Influencing factors of spatial conflicts in the Chinese urban environment from the perspective of spatial politics: empirical study based on NCA and fsQCA

Abstract

In the ‘environmental era,’ the ubiquitous spatial conflicts in the urban environment have become a typical dilemma hindering sustainable urban development and inhibiting local governance. Based on the theory of spatial politics, with the use of Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA) and fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), this article analyzes empirically 40 typical cases of spatial conflicts in the Chinese urban environment, to examine what conditions and their combinations contribute to the occurrence of environmental conflicts. It is found that a ‘lack of communicative space’ and a ‘lack of government trust’ are the sine qua non for urban environmental spatial conflict and that the existence of ‘spatial cognition differences,’ the use of ‘discourse framework,’ ‘technological power,’ ‘organizational strategies,’ and ‘social actors’ are found to be sufficient causes for the occurrence of spatial conflict in urban environments. Accordingly, the article constructs five contextualized models to explain the formation of spatial conflict in urban environments. In contrast to the traditional ‘institution-centered,’ ‘culture-centered,’ ‘identity-centered,’ and ‘media-centered’ approaches to the study of environmental resistance, this study based on the theory of spatial conflicts shall enhance our knowledge and understanding of the ‘spatial dimension’ in the phenomenon of environmental resistance. They reveal the political and social nature of the spatial production of urban environments, thus providing a theoretical framework for understanding the occurrence of environmental resistance from a spatial perspective, while providing a compatible and holistic insight into the ‘politics of elite resistance’ and the ‘politics of subaltern resistance,’ and outlining the possibility of bridging the theoretical differences.

Keywords:

• Environmental spatial conflicts
• spatial politics
• spatial actions
• communicative space
• local government

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

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68. In this case, the data of communicative space and government trust are treated negatively. The results obtained are for ∼ communicative space and ∼ government trust, i.e. the influence of the two conditions, “lack of communicative space” and “low government trust” on environmental spatial conflicts.

69. See note 60 above.

70. It is worth noting that ∼ government trust effect size has a p value of 0.051, which is slightly higher than the critical value 0.05, for which Dul et al. suggested that when the amount of training is increased, the precision of the p value test is also increased, and that the approximation is acceptable for the practical purposes of significance testing. If the 95% confidence interval is set, the precision of the p value is 0.004 for 10,000 training and the exact p value is ± one precision, i.e. in the range 0.046 to 0.054. Therefore, the p value for ∼ government trust satisfies the test of the level of significance and is a necessary condition.

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73. See note 71 above.

74. See note 57 above.

75. See note 62 above.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Xiaoxia Zang

Xiaoxia Zang is a PhD candidate in Public Administration at School of Public Affairs at Zhejiang University. Her research focus is environmental governance and spatial politics.

Sujian Guo

Sujian Guo is a honorary professor of Fudan Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences, an adjunct professor of School of Public Affairs at Zhejiang University, professor of political science at San Francisco State University, editor-in-chief or co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Chinese Political Science, the Journal of Chinese Governance, the Chinese Political Science Review, the Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Editor of Rowman & Littlefield book series on Chinese political development, and former president of the Association of Chinese Political Studies (USA). His research interests include comparative politics, Chinese/Asian politics, governance theories, US-China relations, communist and post-communist studies, democratic transitions, and the political economy of East and Southeast Asia. He has published over 70 academic articles in both English and Chinese and nearly 40 authored and edited books in English and Chinese in the above areas.