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New book on China’s environmental governance

Published by USC Bedrosian Center on

Professor Yan Tang, Research Director of the Center, has recently published a co-authored book with Carlos Wing-Hung Lo, Institutions, Regulatory Styles, Society and Environmental Governance in China (London and New York: Routledge, 2014).

Institutions, Regulatory Styles, Society and Environmental Governance in China By Carlos Wing-Hung Lo, Shui-Yan Tang

Institutions, Regulatory Styles, Society and Environmental Governance in China
By Carlos Wing-Hung Lo, Shui-Yan Tang

Drawing on the authors’ extensive research in southern China, the book provides an in-depth analysis on China’s environmental governance and regulatory enforcement in the past two decades. It examines how various political and institutional constraints have affected the enforcement of environmental regulations at the local level. Drawing on survey and interview data, the book also examines the variations in regulatory enforcement styles of local officials across regions and overtime. It also examines how interactions among the public, environmental groups, government entities, and corporations affect the environmental governance process.

While highlighting many political, institutional, social, and economic constraints on regulatory enforcement, the book also highlights many changes that have taken place—reforms within the Chinese administrative system, increasing societal concerns, and changing attitudes among corporate executives. These changes will help reshape and eventually improve environmental governance in China.

Bedrosian Center