Thomas Bernauer

Thomas Bernauer is a professor of political science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) and a Research Associate at SciencesPo’s Centre de Recherches Internationales. He was the founding director of ETH Zurich’s Institute of Science, Technology and Policy (ISTP), which has now evolved into ETH Zurich’s Einstein School of Public Policy, and a lead author in IPCC working group II for AR6. He currently serves as ETH Zurich’s associate vice president for sustainability transformation. 

His research has focused on environmental politics and governance for several decades, based on large-scale statistical comparisons of countries over time, the analysis of individuals’ environmental attitudes, behaviours, and policy preferences using survey embedded experiments, and case study research and interaction with policymakers and stakeholders. He has received an ERC Advanced Grant and the American Political Science Associations’ Elinor Ostrom career achievement award. He has published around 190 articles in scientific journals and more than ten books.

Bernauer and his research group are particularly interested in the following questions:

• How to measure and explain environmental attitudes, policy preferences, and behavior of citizens and consumers across different social, economic, political, and cultural contexts?
   
• Why do some countries perform better than others in terms of environmental impacts of production and consumption, and sustainable development more generally?
   
• Why are some countries more cooperative than others in international efforts to solve international environmental problems?
   
• To what extent do climate change and resource scarcity cause societal problems such as migration, reduced economic growth, and political violence?
  
  For further information, see
  https://scholar.google.ch/citations?user=fQWggs0AAAAJ&hl=en
  and
  https://ib.ethz.ch

Policies against urban air pollution in the Global South; measuring and explaining the environmental attitudes, behaviours, and policy preferences of people in various countries

courses in environmental politics, political economy, and public policy analysis

Recent examples:

Smith, E.K., Bernauer, T. 2026. Do voluntary industry measures shift support for stronger environmental governance? Environmental Research Letters, https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aea9ae.

Gomm, S., Blumer, Y., Czellar, S., Haasova, S., Kuehne, S.J., Schubert, R., Bernauer, T., (2026). Comparing and Combining Theory of Planned Behavior and Dragons of Inaction to Explain Pro-Environmental Consumption Behavior. Sustainable Production and Consumption, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2026.04.00.

Smith, E. K., … Bernauer, T. (2026). Strong demand for clean air policies in emerging markets and developing economies. Nature Cities, https://doi.org/10.1038/s44284-026-00451-x.

Schoch, M., Fournier de Lauriere, C., Bernauer, T. (2026). Large gaps in monitoring urban air pollution in low- and middle- income countries associated with economic conditions and political institutions. PLoS One 21(1): e0321358, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321358.

Smith, E. K…..Bernauer, T. (2026). Climate Policy Feasibility across Europe Relies on the Conditional Middle. Nature Climate Change, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-026-02562-8.

Boehmelt, T., Bernauer, T. (2025) Does democratic backsliding undermine climate policy? No evidence (yet). iScience, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.114038.

Boehmelt, T., Henninger, E., Bernauer, T. (2025) Shifting Environmental Pollution Abroad Contributes to Lower Emissions in Democracies. PLOS Climate, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000602.

Rhein, S., Bernauer, T. (2025) Balancing Immediate Policy Costs and Uncertainty about Long-term Policy Effectiveness to Increase Public Support for Climate Action. Journal of European Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2025.2470313.

Bernauer, T., Böhmelt, T., Henninger, E. (2025) Can Democracy Protect Lower-Income Countries from Becoming Pollution Havens? Journal of Environment and Development, https://doi.org/10.1177/10704965251317436.

Gomm, S., Huber, R., Kolcava, D., Smith, K., Bernauer, T. (2024) Procedural inclusiveness can mitigate trust challenges in environmental policy-making. Journal of European Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2024.2413458.