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Exploring Governance of the Low Carbon Transformation in China: Policy diffusion of the emissions trading in Shanghai and Hubei
Despite the significance of the emerging economies, especially China, in a transformation to a zero-carbon future, the research to date on China’s transformation governance remains limited. This dissertation helps to bridge this gap by exploring how and why innovative climate policies spread across sub-national regions and between governance levels in China. Drawing on the policy diffusion framework, the dissertation investigates how the five diffusion mechanisms – coercion, competition, learning, emulation and socialization – influence the ways that Chinese regions introduce climate policy. The empirical study focuses on the emissions trading system (ETS) policy and two regions: Shanghai and Hubei. I used an exploratory research approach based on process tracing and case studies. The study has two sources of data: literature review and semi-structured expert interviews. The interviews covered a sample of 58 individuals from all the seven ETS pilot regions, 11 non-pilot regions[1], and the five key national institutions. They included six policy-makers, 41 policy experts, six companies, two industrial associations, two NGOs and one media representative. The key findings are as follows: China sees the co-existence of both horizontal and vertical diffusions, in contrast to the strong dominance of horizontal diffusion like in the West. The central government’s mandate kicks off policy piloting in selected regions, followed by a complex and dynamic policy diffusion process across different regions. This happens under the shadow of the central government’s hierarchy. As such, there is strong interlinkage between the vertical and horizontal dimensions of policy interaction. The most dominant mechanisms at the horizontal level are learning and competition. Socialization and coercion also exist but are less prominent. One-for-one emulation of the policies of the “leading” regions does not exist, although regions do learn from more advanced regions. At the vertical level, “bottom-up” diffusion takes different forms: ...
Exploring Governance of the Low Carbon Transformation in China: Policy diffusion of the emissions trading in Shanghai and Hubei
Despite the significance of the emerging economies, especially China, in a transformation to a zero-carbon future, the research to date on China’s transformation governance remains limited. This dissertation helps to bridge this gap by exploring how and why innovative climate policies spread across sub-national regions and between governance levels in China. Drawing on the policy diffusion framework, the dissertation investigates how the five diffusion mechanisms – coercion, competition, learning, emulation and socialization – influence the ways that Chinese regions introduce climate policy. The empirical study focuses on the emissions trading system (ETS) policy and two regions: Shanghai and Hubei. I used an exploratory research approach based on process tracing and case studies. The study has two sources of data: literature review and semi-structured expert interviews. The interviews covered a sample of 58 individuals from all the seven ETS pilot regions, 11 non-pilot regions[1], and the five key national institutions. They included six policy-makers, 41 policy experts, six companies, two industrial associations, two NGOs and one media representative. The key findings are as follows: China sees the co-existence of both horizontal and vertical diffusions, in contrast to the strong dominance of horizontal diffusion like in the West. The central government’s mandate kicks off policy piloting in selected regions, followed by a complex and dynamic policy diffusion process across different regions. This happens under the shadow of the central government’s hierarchy. As such, there is strong interlinkage between the vertical and horizontal dimensions of policy interaction. The most dominant mechanisms at the horizontal level are learning and competition. Socialization and coercion also exist but are less prominent. One-for-one emulation of the policies of the “leading” regions does not exist, although regions do learn from more advanced regions. At the vertical level, “bottom-up” diffusion takes different forms: ...
Exploring Governance of the Low Carbon Transformation in China: Policy diffusion of the emissions trading in Shanghai and Hubei
Li, Lina (author) / Messner, Dirk
2021-12-22
Theses
Electronic Resource
English
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