The Role of The Individualism-Collectivism Dimension in Shaping Policy-Support for EU Disaster-Relief

Background Climate change (CC) poses an urgent global challenge, its impact increasingly requiring coordinated policy response. While cultural values have been shown to play a potentially strong role in shaping political attitudes and behaviours, the role of individualism-collectivism (I-C) has primarily been examined against mitigative rather than adaptive CC attitudes – and is even further limited within the European context. As the EU expands its role in adaptive climate policy implementation, understanding national cultural drivers of policy support for EU-led disaster relief becomes increasingly pertinent. Methods This study conducted a secondary quantitative analysis of the relationship between national levels of individualism and attitudinal variables measuring support for EU-coordinated disaster relief policy. The study utilised national individualism scores and Eurobarometer survey data, and then integrated multiple regression models to incorporate appropriate control variables. Results The analysis revealed that individualism was significantly positively correlated with support for intra-EU disaster relief policy. Conversely, there was no significant relationship between individualism and general support for coordinated EU response to disasters. Conclusion The findings refuted the notion that individualism led to an outright opposition towards CC policy, and pointed towards the value in distinguishing between mitigatory and adaptive climate change policy. Further research using a larger sample of countries, or utilising an individual-level methodological approach may be beneficial, in order to increase the sample and statistical power of the analysis.