Multilateralism, government policy and the public opinion: Dutch views on the Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

A multilateral organ, a national public and a national government are three entities that are inseparably intertwined. Together they form the dynamic policy triangle: a vibrant political system, constantly changing due to insights in the scholarly and public debate. This vibrancy leads to the fact that, despite an abundance of performed academic research, the relationship between the three entities remains a relevant field of investigation. A relatively unexplored aspect of the dynamic policy triangle is the working of a multilateral policy package within the relationship between national public and national government. An example of such a multilateral policy package is the United Nations’s collection of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The general assumption is that all the goals are of equal importance, and that no country should be left behind when attempting to achieve them. National governments seem to follow this rationale, and claim not to make any prioritisation of one SDG over another. However, literature has shown that prioritisations of certain SDGs are likely to be made by national governments. Additionally, it is conceivable that citizens also prioritise certain goals over others. Both seem previously unexplored in academic literature and government publications. This research partially fills these gaps in knowledge by performing a Discrete Choice Modelling experiment within the domain of the Netherlands. This is a method in which respondents of a survey are asked to review several hypothetical scenarios and to choose their preferred option out of a finite set of choices. In total, 36 Discrete Choice Models were estimated, either for the total sample of respondents, or for the samples of Dutch citizens and policy makers separately. The results provide indicative evidence that Dutch citizens and Dutch policy makers are to a great extent aligned in terms of their SDG preferences. For the main part, both groups do not prioritise certain goals over others. Also, when comparing individual SDGs between the two groups, no significant differences are to be found. The results, however, do suggest several differences between the two groups. Firstly, Dutch citizens relatively reject SDG 17 - to revitalise global partnership for sustainable development - to several others. In this finding, a preference for planet- and people related SDGs becomes apparent. Policy makers do not show this behaviour. Secondly, Dutch policy makers prefer SDG 15 over SDGs 7, 8, and 9 in the Netherlands. This shows that biodiversity in their own country is prioritised, and that certain economical and innovative SDGs are deemed of lesser importance. Citizens do not show this behaviour. The results suggest a preference for SDG action in the Global South; 13% more weight is attributed to SDG action in the Global South than in the Netherlands. This preference does not significantly differ between the two study groups. Also, the results indicate that both groups are loss-averse in the SDG context, meaning that SDG action is considered more important in a scenario when a certain SDG decreases than when it increases. It was found that citizens are more loss-averse than policy makers.