Bureaucracies count: environmental governance through goal-setting and mandate-making in contemporary China

Environmental Protection in the Hands of the State: Authoritarian Environmentalism and Popular Perceptions in Vietnam

“…However, as an antithesis to the challenging of democratic and participatory approaches to environmental governance, a growing body of literature has used the AE model as a starting point for a critical evaluation of environmental governance in real-life authoritarian and postauthoritarian countries, which increasingly adopt environmental policies to bolster state legitimacy. Focusing on China as the epitome of authoritarian governance, studies have shown the doubtful consequences of a response to climate change that builds exclusively on technocratic and regulatory discourse with little reference to society (Gilley, 2012), the adverse effects of the short time horizons of appointed local officials in China (Eaton & Kostka, 2014), and a considerable discrepancy between strong target-based policies and weak outcomes (Li, 2018), even fostering a “command without control” situation (Kostka, 2016). Other studies have indicated that authoritarian fragmentation and complex policy processes at the local level allow considerable space for neoliberal interests (e.g., Lo, 2015) and weaknesses in horizontal coordination (Eaton & Kostka, 2018).…”

“…This article applies a bottom-up perspective to show that they are indeed connected but by no means in a simple causal relationship. Participation is a defining distinction between democratic and AE, with the latter profoundly restricting civil society participation and dialogue at the local level (e.g., Han, 2017; Kostka, 2016, p. 70; Li, 2018); however, on the ground, all environmental management regimes will have mixed features (e.g., Lo, 2015). In the authoritarian model, environmental or climate change policy formulation primarily takes place within a technocratic and societal management discourse in which public participation is relegated primarily to embracing state-produced knowledge, complying with state policies, and assisting in implementation (Ahlers & Shen, 2018, p. 316; Gilley, 2012, p. 291).…”

“…Authoritarian environmentalism (AE) grew out of criticism of ineffectiveness in environmental governance in Western democracies and was thus initially conceived as an alternative generic model (Beeson, 2010;Roberts & Parks, 2007;Shearman & Smith, 2007). AE has been debated as a potentially viable form of environmental governance with greater measures of power, resoluteness, and unconditionality to generate better environmental outcomes, particularly in relation to climate change (Beeson, 2010;Gilley, 2012;Li, 2018). With a higher degree of state autonomy and clearer command structures, the AE model was attributed a relative advantage in its ability to compel citizens and businesses to comply with strict environmental regulations (Eaton & Kostka, 2014).…”

“…While a common feature of democratic environmentalism is debate on tradeoffs between growth and environment, the AE model more consistently pledges ecological improvements as a means of continued economic growth, 3 while at the same time assurances of better environmental management have been adopted in regime legitimacy. As a backdrop to this outlook, several studies note the AE model's association with instrumentalism or utilitarianism in approaches to nature and environment (Beeson, 2010;Gilley, 2012;Han, 2015) and a bureaucratic approach to nature that favors quantification and predictability (Li, 2018). As characteristic of a range of green city developments in the region, Heejin Han (2017) shows that Singapore's transition to a "garden city" under its authoritarian developmental state tradition has resulted in a remarkable expansion of green spaces and infrastructure but has come at the expense of a technocratic and "instrumental" view of nature in which nature conservation has been relegated to the margins of environmental efforts (Han, 2017, p. 11).…”

Remote Sensing, Land Quotas and Mass Relocation: China's Governance of Farmland

“…Given that income from land conversion and land sales has become the single most important source of fiscal revenue for local governments in the last two decades (Lin, 2010;Tsui, 2011), local states, prompted by the immense benefit from farmland conversion, have tended to conceal and manipulate data on farmland quantity and quality. Li (2018) argues that state intervention is often undermined by the disconnect Yue Du between environmental initiatives of the state and goals of local authorities in China's environmental governance. The frustrated history of farmland data collection in China well illustrates a complex generative process of discipline within a contested field of power: the tactics of seeing versus the tactics of concealing.…”