Learning through international cooperation: a case study of two Chinese counties implementing the Grain for Green project

Abstract

China’s remarkable economic development has been achieved at the cost of its environment. Scholarly attention on international norm diffusion and policy learning asserts that international influence could make a positive impact on China’s environmental politics. However, the policy process in China still retains the campaign style, which dates back to Mao’s era. This case study of two inland counties in Shaanxi province provides empirical material that partially challenges the so-called international influence approach. County B and W, which were involved in an international forestry cooperation project with the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KFW), both learned from their partner in subsequently implementing the Grain for Green project, but with different levels of learning and, consequently, different institutional changes. The findings based on these two counties indicate an important factor other than the structure of international influence, one which definitely affects policy learning and the resultant changes made by local bureaucrats, namely local learning agents; thus, a locality with a strong local learning agent is more likely to induce learning and substantive institutional changes. The findings also underscore the difficulty in spreading new norms and knowledge from international actors to the Chinese government. The impact of international influence in enhancing domestic governance cannot be taken for granted.

Keywords:

• policy learning
• international cooperation
• bureaucrats
• Grain for Green

Acknowledgement

The research for this article was supported by a grant from the Beijing Federation of Social Science Circles (2012SKL015) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (SKZZY2013041) in China.

Notes

1. Local officials in these two counties who were interviewed did not want to be identified; so, “B” and “W” are used here to represent the two counties.

2. The first attempt to convert arable land to forests through economic incentives was the “2605” project funded by the United Nation World Food Program in Xiji County, Ningxia Province during the 1982-1986 period. It illustrates a good lesson for the Grain for Green project. After successful implementation of the project from 1983 to 1986 based on international grants and technologies, the entire policy outcome was reversed back to the status quo ante. Farmers returned to farming as soon as subsidies expired.