IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sgc/wpaper/28.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Integrated Coastal Zone Management in the People’s Republic of China – An Assessment of Structural Impacts on Decision-making Processes

Author

Listed:
  • Maren A. Lau

    (Research unit Sustainability and Global Change, Hamburg)

Abstract

Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) forms a generally accepted concept to ensure sustainable development in the coastal zone. The implementation of the ICZM framework as formulated, e.g. by the World Coast Conference, is often constrained by the political system within which it should be applied. This is the case in the People’s Republic of China. This study takes a political science perspective based on approaches inherent in neo-institutional and administrative theories. This way the relevant political structures are explained and the impacts that the transformation of the socio-economic system had on institutions are located. This is extended by the reflection of related political power distribution. This part of the analysis mainly contains existing knowledge on (integrated) CZM in China but evaluates it from a so far neglected point of view. The second part of the paper is taking the successful local ICZM approach of Xiamen and a proposed approach for Shanghai as an example to show that the adaptation of a working approach to other parts of the country is impossible without modifications to the organizational structures of decision-making and implementation. So far the literature emphasizes mostly modifications in content. An important reason for structural elements being comparably important is the choice of ICZM issues and the local power distribution. It furthermore shows that these are also the determining factors obstructing the upscaling of a local approach to the national level, a fact which constrains the formulation of national guidelines in China and leaves only the bottom-up alternative of introducing ICZM to China – a hard task that leaves a disproportional responsibility to the local governmental level.

Suggested Citation

  • Maren A. Lau, 2003. "Integrated Coastal Zone Management in the People’s Republic of China – An Assessment of Structural Impacts on Decision-making Processes," Working Papers FNU-28, Research unit Sustainability and Global Change, Hamburg University, revised May 2003.
  • Handle: RePEc:sgc:wpaper:28
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.fnu.zmaw.de/fileadmin/fnu-files/publication/working-papers/OCM_LAUr_FNU.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2003
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Integrated Coastal Zone Management; People’s Republic of China; Political Structure; Power Distribution; Jurisdictional Overlaps;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sgc:wpaper:28. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Uwe Schneider (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zmhamde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.