Central–Local Relations
Recentralization and Environmental Governance in China
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23337147 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Genia Kostka (0000-0002-3696-9513, Freie Universität Berlin), Jonas Nahm (0000-0003-1742-5999, Johns Hopkins University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 231 |
| Pages | 567-582 |
| Publication date | 2017-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The China Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0009-4439 • E-ISSN: 1468-2648 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0305741017001011 |
| OpenAlex | W2607750144 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 143 |
| References cited | 45 |
Recent literature on environmental governance in China frequently ascribes blame for China's environmental problems to sub-national governments' lax environmental enforcement. Such research implicitly assumes that more central control would lead to better results but, as yet, the role of the centre in environmental governance remains underresearched. In the context of the current phase of recentralization, this article studies central and local interests, capacities and interactions across policy issues and government agencies. By “bringing the centre back” into the study of central–local relations in China, we examine both where such recentralization has in fact occurred and whether such recentralization efforts have improved environmental outcomes. We argue that centralization does not improve outcomes in every case. Further, central and local levels of governance are not as different as they might seem. Indeed, there are significant areas of overlapping interests and similar patterns of behaviour, both positive (enforcement) and negative (shirking), between central and local administrations. The results draw an empirically and theoretically rich picture of central–local relations that highlights the innate complexity of China's environmental governance patterns during the current phase of recentralization.
Business · Central government · China · Context (archaeology) · Corporate governance · Enforcement · Environmental governance · Geography · Government (linguistics) · Local government · Political science · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Law · Local Government Finance and Decentralization · Public Administration
The Failure of Land-Driven Development
The Paris Agreement and the Prospects for Socialization into the Climate Norm
A State-Society Approach to Climate Policy Diffusion for Sustainable Development in East Asia
Tensions and opportunities at Shanghai’s waterfronts
Experimental state rescaling, goal-oriented governance, and urban transformation in China
Petitioning and Social Stability in China
Chinese climate statecraft
Pollution acceleration before braking
Does Individuals’ Perception of Wastewater Pollution Decrease Their Self-Rated Health? Evidence from China
How Does Environmental Regulation Affect the Green Growth of China’s Citrus Industry? The Mediating Role of Technological Innovation
Who gets what and why? A configurational analysis of China’s environmental regulatory enforcement
Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches to Environmental Governance in China
Constructing the accountability of food safety as a public problem in China
The Effect of Governance on Industrial Wastewater Pollution in China
Applying Insights from China
The Forms, Channels and Conditions of Regional Agricultural Carbon Emission Reduction Interaction
Trust is in the air
Local protectionism and national oversight
The environmental-financial nexus
From mining parks to heritage tourism
The impact of conventional policy instruments on climate change mitigation in China
Varieties of Local Implementation for Net Zero in China
Beyond central-local relations
Government-funded productions in ecological civilization
Whether Social Participation Can Affect the Central Government Public Policy Response to the Covid-19 in China
Are there heterogeneities in environmental risks among different types of resource-based cities in China? Assessment based on environmental risk field approach
More trust in central government during the Covid-19 pandemic? Citizens’ emotional reactions, government performance, and trust in governments
Legitimizing Energy Transition in China
Legal and Political Practices in China’s Central–Local Dynamics
Self-Organization Response in a Crisis
Just sustainability, actor-networks and environmental politics in China
Making Authoritarian Environmentalism Accountable? Understanding China’s New Reforms on Environmental Governance
From Policy to Practice
Provincial variations and entrepreneurialism in the development of China’s Distant Water Fisheries (2011–2020)
Multi-scale policy diffusion of marine emissions governance
How does policy innovation diffuse among Chinese local governments? A qualitative comparative analysis of River Chief Innovation
Decentralized governance and collective action dilemma
The impact of recentralization reform on corruption
Evidence-informed urban health and sustainability governance in two Chinese cities
Top-down pressure and bottom-up responses
Multi-level climate governance or contested carbon exceptionalism? The (re)making of a low-carbon city in Shenzhen, China
Constructing payments for ecosystem services hydrosocial territories through assemblage practices
Techno-economic rationalities as a political practice in urban environmental politics in China
Pressure-driven or resource-driven
China’s Commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals
Mining violations, rent-seeking, and resource governance in China
Strategic insights into China’s overseas acquisitions
Navigating ambiguity
Authoritarian energy transitions undermined? Environmental governance cycles in China’s power sector
Not just the state
Multi-level governance and competing sustainability aims
Exploring policy implementation in China
China and the environment
Novel virus, novel response
Clientelism by Design
Strategic heterogeneity
The Enemy Within? Green Industrial Policy and Stranded Assets in China’s Power Sector
Governance of Chinese professional football during Xi’s authoritarian era
The mandate of “heaven”
Central inspection teams and the enforcement of environmental regulations in China
Justice and injustice under authoritarian environmentalism
How China adopted eco-friendly forest development
Comparative conclusion on forest-related nature conservation policy in China and Germany
Implementation gaps affecting the quality of biodiversity conservation management
Economic recessions and decarbonisation
Provincial Power in a Centralizing China
Modes of Governance in the Chinese Bureaucracy
Regulatory Takings as Territorialisation
Performative legitimation of waste-to-energy infrastructure
One-vote veto
Dilemmas of State-Led Environmental Conservation in China
When Environmental Activism Meets Local Governance
The multiple faces of recentralization
Waterfront regeneration as a political mission
Conservation equity for local communities in the process of tourism development in protected areas
From campaign-style governance to multiple environmentalities
Localizing the digital
Let the Poor Talk About “Poverty
China’s digitalised water governance and authoritarian environmentalism
Ecological civilization
On the distributional effects of principal-agent problems
Strategic compliance
Central–local governance gaps
China's energy policy
Theorisation of environmental justice in Chinese political philosophy
Green development coalition
Environmental Statecraft and Changing Environmental Politics
The Reluctant Governor
Assembling city-regional imaginaries
Centralising state power, undermining local growth politics and escalating debt crisis
State rescaling, power reconfiguration and path dependence
Blue sky, cold heart
The changing role of the state
The Impact of Intergovernmental Cooperation and Local Fiscal Autonomy on Environmental Regional Governance
The dance of power and responsibility
New officials, fresh outlooks on policy uncertainty
Quantity or quality
Provincial environmental inequality in China
Governing through ambiguity in the normalizing society
Lessons of government centralization and credibility
China’s administrative hierarchy
Decentralized Authoritarianism in China
Accountability without Democracy
Multitask Principal–Agent Analyses
Implementation and Participation in China's Local Environmental Politics
Perverse Incentive Structure and Policy Implementation Gap in China's Local Environmental Politics
Understanding Blame Politics in China's Decentralized System of Environmental Governance
“Fragmented Authoritarianism 2.0”
Regional decentralization and fiscal incentives
Political turnover and economic performance
An Essay on Fiscal Federalism
The Fundamental Institutions of China's Reforms and Development
Good Government in the Tropics
Killing a Chicken to Scare the Monkeys? Deterrence Failure and Local Defiance In China
From Local Experiments to National Policy
China’s Shallow Integration
Scale-up Nation
Decentralization and Veiled Corruption under China’s “Rule of Mandates”
The Hollowing Out of the State
A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures
Command without control
The authoritarian logic of regulatory pluralism
Retrospective Economic Accountability under Authoritarianism
Dilemmas of pluralist development and democratization in China
Selective Policy Implementation in Rural China
Balancing Priorities, Aligning Interests
Career Backgrounds of Municipal Party Secretaries in China
Maximum Tinkering under Uncertainty
Crossing the great divide
China's environmental governance in transition
| Unique citing works | 143 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 17,88 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2026 (9) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 138 |