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Emission trading, modern governance, and the transitional state in China An important feature of the modern state is a growing emphasis on market solutions for a wide variety of issues and sectors of politics. This has on the one hand called for decentralization, new forms of accountability, and transparency. On the other hand the Asian financial crisis triggered by footloose international investment capital, and the growing awareness that markets are not well suited to define and pursue collective interests, have provoked an almost opposite movement, calling for increased political intervention, and a stronger state with enhanced capacity for effective regulation (Painter and Pierre, 2005; Singh, 1998). China's emission trading programme is situated at the centre of this debate regarding the relative merits of the market and the state in modern governance. A case study of this development is useful for understanding China's changing mode of governance as a transitional state. Our objective is to analyze and to assess to what extent the Chinese government, after three decades of reform, has developed the requisite governing capacity to implement a market-based policy initiative such as the emission trading programme. In particular we focus on three forms of governance capacities: namely, state capacity, policy capacity, and administrative capacity. We evaluate the role of the Chinese government in steering China's accelerating economic development and in solving its environmental problems as it transits to a market economy to realize its goal of a well-off society. In this paper we draw on data and information derived from desktop studies and site interviews. Nine site visits and interviews were conducted between 2004 and 2005 in Beijing,

The role of the state in sustainable energy transitions: A case study of large smart grid demonstration projects in Japan