PUBLIC APPROVAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL-PROTECTION AND OTHER NEW SOCIAL-MOVEMENT GOALS IN WESTERN-EUROPE AND THE UNITED-STATES

The environmental movement is one of the most successful social moveme nts of the twentieth century, and a key reason for its success has bee n strong public approval of the movement's goal of environmental prote ction. This paper reports cross-national data on public approval of en vironmental protection relative to approval of the goals of other majo r 'new social movements'--the anti-nuclear power movement, the nuclear disarmament movement, the women's movement, the human rights movement and the animal rights movement--in Western Europe and the United Stat es. The data come from a 1990 'lifestyles and attitudes' survey conduc ted by Gallup for Reader's Digest, based on nationally representative samples in the United States and seventeen European nations, and show higher public approval for environmental protection than for the goals of other new social movements.