TY - JOUR
T1 - Political economy of just transition
T2 - Disparate impact of coal mine closure on state-owned and private coal workers in Inner Mongolia, China
AU - Wang, Xinxin
AU - Lo, Kevin
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the General Research Fund (12600718) of the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2022/8
Y1 - 2022/8
N2 - This paper adopts a political economy perspective to examines the transition management of China's coal mine closure policy and explores how and to what extent a just transition has been achieved. Drawing on first-hand evidence collected from a coal city in Inner Mongolia, China, we found that while the coal workers from state-owned mines were supported by job reallocation and retirement plans, the coal workers from privately owned mines, who were mostly of rural origin and hold a rural hukou, were laid-off without adequate compensation and job assistance. Furthermore, the government failed to help the private coal workers, as the predicament of the private coal workers was not considered the responsibility of the government. These issues were fundamentally linked to China's political economic contexts such as rural-urban inequality, incomplete marketization, and authoritarianism. In addition to demonstrating the importance of understanding just transition through a political economy perspective that is sensitive to local contexts, the findings also warn against treating workers from the fossil fuel industry as a homogenized whole because it may mask the reality of structural inequality, obscure the differences among workers, and create a false appearance of justice by excluding certain groups from the logic of a just transition for all. We argue that the transition cannot be considered as “just” without identifying who is the most vulnerable group affected by such a transition. Therefore, “just transition for whom” is a key question in the evaluation of transition management.
AB - This paper adopts a political economy perspective to examines the transition management of China's coal mine closure policy and explores how and to what extent a just transition has been achieved. Drawing on first-hand evidence collected from a coal city in Inner Mongolia, China, we found that while the coal workers from state-owned mines were supported by job reallocation and retirement plans, the coal workers from privately owned mines, who were mostly of rural origin and hold a rural hukou, were laid-off without adequate compensation and job assistance. Furthermore, the government failed to help the private coal workers, as the predicament of the private coal workers was not considered the responsibility of the government. These issues were fundamentally linked to China's political economic contexts such as rural-urban inequality, incomplete marketization, and authoritarianism. In addition to demonstrating the importance of understanding just transition through a political economy perspective that is sensitive to local contexts, the findings also warn against treating workers from the fossil fuel industry as a homogenized whole because it may mask the reality of structural inequality, obscure the differences among workers, and create a false appearance of justice by excluding certain groups from the logic of a just transition for all. We argue that the transition cannot be considered as “just” without identifying who is the most vulnerable group affected by such a transition. Therefore, “just transition for whom” is a key question in the evaluation of transition management.
KW - China
KW - Coal mine closure policy
KW - Coal workers
KW - Just transition
KW - Political economy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85126875627&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.erss.2022.102585
DO - 10.1016/j.erss.2022.102585
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85126875627
SN - 2214-6296
VL - 90
JO - Energy Research and Social Science
JF - Energy Research and Social Science
M1 - 102585
ER -