Authoritarian but responsive:Local regulation of industrial energy efficiency inJiangsu,China

Abstract

Regulatory behavior and effectiveness in authoritarian settings are subject to alternative characterizations. By tracing enforcement processes through a variety of case studies, this article proposes and refines a new model, at least with respect to energy efficiency regulations in China: authoritarian but responsive. Local rulemaking and operationalization is authoritarian, with strong and coordinative bodies of regulation, strategic plans, and active involvement of local authorities. Local authorities, however, often find themselves facing a welter of laws imposed on companies that create competing priorities for these local officials who then must struggle to find pragmatic solutions. On numerous occasions, such satisficing behavior by local officials makes them responsive to the performance and demands of regulated firms. Embedded in the decentralized authoritarian context, the authoritarian but responsive approach is found to be a rational choice of local governments and different from previous conceptualizations. It helps local governments coordinate across a diverse array of regulatory issues. Drawing on environmental enforcement in China, the model provides consistent explanations for the seemingly changing and discretionary enforcement incidents.

A conceptional game theory analysis of environmental public interest litigation of China

“…Local governments are responsible for local development and environmental protection. They should respond to the performance and demands of regulated firms [ 124 ]. They may hope polluters to bring economic development and help local governments improve indicators of economic development such as investments, GDP, employment, and taxes.…”

Why meta‐research matters to regulation and governance scholarship: An illustrative evidence synthesis of responsive regulation research

“…In addition, scholars have mapped examples of alternative applications of responsive regulation. For example, Zhu and Chertow (2019) observed that local regulators in Jiangsu Province (China) set out to enforce a newly introduced energy efficiency regulation in a formal and coercive manner before switching to a more accommodative manner. This “inverse” enforcement pyramid illustrates that the responsive regulation theory is somewhat pliable, and that some care is warranted when drawing lessons from such studies.…”

“…The positive performance reported ranged from being substantial (e.g. increased tax revenue for the Florida Department of Revenue (Christian 2017); increased energy savings by Chinese firms (Zhu & Chertow 2019) to being only modestly better (e.g. increased compliance with human rights standards by global garment manufacturers (Islam & McPhail 2011).…”

“…Street‐level bureaucrats, in particular, need guidance documents, training, or both, to be able to deal with the increase in discretionary space that comes with responsive regulation, and specifically with the tit‐for‐tat strategy (Blanc 2018). If this is not done, there is a risk of inconsistency in enforcement (Mascini & van Wijk 2009), favoritism (Zhu & Chertow 2019), abuse of process (Lewis et al . 2017), uneven application of the law (O'Neill 2018), or rule ambiguity (Quilter & McNamara 2015).…”

“…In engaging with responsive regulation, most scholars, policymakers and regulatory practitioners focus on enforcement pyramids (tit‐for‐tat), and often take these as a prescription for how regulators should work (Mascini 2013; Parker 2013). In addition, little empirical work appears to be available that gives insight into the opportunities and constraints of responsive regulation in the day‐to‐day practice of regulation (Braithwaite 2002; Lehmann Nielsen & Parker 2009; Simpson 2013; Zhu & Chertow 2019). In short, it is still not known whether (on average) responsive regulation outperforms alternative regulatory strategies ; under what circumstances responsive regulation works best ; or what it is about responsive regulation that makes it work better (or worse) than alternative regulatory strategies, and for whom, where, in what respects, and why .…”