The Politics of Environmental Enforcement in Developing Contexts
Restricted (Penn State Only)
- Author:
- Deng, Qing
- Graduate Program:
- Political Science
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 04, 2021
- Committee Members:
- Xun Cao, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Zhen Lei, Outside Unit & Field Member
Boliang Zhu, Major Field Member
Matthew Golder, Major Field Member
Lee Banaszak, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- environmental enforcement
developing countries
information disclosure
discriminatory enforcement
business compliance - Abstract:
- The enforcement of environmental laws and regulations is crucial to environmental governance. However, due to a lack of record-keeping capability and transparency, environmental enforcement operations have less been examined in a developing context. Like many developing countries, China reaps the fruits of rapid economic growth but meanwhile bears the burden of industrialization-induced environmental deterioration. As part of the Chinese government’s open government initiative, a large number of environmental enforcement records became available to the public. These records provide an empirical lens through which we may explore the operations and the interactions of the most fundamental components in the environmental governance system: local regulators and businesses. Using data from China, this dissertation explores three aspects of environmental enforcement: discriminatory environmental enforcement, the use of information as regulation, and the effect of sanctions on businesses’ environmental performance. The first chapter examines whether the practice of environmental enforcement discriminates against foreign-invested firms. The second chapter argues that the level of information disclosure depends on whether regulators have enforcement capacities to meet regulatory objectives. The third chapter evaluates the effect of sanctions on businesses’ environmental performance and pollution abatement expenditure. Together, this dissertation establishes that the state continues to play a decisive role in environmental governance despite a slight turn toward regulatory pluralism. Although the empirical analysis is based on the case of environmental enforcement in China, the findings carry broader implications for countries experiencing a similar growth-versus-environment conundrum.