The Greening of the Globe? Cross-national Levels of Environmental Group Membership

Is the environmental movement still growing in members? What explains cross-national levels of environmental mobilisation? This article addresses these questions using data from the new 1999-2002 wave of the World Values Survey. We describe the membership levels in environmental groups across nations, and then examine rival explanations for why membership is concentrated in certain nations although environmental concerns exist globally. We first find that environmental groups represent one of the most common forms of political group membership on a global scale, and membership levels are increasing. We also demonstrate that the combination of social and political conditions in advanced industrial democracies is a strong predictor of environmental group membership levels.