Zsolt Enyedi. 2018. “Orbáns Laboratory of Illiberalism.” Journal of Democracy 29 (3): 39-51. Simultaneously, we could easily trace the distinct RWP features in the political actions of the Hungarian governing elites, such as constant references to the `corrupted elites' in the face of the EU bureaucrats and the Hungarian philanthropist George Soros, blaming immigrants for taking away jobs and increasing the level of crimes in the country, alongside with public statements about rejection of religious and cultural values of migrants and harsh criticism of the multiculturalism. Ibid. The same features could be also found in Poland, where the PiS party adhere same critical position towards migrants and use the same wide-spread tactic of the opposition of the population towards the corrupt-elites, which are presented predominantly by the few representatives of the political opposition, in practice oppressed by the governing authorities. Przybylski, Wojciech. 2018. “Can Polands Backsliding Be Stopped?” Journal of Democracy 29 (3): 55-57. However, Poland and Hungary did not constitute the only cases of RWP tendencies in the CEE region. In this sense, Croatia Grbeša, Marijana, and Berto Šalaj. 2018. “Populism in Croatia: The Curious Case of The Bridge (Most).” Anali Hrvatskog Politološkog Društva: Èasopis Za Politologiju 14 (1): 7-30., Slovakia Pytlas, Bartek. 2013. “Radical-Right Narratives in Slovakia and Hungary: Historical Legacies, Mythic Overlaying and Contemporary Politics.” Patterns of Prejudice 47 (2): 162-83. and Slovenia Pajnik, Mojca. 2019. “Media Populism on the Example of Right-Wing Political Parties' Communication in Slovenia.” Problems of Post Communism 66 (1): 21_32. also demonstrate the high levels of the support for the RWP parties, while the politicians tend to actively use the populist rhetoric for achieving their personal political goals.

From the perspective of the right-wing populism, as was discussed previously, the environmental attitudes also constitutes a topic which could be and portrayed as `elite-driven', as the environmental protection and environmental policies has been predominantly developed and promoted by the Western European states. Therefore, as there is a possibility for a manipulation with the general public's opinion for the RWP parties, we, finally, expect that:

H3: Individuals, who support right-wing populist parties tend to adhere environmentally skeptical position and argue that the environmental threats have been exaggerated

3. The regression analysis of social, economic, and political factors

3.1 Data and variables

In order to determine the relationship between different political, social and economic factors on the one hand, and the environmental attitudes of the CEE states citizens on the other, and test our hypotheses, we used data from the European Value Survey program, specifically the data from EVS Survey 2017. The European Values Study (EVS) represents a “large-scale, cross-national, repeated cross-sectional survey research programme on basic human values, which provides insights into the ideas, beliefs, preferences, attitudes, values and opinions of citizens all over Europe”. As we are interested in the responses of individuals from the Central and Eastern Europe, we sorted out the whole dataset and left only data that covers the coded answers of the respondents from 12 CEE states, namely: Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Poland, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania, Serbia, and Albania.

We introduced `climate skepticism' as our dependent variable on the basis of the `Q56: How much do you agree or disagree with the statements?' from the survey, specifically on the basis of v203 - `many of the claims about environmental threats are exaggerated'. We transformed this variable into binary with the possible answers: `agree' - 1 and `disagree' - 0.

As for the independent variables, we chose 8 items that constitutes individual-level predictors, namely: left-right self-identification (v102a), trust in government (v131), support for right-wing populists, party preferences, which were initially harmonized by the EVS authors using the left-right scale, where 1 - `left' and 10 - `right' (v174_LRa), income (v261a), education (v243_edua), sex (v225), and age (v226). The last two variables (age and sex) were used as control due to the consistency in the plenty of academic works related to cross-national, Western and Eastern European studies of environmental attitudes of general publics. It is also worth noting, that the variable `support for right-wing populists' was artificially created from the primary party preferences of the respondents (which were coded in v174_cs and 175_cs). As the EVS scale for `education' presupposes the different levels of education varying from 10 to 22 items scale for different states in our sample, we transformed the values for variables for `education' into 4 - level scale: `no education', `primary education'. Besides, we also made the same operation for the variable `income', separating the values on the 4 - level scale (`low', `average', `higher than average', and `high').

The measurement of the support for populist parties on the individual level represents an understudied topic. Perhaps, the `academic consensus' presumes that it could be measured through 3 components that constitutes the essence of the populism, according to Akkerman, Mudde and Zaslove: “sovereignty of the people, opposition to the elite, and the Manichean division between good and evil”. Akkerman, Agnes, Cas Mudde, and Andrej Zaslove. 2013. "How Populist Are The People? Measuring Populist Attitudes In Voters". Comparative Political Studies 47 (9): 1332-1333. However, as EVS survey has its limitations, it could not provide us with the respondents' answers concerning afore-mentioned 3 aspects due to simply the absence of questions that would reflect this distinct populism features in the final EVS questionnaire. After comparison of the questions of EVS with the questions in World Value Survey, Eurobarometer and European Social Survey, we found out that they also do not reflect the opinion of the respondents on the related questions that would reflect the support for populism. Therefore, we decided to measure support for the populist parties through the party preferences of the respondents. We sorted the overall sample by the selection of the right-wing populist parties from the data for primary (not harmonized) party preferences for each country in our EVS Survey 2017 dataset. Specifically, we selected the respondents' choice of political parties:

- `Volya', `VMRO - Bulgarian National Movement', `Attack', and `National Front for the Salvation of Bulgaria' in Bulgaria;

- `Croatian democratic alliance of Slavonia and Baranja', `Croatian Democratic Union', and `Croatian party of rights' in Croatia;

- `SPD (Freedom and Direct Democracy - Tomio Okamura)' in Czech Republic;

- `Estonian Conservative People's Party' in Estonia;

- `Fidesz' and `Jobbic' in Hungary;

- `Order and Justice' in Lithuania;

- `Kukiz 15' and `Law and Order' in Poland;

- `Serbian Progressive Party' in Serbia;

- `Kotleba - People's party Our Slovakia', `Ordinary People and Independent Personalities', `Slovak National Party', and `We Are Family - Boris Kollar' in Slovakia;

- `SDS - Slovenian democratic party' and `SNS - Slovenian national party' in Slovenia.

Selecting the right-wing populist parties for each of the CEE states represented in the sample, we based our choice on the data from the `Manifesto Project' (specifically, we were interested in such criteria, as `political corruption', `national way of life: immigration negative', and `negative indigenous rights').

Suggesting the possible national differences, that could exist for each of 12 states represented in the sample, we add three more variables, namely: `GDP per capita', `Democracy', and `Voice & Accountability' in order to reflect those national differences in our statistical analysis. We used values of GDP per capita and Voice & Accountability index for each state from the World Bank data, while the values for Democracy were used from the data of Freedom House for 2017 and 2018.

3.2 Method

We chose binary logit-regression as the main method in our research. In order to reflect the possible effect of national-level variables (GDP per capita, Voice & Accountability, and Democracy), we initially checked the possible statistically significant connection between those three variables and our 8 independent variables using the two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Wilcoxon rank sum test. Afterwards, we built the binary logit-model for each of those afore-mentioned three variables with supposedly statistical significance of interaction effects, based on the previously conducted ANOVA and Wilcoxon tests. Then we conduct multicollinearity assumption check for each of those three models. In the model 1 (with GDP per capita interaction effects) we removed variables `education' (14.6), `income' (122.56) and `trust in government' (106.66), alongside with variable `GDP per capita'(68.24) and three interaction effects variables: `income*GDP per capita' (377.53), `education*GDP per capita' (177.31), and `trust in government*GDP per capita' (552.49) due to the existence of the multicollinearity problem (the noted values of those variables exceeds the value = 10 which tells us about the multicollinearity in the model). In the model 2 the variables with the values of the coefficients that exceed 10 were: `education' (18.47), `income' (115.03), `trust in government' (86.20), `Voice and Accountability' (74.30), `education*VA' (249.93), and `trust in government*VA' (482.27). In the model 3 (with Democracy interaction effects) we removed the same variables `income' (108.40), `education' (16.93), `trust in government' (86.84), `Democracy' (72.41), plus three interaction effects with the same variables and `Democracy' due to the same reasons (values of the coef. in multicollinearity assumption check = 341.11; 213.53, and 522.12 correspondingly).

After that we built new three models without multicollinearity and calculate coefficients of the odds ratios. While reflecting odds ratios, we followed two principles: if the value is greater than 1 then as the predictor increases, the odds of the outcome could be defined as "important". Conversely, a value less than 1 indicates that as the predictor increases, the odds of the outcome "important". Besides, we calculated 97.5 confident intervals for the odds ratio for each of our three models. The confidence intervals coefficients are provided for each model below in figures 1, 2 and 3. As we considered 97.5 confidence intervals, the confidence interval for the odds ratio should not intersect `1' to be reliable.

Finally, the comparison of the built logit-models based on the value of the Akaike Information's Criterion demonstrated that the model with the interaction effects with `Democracy' performs better (AIC for that model accounted for 5365.986 in comparison with 5380.509 and 5387.123 for model with `Voice and Accountability' and `GDP per capita' effects correspondingly.

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

Figure 3.

3.3 Results

As we could see from the model 1, the only statistically significant effects on the environmental position of the individuals are posed by two control variables - age and sex, and the support for RWP parties, as the p-value>0.001. Besides, as the p-values of the coefficients for variables GDP per capita and both interaction effects - GDP per capita * party preferences and GDP per capita * support for RWP accounted for more than 0.1 (0.128, 0.495 and 0.191), there is no statistical significance in the connection between them and the climate skeptic attitudes of the general publics.

Table 1. Regression Results for model 1 (with GDP per capita interaction effects)

The results from the model 2 demonstrates the statistical significance of the effects which are imposed by the same three variables, mentioned previously. Besides, alongside with populism, age and sex, we could see the slight statistical significance of the positive connection between party preferences of individuals and their environmental attitudes, which to some extent contradicts to our expectations about the lack of the relationship between party preferences impact on shaping climate skepticism on the individual level, which was repeatedly established in the prior research devoted to the CEE region.

Table 2. Regression Results for model 2 (with Voice&Accountability interaction effects)

Finally, the results of the third model demonstrate the statistical significance of the connection between two control variables and the support for Right-Wing populist parties. Furthermore, the effect of Democracy on adherence by individual the climate skeptic position demonstrates statistical significance, although weak. The character of the relationship is negative (due to negative value of the coefficient), which indicates that the probability of the adherence by individual the climate skeptic position is higher in the CEE states with lower levels of democracy.

Interestingly, the statistically significant effect of the predictor `age', indicates that the connection between it and our dependent variable `climate skeptic attitudes' is positive, which allows us to conclude that elder individuals adhere more climate skeptic position in comparison with the younger generations representatives. This evidence corresponds to the findings examined in all previous research on this topic. The effect of sex is also consistent in all three models.

Table 3. Regression Results for model 3 (with Democracy interaction effects)

Furthermore, we did not find the statistic confirmation for the statistical significance of the connection between income, level of education and trust in government on the one hand, and the adherence of the skeptic position towards environmental problems on the other. Due to the multicollinearity problem, that was described previously, we had to exclude them from each model. Nevertheless, even in the model without multicollinearity check, there was no statistically significant relationship between those variables and climate skepticism of the individuals. The interaction effects, which were implied in the models in order to reflect possible variation of the independent variables regarding national economic and political features of the considered states, demonstrated the lack of the statistically significant connection and thus could not be generally taken into consideration.

Turning to the political determinants of climate skepticism on the individual level, the effect of left-right self-identification demonstrate no statistically significant connection with the adherence of climate skeptic position by the individuals in the CEE states in all three models. Therefore, our second hypothesis (`Left-right self-identification of the individuals in CEE states do not influence the adherence by them of the environmentally skeptical position') has been statistically confirmed and correspond to the existing findings of scholars, according to which the ideological self-identification of individuals in the CEE states do not fit into the classic left-right divide that exist in the Western Europe, where those on the left adhere pro-ecological position due to their views, while those on the right oppose environmental protection as it contradicts to their values and beliefs, which prioritize economic growth and the lower level of state participation in the regulation of the market. Besides, in the CEE context, the ideological divide on the individual and party level was complicated by the communist past.

The empirical evidence, as was mentioned previously, demonstrates that the coefficients of the variable `support for RWP' are highly significant in all 3 models. However, as the coefficients are negative, the findings indicate the result which contradicts to our expectations about the positive impact of the support for right-wing populists on the adherence environmentally skeptic position, the expectations that were based on the conclusions from the prior research on this topic. Thus, our hypothesis that `Individuals, who support right-wing populist parties tend to adhere environmentally skeptical position and argue that the environmental threats have been exaggerated` was not confirmed, and we can conclude those who vote for the right-wing populist parties in Central and Eastern Europe tend to express less skeptic position towards environmental issues.

However, we need to emphasize several aspects, that will help us to explain the results of our research. Firstly, the previous research on the topic of the RWP influence climate skepticism of the individuals was predominantly focused on the Western European states. There right-wing populist parties promote climate skeptic positions and demonstrate lack of support for policies aimed at the environmental protection and the provision of the renewable energy. Nevertheless, the necessity to publicly indicate their climate skeptic position may be caused by the high salience of the environmental issues in Western Europe. Such trend for high issue salience, however, could not be seen in the Central and Eastern Europe. Thirdly, the differences in the findings (in comparison with the prior research) can be connected with the operationalization of the populism and the difference in its' measurement. As was repeatedly mentioned, in the previous works authors reflected `populism' through the attitudes of the individuals towards the `corrupt elites' and the level of the people's participation in politics, specifically in their impact on making important political decisions. At the same time, in terms of this work, we decided to measure `support for RWP' through the party preferences of the individuals - we selected those respondents who voted for RWP parties on the last election held at the moment the EVS 2017 survey was conducted. Thus, as a part of an alternative explanation for our findings, we suggest that voting for RWP parties by CEE states' citizens may not indicate that they support RWP parties' stances towards the environment. Rather, they may support RWP in order to achieve general political representation, which does not presume that they adhere climate skeptic views and beliefs per se. Simultaneously, the RWP positions towards environmental problems could not be determined as clearly negative or skeptical. For instance, Lockwood noted, that “Law and Justice Party in Poland have been virulently opposed to wind power, while being supportive of smaller scale renewables such as solar PV and the idea of `prosumers', and Hungary's Jobbik movement also appears to be supportive of renewables in general”. Lockwood, Matthew. 2018. "Right-wing populism and the climate change agenda: exploring the linkages." Environmental Politics 27 (4): 719.

It is also worth noting that in the initial statistic analysis the statistic significance of the connection between variables `attitudes towards LGBT+ representatives' and `attitudes towards immigrants' and `climate skepticism' was not found, although these two aspects are often included in the political agenda of RWP parties, especially in the CEE states, where the necessity to protect `traditional values' alongside with blaming immigrants for the growth of crime level and taking away jobs for the native citizens are actively promoted by the populist governments. Therefore, in accordance with the information, provided above, we could conclude that the general finding of our work regarding support for RWP and climate skepticism indicates that the electorate of the right-wing populists tend to express pro-ecological or environmentally neutral positions, rather than adhere environmental skeptical views. As this topic has been understudied in the context of both Western and Eastern European states, our empirical evidence requires further checks, while the general argument about the populist attitudes and adherence skeptic views on environmental problems requires development and refinements. The way of the measurement of the `support for populists' also requires improvements and checks in both single case and cross-national studies.

Conclusion

In terms of this work, it was supposed to consider various factors that influence people's attitudes to environmental problems in order to find out which of them influence the fact that people will take a skeptical position regarding climate issues and environmental protection. Based on a review of existing academic literature, several social, economic, and political factors were identified, in particular: education, gender, age, income, place of residence, left-right self-identification, party preferences and support for right-wing populist parties.

In addition, considering political factors, we took into account the specifics of the political and socio-economic development of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. According to that, on the basis of the above analysis of academic literature and theoretical approaches to the study of factors influencing the environmental preferences of citizens at the individual level, we suggested that party preferences, as well as ideological left-right divide, could not be determined as correlates of environmental preferences in the case of CEE countries, while the support of right-wing populists should have a direct impact on the formation of skepticism regarding environmental issues due to representation of the environmental activists as `cosmopolitan elites' who's interests contradicts to the interests and values of `pure people'.

According to the results of statistical analysis, we found that there is no influence of socio-economic factors on our dependent variable `environmental skepticism'. At the same time, our hypothesis, which presumes that there was no influence of an ideological factor on the environmental preferences of citizens was fully confirmed, which corresponds to the existing conclusions of previous studies Chaisty, Paul, and Stephen Whitefield. 2015. "Attitudes Towards The Environment: Are Post-Communist Societies (Still) Different?". Environmental Politics 24 (4): 598-616.. In case of party preferences, our assumption also found statistical confirmation, although only partial, because in the model with `Voice and Accountability' interaction effects, we identified the statistical significance of party preferences in terms of the impact on the environmental position of individuals.

Regarding our main hypothesis about the influence of support for right-wing populists on the expression of skepticism regarding environmental issues, such as climate change or environmental pollution, it has not been confirmed. Moreover, the results were directly opposite to both our assumptions and the arguments of the researchers. Such findings may indicate that the electorate of right-populist parties can strive primarily for political representation and have no prejudice about the state of the environment, while also does not express skepticism about the real threat of environmental pollution. In addition, the findings obtained, although they do not correspond to the previous findings of the researchers, represent a valuable contribution to them, especially in the CEE context, and demonstrate the difficulty in perceiving the issue under study by individuals with their specific values ??and political views. All those findings open up new directions for further research on the topic of the predictors of environmental skepticism in CEE states, and, specifically, the impact of right-wing populism on the attitudes of the individuals towards the existing environmental problems.

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