Creating institutions to protect the environment: the role of Chinese central environmental inspection

ABSTRACT

The working mechanism of Chinese central environmental inspection (CEI) has been evolving. Through integrating insights from the notions of institutional pillars, institutional work and the level of institutionalisation, this study constructs a framework that is suited to unravel the working mechanisms of the new CEI and to assess its potential in transforming local environmental governance regime. Through two sets of empirical evidence, we found that CEI has employed six types of institutional work to change both formal and informal institutions regarding environmental protection at local level, and has led to an increased in local governments’ political attention on environmental planning. The findings from this study make important supplement to current research on CEI, which have been dominated by evaluating CEI’s impact on curbing end-of-pipe pollutants through econometric models. Based on our findings, it is suggested that successive CEIs are required in the near future to further deepening the level of institutionalisation of environmental protection and prevent the situation regressing.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmental management
• central environmental inspection
• China
• institutional work
• local government

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 a particularly pertinent Chinese expression denoting the powerful and attention-grabbing way authorities move in, and for a brief while make a great statement regarding environmental issues

2 Including 29 government rectification reports, 15 speeches and 40 news reports.

3 Government annual report is written in a concise but clear manner, which is an important carrier of the government's attention distribution during a certain period in time. The proportion of change in content reflects the degree to which the government attaches importance to different public affairs.

4 In China, the government annual report is issued in January or February of each year, reporting the government work in the previous and provide work plan for the issue year. Therefore, the government annual report in 2016 actually reflect what the government has been done work in 2015, and what the government plan to do in 2016.

5 when a sentence covers content of more than one code.