Environmental inter-local collaboration under meta-governance: the trade-off between collective and selective benefits

ABSTRACT

This study investigates how local decision-makers influence the impact of high-level government meta-governance tools on environmental inter-local collaboration when the collective benefits of inter-jurisdictional collaboration conflict with the selective benefits of decision-makers. We address this issue focusing on empirical cases of inter-provincial watershed environmental collaborations in China. Using a difference-in-differences model for the analysis, we find that meta-governance tools of high-level government can facilitate the adoption of environmental inter-local collaboration arrangements. However, this facilitation decreases when local decision-makers lack progressive ambition or face peer competition. This study demonstrates the strategic responses of local decision-makers in environmental inter-local collaboration influenced by high-level government.

KEYWORDS:

• Inter-local collaboration
• meta-governance
• local decision-makers
• collective benefits
• selective benefits

Acknowledgments

The earlier version of this article was presented at seminars sponsored by Tsinghua University, Beijing Normal University, and Huazhong Normal University in 2021. We thank the participating scholars at seminars and anonymous reviewers for their valuable discussions and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

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

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/03003930.2022.2148662.

Notes

1. In China, it is common for provincial jurisdictions to have multiple cross-provincial rivers; however, only a few were covered by the pre-2012 monitoring system. The 2012‘s river pollution monitoring reform expanded the coverage to include more cross-provincial rivers, increasing the pressure on provincial governments to meet central environmental targets.

2. See the appendix for more information.

3. The full search and identification process was conducted back-to-back by two experienced researchers to ensure internal reliability.

4. The same identification method was used to search for other provincial jurisdictions, including zhixiashi (municipalities) and zizhiqu (autonomous regions).