When Environmental Activism Meets Local Governance: The Role of Government Transparency and Responsiveness in China

Abstract

Existing literature has examined the contextual effects on individual environmental activism, but little research has been conducted to investigate how local-level governance factors affect individual environmental activism, particularly in developing countries. This paper investigates the moderating effects of local government transparency and responsiveness on the motivation-activism relationship in China. We compiled a provincial-level database capturing local government transparency and responsiveness and combined this with data from the China General Social Survey 2013. Multilevel modeling analysis revealed that motivation factors at the individual level have stronger effects on individual engagement in environmental activism when government transparency and responsiveness are more encouraging at the provincial level. The results not only point to local governance as a contextual factor for understanding individual environmental activism in China but also highlight the need to consider the interactions of individuals in the political context to understand how individual factors translate into environmental activism in many developing countries.

Keywords:

• China
• environmental activism
• government transparency
• government responsiveness
• multilevel analysis

Notes

1 Refer to http://cgss.ruc.edu.cn/index.php?r=index/index for the sampling techniques and surveyed questionnaires of the CGSS 2013.

2 The Government Transparency Index (GTI) developed by the Chinese Academy of Social Science is freely available from the Bluebook database website. Refer to https://www.pishu.com.cn/skwx_ps/database?SiteID=14 for index designs, measures, and results.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China [No. 16CGL050].