Blunt force regulation and bureaucratic control: Understanding China's war on pollution

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: van der Kamp, Denise S.
• 署名单位: City University of Hong Kong
• 刊物名称: GOVERNANCE-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF POLICY ADMINISTRATION AND INSTITUTIONS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0952-1895
• DOI: 10.1111/gove.12485
• 发表日期: 2021
• 关键词: environmental-protection; infrastructural power; PUBLIC-PARTICIPATION; state capacity; air-pollution; LAW; ENFORCEMENT; governance; incentives; Campaigns

摘要

In the past decade, China has increasingly resorted to top-down, blunt force solutions to environmental problems; officials forcibly shutter or destroy factories to reduce pollution, at immense cost to local growth and employment. Why would a high capacity state like China resort to such a costly method of pollution control? I argue that blunt force enforcement is targeted at overcoming principal-agent problems in the bureaucracy. When institutions are too weak to hold bureaucrats accountable, political leaders increase oversight by drastically reducing the number of steps and resources required to produce a regulatory outcome-resulting in blunt force measures. I illustrate this logic through case studies from China's multiyear war on pollution. Using original data on blunt force measures, I then show how localities with lower bureaucratic compliance face greater blunt force pollution enforcement. These findings reveal that when bureaucratic accountability is weak, states pay a very high cost for cleaner air.