Driving Mechanism for Multi-Level Governance of Domestic Waste Sorting Based on Social Network Analysis and Interpretative Structural Modeling

Abstract

Abstract Domestic waste sorting is an important link of grassroots social governance. Drawing on the theory of multi-level governance, this paper identifies 14 factors affecting the multi-level governance of domestic waste sorting, and combines social network analysis (SNA) with interpretative structural modeling (ISM) to quantify the key influencing factors, and their correlation mechanism. The results show that: (1) To form the management system for multi-level governance, it is necessary to nurture and construct a framework with government governance as the basis, the social capital as the driver, and the system self-organization as the operating mechanism. (2) The factors affecting multi-level governance can be divided into four layers: three factors, including regulatory support, belong to the bottom layer, and play a key role in the formation of the driving mechanism for multi-level governance; nine factors, including incentive measure, belong to the middle layer, and play a transitional role in the operation of the driving mechanism; three factors, namely, publicity and education, mutual trust, and practice of social norms, belong to the surface layer, and directly affect the driving mechanism for the multi-level governance of domestic waste sorting. Although the three surface layer factors clearly depend on the factors on the other layers, they exert the most direct impact on the construction and operation of the driving mechanism. The analysis results shed new light on how to study the driving mechanism for the multi-level governance of domestic waste sorting. JEL classification numbers: Q56. Keywords: Waste sorting; Multi-level governance; Social network analysis (SNA); Interpretative structural modeling (ISM).