The Role of Public Participation in Environmental Governance: Empirical Evidence from China
As an essential stakeholder of environmental resources, the public has become the third force which assists in promoting environmental governance, together with local governments and polluting enterprises. In this paper, we construct a mediation model and a 2SLS (Two Stage Least Square) model to ill...
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doaj-407ad48bf2c2453f871eec3bdc68e6912020-11-25T01:36:35ZengMDPI AGSustainability2071-10502019-08-011117469610.3390/su11174696su11174696The Role of Public Participation in Environmental Governance: Empirical Evidence from ChinaJin Guo0Junhong Bai1School of Business, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, ChinaSchool of Business, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, ChinaAs an essential stakeholder of environmental resources, the public has become the third force which assists in promoting environmental governance, together with local governments and polluting enterprises. In this paper, we construct a mediation model and a 2SLS (Two Stage Least Square) model to illustrate the role of public participation based on inter-provincial panel data of China from 2011 to 2015. The results indicate that the advantages of handling informational asymmetry and enhancing social supervision are the two logical starting points of involving public participation in environmental governance. As the public has no executive power, they can participate in environmental governance in an indirect way by lobbying local governments’ environmental enforcement of polluting enterprises. In addition, their deterrent of polluting enterprises can also generate effects similar to local governments’ environmental enforcement, and such a deterrent will help promote environmental governance directly. At the present time in China, the effects of public participation in environmental governance are mainly reflected in the form of back-end governance, while the effects of front-end governance are not remarkable enough. This research is of great significance in perfecting China’s environmental governance system by means of arousing and expanding the public’s rights to participate in environmental governance.https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/17/4696public participationenvironmental governanceinformation asymmetrysocial supervisionback-end governancefront-end governanceChinese case |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Jin Guo Junhong Bai |
spellingShingle |
Jin Guo Junhong Bai The Role of Public Participation in Environmental Governance: Empirical Evidence from China Sustainability public participation environmental governance information asymmetry social supervision back-end governance front-end governance Chinese case |
author_facet |
Jin Guo Junhong Bai |
author_sort |
Jin Guo |
title |
The Role of Public Participation in Environmental Governance: Empirical Evidence from China |
title_short |
The Role of Public Participation in Environmental Governance: Empirical Evidence from China |
title_full |
The Role of Public Participation in Environmental Governance: Empirical Evidence from China |
title_fullStr |
The Role of Public Participation in Environmental Governance: Empirical Evidence from China |
title_full_unstemmed |
The Role of Public Participation in Environmental Governance: Empirical Evidence from China |
title_sort |
role of public participation in environmental governance: empirical evidence from china |
publisher |
MDPI AG |
series |
Sustainability |
issn |
2071-1050 |
publishDate |
2019-08-01 |
description |
As an essential stakeholder of environmental resources, the public has become the third force which assists in promoting environmental governance, together with local governments and polluting enterprises. In this paper, we construct a mediation model and a 2SLS (Two Stage Least Square) model to illustrate the role of public participation based on inter-provincial panel data of China from 2011 to 2015. The results indicate that the advantages of handling informational asymmetry and enhancing social supervision are the two logical starting points of involving public participation in environmental governance. As the public has no executive power, they can participate in environmental governance in an indirect way by lobbying local governments’ environmental enforcement of polluting enterprises. In addition, their deterrent of polluting enterprises can also generate effects similar to local governments’ environmental enforcement, and such a deterrent will help promote environmental governance directly. At the present time in China, the effects of public participation in environmental governance are mainly reflected in the form of back-end governance, while the effects of front-end governance are not remarkable enough. This research is of great significance in perfecting China’s environmental governance system by means of arousing and expanding the public’s rights to participate in environmental governance. |
topic |
public participation environmental governance information asymmetry social supervision back-end governance front-end governance Chinese case |
url |
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/17/4696 |
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