Hostname: page-component-5b777bbd6c-pf7kn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-24T23:14:35.286Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Authoritarian Environmentalism Undermined? Local Leaders’ Time Horizons and Environmental Policy Implementation in China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2014

Sarah Eaton  and
Genia Kostka
Sarah Eaton*
Affiliation:
The University of Oxford Centre for China Studies.
Genia Kostka
Affiliation:
The Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. Email: geniakostka@gmail.com.
*
Email: eatonsarahb@gmail.com (corresponding author).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

China's national leaders see restructuring and diversification away from resource-based, energy intensive industries as central goals in the coming years. On the basis of extensive fieldwork in China between 2010 and 2012, we suggest that the high turnover of leading cadres at the local level may hinder state-led greening growth initiatives. Frequent cadre turnover is intended primarily to keep local Party secretaries and mayors on the move in order to promote the implementation of central directives. While rotation does seem to aid implementation by reducing coordination problems, there are also significant downsides to local leaders changing office every three to four years. Officials with short time horizons are likely to choose the path of least resistance in selecting quick, low-quality approaches to the implementation of environmental policies. We conclude that the perverse effects of local officials’ short time horizons give reason to doubt the more optimistic claims about the advantages of China's model of environmental authoritarianism.

Keywords

authoritarian environmentalismcadre rotationenvironmental policy implementationChinaleadershiptime horizons
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 218 , June 2014 , pp. 359 - 380
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Beeson, Mark. 2010. “The coming of environmental authoritarianism.” Environmental Politics 19(2), 276–294.Google Scholar
Cai, Yongshun. 2004. “Irresponsible state: local cadres and image-building in China.” Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 20(4), 20–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dionne, Kim Yi. 2011. “The role of executive time horizons in state responses to AIDS in Africa.” Comparative Political Studies 44(1), 55–77.Google Scholar
Edin, Maria. 2003. “State capacity and local agent control in China: CCP cadre management from a township perspective.” The China Quarterly 173, 35–52.Google Scholar
Gilley, Bruce. 2012. “Authoritarian environmentalism and China's response to climate change.” Environmental Politics 21(2), 287–307.Google Scholar
Heilmann, Sebastian. 2008. “From local experiments to national policy: the origins of China's distinctive policy process.” The China Journal 59, 1–30.Google Scholar
Huang, Yasheng. 1996. Inflation and Investment Controls in China – The Political Economy of Central–Local Relations during the Reform Era. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Huang, Yasheng. 2002. “Managing Chinese bureaucrats: an institutional economics perspective.” Political Studies 50, 61–79.Google Scholar
Josephson, Paul R. 2004. Resources under Regimes: Technology, Environment, and the State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kostka, Genia. 2013. “Environmental protection bureau leadership at the provincial level in China: examining diverging career backgrounds and appointment patterns.” Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning 15(1), 41–63.Google Scholar
Kostka, Genia, and Hobbs, William. 2012. “Local energy efficiency policy implementation in China: bridging the gap between national priorities and local interests.” The China Quarterly 211, 765–785.Google Scholar
Landry, Pierre. 2008. Decentralized Authoritarianism in China: The Communist Party's Control of Local Elites in the Post-Mao Era. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lester, James P., and Bowman, Ann O.M.. 1989. “Implementing environmental policy in a federal system: a test of the Sabatier-Mazmanian model.” Polity 21(4), 731–753.Google Scholar
Matland, Richard E. 1995. “Synthesizing the implementation literature: the ambiguity-conflict model of policy implementation.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 5(2), 145–174.Google Scholar
Mei, Ciqi. 2009. “Bringing the Politics Back In: Political Incentives and Policy Distortion in China.” PhD diss., University of Maryland.Google Scholar
O'Brien, Kelvin J., and Li, Lianjiang. 1999. “Selective policy implementation in rural China.” Comparative Politics 31(2), 167–186.Google Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1993. “Dictatorship, democracy, and development.” American Political Science Review 87(3), 567–576.Google Scholar
Sabatier, Paul, and Mazmanian, Daniel. 1980. “The implementation of public policy: a framework of analysis.” Policy Studies Journal 8(4), 538–560.Google Scholar
Seckington, Ian. 2007. “County leadership in China: a baseline survey.” Nottingham China Policy Institute, Discussion Paper 17.Google Scholar
Shearman, David J.C., and Smith, Joseph Wayne. 2007. The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Shin, Kyoung. Forthcoming. “The City and the Agency: A Study of the Rise and Fall of Low–Carbon City in Baoding, China, 1992–2011.” PhD diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Wright, Joseph. 2008. “To invest or insure? How authoritarian time horizons impact foreign aid effectiveness.” Comparative Political Studies 41(7), 971–1000.Google Scholar
Yi, Fan. 2007. “Ganbu jiaoliu fumian yingxiang jiqi kongzhi” (The adverse effects of the cadre rotations system and how to control them), Zhongguo dang zheng ganbu lun tan, 9 March, http://theory.people.com.cn/GB/49150/49152/5456856.html. Accessed 4 February 2013.Google Scholar
Zhong, Yang. 2003. Local Government and Politics in China – Challenges from Below. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar