Abstract
Environmental issues are viewed as a serious problem with a complex network structure involving various stakeholders. Environmental governance is considered the most reasonable way to promote environmental policy, and it is an important mechanism contributing to the sustainable development of society. Through the network analysis of actor and policy keywords, this study demonstrated whether environmental governance policies are being pursued through the cooperation of various participants in China, the epicenter of global environmental issues. We collected text big data from 2001 to 2018 under the theme of “environmental policy” on the main online portal web in China. Through text mining, key actors and policy keywords were selected according to the timing of environmental policy promotion, and network analysis and core-periphery analysis were conducted based on this actor/keywords data set. The results of this study are as follows. First, China’s environmental policy is a rudimentary governance cooperation structure, and the central and local governments are still the main policy-promoting actors. Second, the fundamental solution of the environmental problem through readjustment of the environment-related system and industrial restructuring has become the keyword for China’s implementation of environmental policy at present. Third, there were certain words, such as social, public, enterprise, and institution, in the aspects of environmental governance, while these words failed to be at the center of multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) analysis for the actors. This result shows that environmental governance and network are still at an early stage and that the Chinese government’s strong power lies in its environmental policy. Based on these results, policy recommendations are presented.
Highlights
It is necessary for countries to systematically identify the nature of environmental issues and effectively cope with them to defend the interests of the state and secure sustainable development
This is the reason for which the environmental governance approach, which takes along various entities to participate in the formulation and implementation of environmental policies on solving environmental issues, has been gaining persuasive power
This study aims to identify which actors played an important role in China claiming to advocate environmental governance in solving environmental issues and what their network attributes mean for each economic policy implementation cycle
Summary
It is necessary for countries to systematically identify the nature of environmental issues and effectively cope with them to defend the interests of the state and secure sustainable development. Damage to ecosystems that stems from environmental pollution has far-reaching consequences that go well beyond short-term damage This trend implies that solutions to environmental issues must be devised through an understanding of the various factors and their three-dimensional interrelationship rather than a plain two-dimensional relationship. Environmental issues need solutions developed through integrated approaches among fields owing to the uncertainty, complexity, long-range, transboundary, and irreversible nature of pollution. This is the reason for which the environmental governance approach, which takes along various entities to participate in the formulation and implementation of environmental policies on solving environmental issues, has been gaining persuasive power
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