Synergistic effect of environmental governance instruments embedded in social contexts: A case study of China

Facing unprecedented environmental and climate challenges, governments around the world are gradually realizing that portfolios of environmental policy instruments (PEPIs) are critical for generating innovative approaches to tackle pollution and CO2 emission. However, configuring the “right” policy package is challenging due to different social contexts. This study introduces a novel research framework, integrating a comprehensive methodology to analyze PEPIs across Chinese provinces with varied ecological foundations, innovation capabilities, and governance goals. Our approach is innovative in its integration use of fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to unravel the complex interplay between policy instruments and social contexts. We found that neither individual policy instruments nor social contextual factors alone guarantee high environmental performance. Furthermore, configurations of policy instruments and social contexts are sufficient conditions for high environmental performance. We identified 17 configurations centered on regulation, innovation supports, and information provisions for pollution reduction in various social contexts, and 23 configurations centered on market instruments, regulation and innovation supports for CO2 abatement. Furthermore, our regression analysis quantifies the impact of these configurations, highlighting that a mix of innovation supports, market instruments, and information provisions yields the best synergistic effect for both pollution reduction and CO2 abatement. This study not only contributes to the understanding of environmental policy effectiveness but also provides practical insights for policy formulation in varied social contexts.