Local environmental governance innovation in China: staging ‘triangular dialogues’ for industrial air pollution control

Abstract

Studies of environmental governance in China mainly discuss bilateral encounters, such as popular protests against polluting companies, NGO collaboration with local authorities, or local government collusion with enterprises which can lead to the sabotage of effective pollfution controls. This article studies a case in which a communication mechanism involving multiple actors created a basis for the innovative and successful enforcement of air pollution regulation. Pressurized by popular protests and superior level policy mandates, the Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB) in Hangzhou City started to employ a dialogue forum which ultimately brought residents, enterprises as well as government agencies together to implement local air pollution control measures. Through information-sharing, interest mediation and trust building in a gradually more horizontal process, the government-led multiple stakeholders’ dialogue helped to overcome the agency’s structural weakness, regulate the polluting companies and address residents’ complaints. We conclude that this case study can provide some insights into the ways in which opportunities for driving forward innovative and effective environmental governance strategies at the local level emerged against the background of recently enforced top-level environmental protection policies in China.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• environmental governance
• environmental protest
• governance innovation
• industrial air pollution
• stakeholder dialogue

Notes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Council of Norway [grant number 240060] and the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 71704156].

Notes on contributors

Yongdong Shen is researcher at school of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University. His research interests include: Environmental governance and NGO governance in China. His recent research work focuses on the local governments’ environmental policy enforcement in China. In particular, he is interested in the local implementation of industry-related air policy at the city level in China. He is a research member of an international and interdisciplinary project “Airborne: Pollution, Climate Change, and Visions of Sustainability in China” based at the University of Oslo.

Anna L. Ahlers is associate professor in China Studies at the University of Oslo. Trained in sinology and political science, her research interests include the administrative system, local governance and policy implementation in China, as well as the comparative analysis of political inclusion in authoritarian contexts. Her recent publications include Rural Policy Implementation in Contemporary China: New Socialist Countryside (Routledge, 2014).

Notes

1 See Ahlers and Hansen, “Air Pollution,” 83–96 Kahn and Zheng, Blue Skies over Beijing.

2 Mosley, “Environmental History of Air Pollution and Protection,” 143–169.

3 Ahlers and Hansen, “Air Pollution,” 83–96; Ahlers and Shen, “Breathe Easy,” 299–319.

4 For instance, between 2001 and 2013 alone, nationwide industrial sulphur dioxide (SO₂) and industrial nitrogen oxide discharges increased by 17% and 22% respectively, while industrial dust emissions increased the most, by 28%, which accounted for 85.6% of the total particulate emissions (data provided by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, 2015).

5 See Bergsten, China's Rise; Chan et al. “The Implementation Gap in Environmental Management in China,” 333–340; Kostka and Mol, “Implementation and Participation in China’s Local Environmental Politics,” 3–16; Lo and Tang, “Institutional Reform, Economic Changes, and Local Environmental Management in China,” 190–210.

6 Lieberthal and Oksenberg, Policy Making in China; Lieberthal, and Lampton, Bureaucracy, Politics, and Decision Making in Post-Mao China.

7 O’Brien and Li, “Selective Policy Implementation in Rural China,” 167–186; Van Aken and Lewis, “The Political Economy of Noncompliance in China,” 798–822.

8 See Heberer and Senz, “Streamlining Local Behaviour Through Communication, Incentives and Control,” 77–112; Ran, “Perverse Incentive Structure and Policy Implementation Gap,” 17–39.

9 See Van Rooij and Lo, “Fragile Convergence: Understanding Variation”; Shen and Steuer, “Conflict or Cooperation: The Patterns of Interaction”.

10 Van Rooij, Regulating Land and Pollution in China.

11 Lo and Tang, “Institutional Reform, Economic Changes, and Local Environmental Management in China,” 190–210.

12 Liu et al., “Political Commitment, Policy Ambiguity, and Corporate Environmental Practices,” 1–25; Marquis, Zhang, and Zhou, “Regulatory Uncertainty and Corporate Responses,” 39–63.

13 Johnson, “Environmentalism and NIMBYism in China,” 430–448; Tilt, “The Political Ecology of Pollution Enforcement in China,” 915–932; Van Rooij, “The People vs. Pollution,” 55–77.

14 Zhan, Lo, and Tang, “Contextual Changes and Environmental Policy Implementation,” 1005–1035; Li, Liu, and Li, “Getting Their Voices Heard,” 65–72.

15 See Rooij, Stern, and Fürst, “The Authoritarian Logic of Regulatory Pluralism”; Steinhardt and Wu, “In the Name of the Public,” 61–82; Schmitz, “China's New Weapon Against Water Pollution”.

16 See Deng and Yang, “Pollution and Protest in China,” 321–336; Lora-Wainwright, “The Inadequate Life,” 302–320; Wong, “Environmental Protests and NIMBY Activism,” 143–164; Wu, “Environmental Activism in Provincial China,” 89–109; Zhan and Tang, “Understanding the Implications of Government Ties”.

17 Grano and Zhang, “New Channels for Popular Participation in China,” 165–187.

18 See Kostka and Mol. “Implementation and Participation in China's Local Environmental Politics,” 3–16; Ran. “Perverse Incentive Structure and Policy Implementation Gap,” 17–39; Wu, “Environmental Activism in Provincial China,” 89–108.

19 Tang, Tang, and Lo, “Public Participation and Environmental Impact Assessment,” 1–32; Grano, “The Role of Social Media in Environmental Protest in China,” 83–99.

20 See Lang and Xu, “Anti-incinerator Campaigns and the Evolution of Protest Politics in China,” 832–848; Steinhardt and Wu, “In the Name of the Public,” 61–82.

21 Lo et al., “Controlling Industrial Pollution in Urban China,” 232–258.

22 The bulk of the ‘policy innovation’ and ‘policy entrepreneurs’ literature usually focuses on local leaders/leading cadres as innovative actors. See, for example, Chen and Göbel, “Regulations Against Revolution: Mapping Policy Innovations in China,” 78–98; Mertha, China’s Water Warriors: Citizen Action and Policy Change.

23 Interestingly enough, these two districts themselves were the product of an earlier phase of industrial relocation in the late 1970s/early 1980s, that is, an attempt to move industrial facilities out of the city center to areas which were at that time only satellite towns or suburbs in Hangzhou’s vicinity. See also Hangzhou Daily, “New Chemical [Industry] Park is Gradually Built”. We are very grateful to Lyu Yuan for providing us with this hint; see also his interesting account of Hangzhou’s urban planning history at http://www.jingluecn.com/spdp/1/2018-02-07/13633.html (accessed 26 April 2018).

24 Data provided by the Hangzhou Environment Protection Bureau, 2011.

25 Ibid.

26 Interview with public administration scholars at Zhejiang University, 23 March 2015.

27 Cai, “Use A Strong Hand to Control Industrial Pollution and to Rebuild A New City”.

28 See Li and Chan, “Clean Air in Urban China,” 55–67; Mol and Carter, “China’s Environmental Governance in Transition,” 149–170.

29 China Environmental News, “From Industrial Park to Green Home”.

30 Interview with one of the former leaders of the self-help organization, 16 July 2015.

31 Interview with an official from the Hangzhou City EPB, 22 March 2015.

32 Interview with one of the former leading representatives of the Wanjia Huacheng Community residents’ organization, 21 July 2015.

33 Interview with one of the former leading representatives of the Wanjia Huacheng Community residents’ organization, 21 July 2015.

34 Interview with one of the former leading representatives of the Wanjia Huacheng Community residents’ organization, 21 July 2015.

35 Interview with an official from the Hangzhou City EPB, 11 July 2016.

36 Ibid.

37 The residents’ committee assisted the EPB in selecting half of the representatives. The other half came from the homeowners’ association.

38 Interview with an official from the Hangzhou City EPB, 22 March 2015.

39 Meanwhile, the EPB occupied a room in the factory as a temporary office to monitor the factory’s compliance.

40 Interview, 11 July 2016.

41 Ibid.

42 Interview with a scholar from Zhejiang University, 8 November 2015.

43 China Environmental News, “From Industrial Park to Green Home”.

44 See the report ‘Staging a consultation platform and conciliating conflicts between enterprises and residents’ at Maqiao Township government’s website, http://www.shmq.gov.cn/sites/maqiaozhen/maqiaozhen_content.aspx?ctgid=d4894652-c1ca-4d18-9be9-63cc7bc3a5b3&infoId=dee3e45e-f8a2-4c49-b020-0dc1a843203a (Accessed 9 September 2016).

45 See Carter and Mol, Environmental Governance in China; Ran, “Perverse Incentive Structure and Policy Implementation Gap,” 17–39.

46 He and Warren, “Authoritarian Deliberation: The Deliberative Turn,” 269–289; Teets, “Let Many Civil Societies Bloom,” 19–38; Truex, “Consultative Authoritarianism and its Limits,” 329–361.

47 Ahlers and Schubert, “Effective Policy Implementation in China’s Local State,” 372–405; Li, Miao, and Lang, “The Local Environmental State in China,” 115–132.

48 In 2016, the percentage reached 61.2% according to the Hangzhou Statistical Bureau’s ‘Hangzhou National Economy and Social Development Statistical Bulletin’.