IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/reggov/v7y2013i3p321-347.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From support to pressure: The dynamics of social and governmental influences on environmental law enforcement in Guangzhou City, China

Author

Listed:
  • Benjamin Van Rooij
  • Gerald E. Fryxell
  • Carlos Wing‐Hung Lo
  • Wei Wang

Abstract

This paper examines how changes in governmental and social influences affect environmental enforcement in Guangzhou city, China, between 2000 and 2006. The paper finds that a form of “decentered regulation” has developed. Regulatory enforcement is no longer the sole affair of the government and the regulatory bureaucracy, but has been increasingly influenced by societal forces. The transformation over time shows the promises and limits of decentered regulation in Guangzhou's dynamic authoritarian setting. Analyzing a set of longitudinal survey data and qualitative interviews, the paper finds that by 2006, the rise of civil society and its increased support for protecting the environment had a double‐edged impact on the enforcement of environmental regulations. The paper demonstrates that on the one hand, by 2006, when government support for enforcement was low, societal forces developed an ability to counterbalance such lack of governmental support and positively influence enforcement. However, it also shows that when government support was high, a concurrent rise in societal support created a negative effect on enforcement. Thus too much societal support can become an enforcement burden.

Suggested Citation

  • Benjamin Van Rooij & Gerald E. Fryxell & Carlos Wing‐Hung Lo & Wei Wang, 2013. "From support to pressure: The dynamics of social and governmental influences on environmental law enforcement in Guangzhou City, China," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 7(3), pages 321-347, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:reggov:v:7:y:2013:i:3:p:321-347
    DOI: 10.1111/rego.12001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12001
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/rego.12001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wood, B. Dan, 1988. "Principals, Bureaucrats, and Responsiveness in Clean Air Enforcements," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(1), pages 213-234, March.
    2. PeterJ May & Søren Winter, 1999. "Regulatory enforcement and compliance: Examining Danish agro-environmental policy," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(4), pages 625-651.
    3. Dasgupta, Susmita & Laplante, Benoit & Namingi, Nlandu & Hua Wang, 2000. "Industrial environmental performance in China - the impact of inspections," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2285, The World Bank.
    4. Peter Ho, 2001. "Greening Without Conflict? Environmentalism, NGOs and Civil Society in China," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 32(5), pages 893-921, November.
    5. Scholz, John T. & Wei, Feng Heng, 1986. "Regulatory Enforcement in a Federalist System," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(4), pages 1249-1270, December.
    6. Steinfeld, Edward, 2010. "Playing Our Game: Why China's Rise Doesn't Threaten the West," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195390650, Decembrie.
    7. Hutter, Bridget M. & Jones, Clive J, 2007. "From government to governance: external influences on business risk management," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 14845, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Black, Julia, 2002. "Critical reflections on regulation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 35985, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. David A. Sonnenfeld, 2002. "Social Movements and Ecological Modernization: The Transformation of Pulp and Paper Manufacturing," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 33(1), pages 1-27, January.
    10. Hua Wang, 2000. "Pollution charges, community pressure, and abatement cost of industrial pollution in China," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2337, The World Bank.
    11. Carlos Wing-Hung Lo & Gerald Erick Fryxell, 2005. "Governmental and Societal Support for Environmental Enforcement in China: An Empirical Study in Guangzhou," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(4), pages 558-588.
    12. De Mello Lemos, Maria Carmen, 1998. "The politics of pollution control in Brazil: State actors and social movements cleaning up Cubatao," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 75-87, January.
    13. Raymond J. Burby & Robert G. Paterson, 1993. "Improving compliance with state environmental regulations," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(4), pages 753-772.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matías Dewey & Donato Di Carlo, 2022. "Governing through non‐enforcement: Regulatory forbearance as industrial policy in advanced economies," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(3), pages 930-950, July.
    2. Battisti, Michele & Kauppinen, Ilpo & Rude, Britta, 2024. "Breaking the silence: The effects of online social movements on gender-based violence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    3. Ming Yi & Yiqian Wang & Modan Yan & Lina Fu & Yao Zhang, 2020. "Government R&D Subsidies, Environmental Regulations, and Their Effect on Green Innovation Efficiency of Manufacturing Industry: Evidence from the Yangtze River Economic Belt of China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(4), pages 1-17, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jodi L. Short, 2021. "The politics of regulatory enforcement and compliance: Theorizing and operationalizing political influences," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(3), pages 653-685, July.
    2. Carlos Wing-Hung Lo & Gerald E Fryxell & Benjamin Van Rooij, 2009. "Changes in Enforcement Styles among Environmental Enforcement Officials in China," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(11), pages 2706-2723, November.
    3. Carlos Wing-Hung Lo & Gerald Erick Fryxell, 2005. "Governmental and Societal Support for Environmental Enforcement in China: An Empirical Study in Guangzhou," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(4), pages 558-588.
    4. Corneliussen, Filippa, 2004. "Justifying non-compliance. A case study of a Norwegian biotech firm," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 36054, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Xuehua Zhang, 2016. "Judicial enforcement deputies: Causes and effects of Chinese judges enforcing environmental administrative decisions," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 10(1), pages 29-43, March.
    6. Cheng, Kuo-Tai, 2016. "Test of the mediating effects of regulatory decision tools in the communications regulator," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 277-289.
    7. Vibeke Lehmann Nielsen & Christine Parker, 2009. "Testing responsive regulation in regulatory enforcement," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 3(4), pages 376-399, December.
    8. Laura I. Langbein, 1994. "Estimating the Impact of Regulatory Program Enforcement," Evaluation Review, , vol. 18(5), pages 543-573, October.
    9. Wendy E Jepson & Christian Brannstrom & Renato Stancato de Souza, 2005. "A Case of Contested Ecological Modernisation: The Governance of Genetically Modified Crops in Brazil," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 23(2), pages 295-310, April.
    10. Søren C. Winter & Peter J. May, 2001. "Motivation for Compliance with Environmental Regulations," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(4), pages 675-698.
    11. Garry Gray & Benjamin van Rooij, 2021. "Regulatory disempowerment: How enabling and controlling forms of power obstruct citizen‐based regulation," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(3), pages 800-821, July.
    12. Adaman, Fikret & Gökşen, Fatoş & Zenginobuz, Unal, 2003. "Political economy of citizens’ participation in environmental improvement: The case of Istanbul," MPRA Paper 375, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Ian Loader & Adam White, 2017. "How can we better align private security with the public interest? Towards a civilizing model of regulation," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(2), pages 166-184, June.
    14. Vargas, Andrés & Sarmiento Erazo, Juan Pablo & Diaz, David, 2020. "Has Cost Benefit Analysis Improved Decisions in Colombia? Evidence from the Environmental Licensing Process," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    15. Lei Liu & Yue Xu & Zhaotian Yang & Ying Li, 2023. "The interrelationship between environmental NGO development and environmental condition in China," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(8), pages 8487-8516, August.
    16. Zhongju Liao & Yuhan Wu, 2025. "Formal institutions, informal institutions, and firms' environmental innovation: An application of the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis method," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(1), pages 668-680, February.
    17. Oleh Pasko, 2018. "Theories of Regulation in the Context of Modern Practice of Accounting Regulation," Oblik i finansi, Institute of Accounting and Finance, issue 2, pages 37-46, June.
    18. Justo-Hanani, Ronit & Dayan, Tamar, 2014. "The role of the state in regulatory policy for nanomaterials risk: Analyzing the expansion of state-centric rulemaking in EU and US chemicals policies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 169-178.
    19. Stephan Haggard, 2014. "Liberal Pessimism: International Relations Theory and the Emerging Powers," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 1(1), pages 1-17, January.
    20. Jeroen van der Heijden & Jitske de Jong, 2009. "Towards a Better Understanding of Building Regulation," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 36(6), pages 1038-1052, December.

    More about this item

    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:wly:reggov:v:7:y:2013:i:3:p:321-347. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1748-5991 .

    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.