Multilevel Environmental Governance: Vertical and Horizontal Influences in Local Policy Networks

Yi Yi,Huang Huang,Liu Liu,Xu Xu,Chen Chen

doi:10.3390/su11082390

Abstract

In the context of multilevel governance, collaboration among governmental and non-governmental entities across different levels of government is increasingly popular in China’s environmental governance. Policy actors are engaged in two types of collaboration with other local governments: horizontal and vertical collaboration. Policy actors participate in horizontal collaboration when they work with entities at the same level, and in vertical collaboration when working with governments at different levels. This study examines multilevel environmental governance in China by studying how the decisions of policy actors to participate in local water governance networks are influenced by vertical pressures from higher level government and horizontal influences from other policy actors at the same level. We approach the research questions in the empirical context of local water governance in Dongguan city of Guangdong Province. With survey data collected from 31 municipal departments, 32 town governments, nine water-related private businesses and five NGOs, we tested the hypotheses with Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions. The results indicate that vertical pressure and horizontal brokerage are both drivers for participation in the local water governance network.

Highlights

With the recent trend to decentralize the governance of the environment and natural resources and the expansion of local governments’ administrative capacity, multiple levels of governments are actively involved in environmental governance in China, and are entering a new age of multilevel environmental governance
We examine multilevel environmental governance in China by studying how the decisions of policy actors to participate in local water governance network are influenced by the vertical pressures from higher level government and horizontal brokerage with other policy actors
This paper aims at examining local environmental governance in the context of China, with the goal to analyze how the decisions of policy actors to participate in local water governance network are influenced by the vertical pressures from the higher level of government and horizontal influences from other policy actors

Summary

Introduction

With the recent trend to decentralize the governance of the environment and natural resources and the expansion of local governments’ administrative capacity, multiple levels of governments are actively involved in environmental governance in China, and are entering a new age of multilevel environmental governance. Different from the traditional model of top-down environmental policy implementation, recent practices in China’s local environmental governance feature a more integrated model of collaborative governance, in which central, provincial, municipal, county and township governments are involved in a complex governance network, resonating the trend for multilevel governance (MLG) in Europe [1] and the USA [2], and other policy areas in China [3,4]. While the MLG is an emerging trend in the practice of environmental governance in China, few studies have examined why local policy actors participate in environmental governance, and whether vertical pressures or horizontal brokerage play a role in facilitating MLG

Objectives

Discussion

Conclusion