Ecological Modernization, Policy Legitimacy, and Environmental Behavior: Evidence from Turkey’s Plastic Bag Charge

Market-based environmental policies are typically evaluated in terms of their deterrent effects on individual behavior, yet this perspective offers only a partial explanation of how such instruments operate in practice. This study argues that market-based regulation can also function as a legitimacy-generating governance mechanism that shapes environmental action through socio-emotional pathways. Focusing on Turkey’s plastic bag charge introduced in 2019, the study examines whether price-based regulation operates solely through cost sensitivity or also through perceived policy legitimacy and emotional environmental engagement. Drawing on ecological modernization theory and regulatory governance literature, the study employs survey data from 515 participants in Turkey to test a mediation model linking perceived policy legitimacy, emotional environmental engagement, and environmental action. The findings show that perceived policy legitimacy significantly enhances emotional environmental engagement, which in turn predicts both individual and collective environmental action. These results indicate that policy effectiveness extends beyond economic deterrence and depends on the capacity of policies to generate emotional engagement among citizens. The study contributes by demonstrating the dual governance role of market-based instruments and by integrating affective mechanisms into environmental governance analysis.