Typology of welfare states: quality criteria for governance and ecology

  • Received October 3, 2018;
    Accepted November 5, 2018;
    Published November 21, 2018
  • Author(s)
  • DOI
    http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ppm.16(4).2018.20
  • Article Info
    Volume 16 2018, Issue #4, pp. 235-245
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In the 21st century, in addition to the generally well-known indicators of material well-being, in the modern paradigm of the welfare state, the quality of the ecological environment is gaining an ever-increasing role. Besides that, the modern definition of welfare state takes into account not only environmental dimension, but also the quality of institutions through the governance system that affects the supply of environmental goods. The study provides the classification of countries according to indicators that can ensure the identification of welfare states and the assessment of the classification role of the criteria for environmental state.
The strong direct correlation between environmental state and government efficiency has been established. The results of the classification of the studied countries obtained by k-means clustering methods indicate the possibility of using the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), Government Effectiveness Index (GEI) and government expenditures indicators as complementary attributes to the classical criteria for the welfare state.
The level of country EPI can be regarded as an important complementary criterion for the welfare state. The country environmental state is much more determined by the government efficiency, the quality of state institutions and their activities, rather than by an extensive increase in the funding of such institutions and environmental measures.

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    • Figure 1. Ordination of countries according to their multidimensional scaling according to EPI, GEI and ExpGov indicators
    • Figure 2. Ordination of the countries on the governance efficiency and the share of government expenditures in GDP (the larger diameter of the bubble illustrates the relatively better level of country environmental state)
    • Figure 3. Schedule of multiple linear regression model of dependence of country environmental state on the level of government expenditures in GDP and government efficiency
    • Table 1. Internal and external sources of environmental governance
    • Тable 2. Options for “state scale” and government effectiveness: theoretical analysis
    • Table 3. Composition and average values of country clusters* by the environmental state, the efficiency of governance and the share of government expenditures in GDP
    • Table 4. Generalized results of one-factor dispersion analysis (dependent variable – successively each of indicators, predictor – cluster number)
    • Table 5. Correlation matrix of Government Effectiveness Index (GEI), level of government expenditures (ExpGov) and Environmental Performance Index (EPI) of 135 countries
    • Table 6. Results of multiple linear regression analysis: regressant – the country environmental state, regressors – the government efficiency and the level of government expenditures in GDP
    • Table 7. Results of multiple nonlinear regression analysis: regressant – the country environmental state, regressors – the government efficiency and government expenditures in GDP