TY - JOUR
T1 - How authoritarian is the environmental governance of China?
AU - Lo, Kevin
N1 - Funding Information:
This project received financial support from the Australian Research Council Grant ( DP1094801 ) [Low-carbon Project] and the School of Land and Environment, University of Melbourne .
PY - 2015/12/1
Y1 - 2015/12/1
N2 - This paper challenges the prevailing perception that the environmental governance of China is a case exemplar of authoritarian environmentalism. Using low-carbon governance as an example, it shows that although China's national low-carbon policy appears highly authoritarian, the situation on the ground is much more ambiguous, displaying a mixture of authoritarian and liberal features. While China's top-down and non-participatory policy environment has been crucial in stimulating a low-carbon transition, the failure of the central government to control local actors has created a situation of de facto neoliberal environmentalism, where local governments and energy-intensive enterprises enjoy a high degree of freedom and flexibility to manage their own energy consumption in spite of the overt authoritarian rule. The findings of this research show that viewing China's environmental governance as a clear-cut instance of authoritarian environmentalism should be done with circumspection, and that studying the nature of environmental governance as a complex process requires a thorough understanding of not just national policy but also local politics and the ways the two are connected.
AB - This paper challenges the prevailing perception that the environmental governance of China is a case exemplar of authoritarian environmentalism. Using low-carbon governance as an example, it shows that although China's national low-carbon policy appears highly authoritarian, the situation on the ground is much more ambiguous, displaying a mixture of authoritarian and liberal features. While China's top-down and non-participatory policy environment has been crucial in stimulating a low-carbon transition, the failure of the central government to control local actors has created a situation of de facto neoliberal environmentalism, where local governments and energy-intensive enterprises enjoy a high degree of freedom and flexibility to manage their own energy consumption in spite of the overt authoritarian rule. The findings of this research show that viewing China's environmental governance as a clear-cut instance of authoritarian environmentalism should be done with circumspection, and that studying the nature of environmental governance as a complex process requires a thorough understanding of not just national policy but also local politics and the ways the two are connected.
KW - Authoritarian environmentalism
KW - China
KW - Environmental governance
KW - Low-carbon governance
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84937435988&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.envsci.2015.06.001
DO - 10.1016/j.envsci.2015.06.001
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:84937435988
SN - 1462-9011
VL - 54
SP - 152
EP - 159
JO - Environmental Science and Policy
JF - Environmental Science and Policy
ER -