Search

A lack of clear political commitment together with confusing rules and enforcement often characterize the institutional context of policy implementation and regulatory compliance in developing countries. By connecting such contextual features to existing models of policy implementation and regulatory compliance, we examine how regulatory factors are related to basic and proactive corporate environmental management practices in the Pearl River Delta region in China. Drawing on data derived from both a survey and in‐depth interviews, we show that a perception of clear political commitment to environmental protection across multiple government levels and units is positively associated with business efforts in basic environmental practices, regardless of the specific enforcement intensity. Nevertheless, a perception of clear political commitment is not related to proactive environmental practices. Conversely, a perception of policy ambiguity, in the form of confusing regulatory standards and enforcement, is negatively associated with corporate efforts in both basic and proactive environmental practices; yet, intensive inspections mitigate these negative associations with policy ambiguity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the recoupling mechanism of campaign-style enforcement and its effects on environmental regulatory compliance. Drawing on the policy implementation literature and institutional theory, the authors develop a conceptual model of campaign-style enforcement in which both resource mobilization and power redistribution are theorized to address decoupling problems in regulatory compliance. The two-pathway recoupling mechanism is evidenced by an empirical investigation of the implementation of China's energy conservation and emission reduction policy as part of that country's 11th Five-Year Plan. Findings suggest that campaign-style enforcement can effectively improve regulatory compliance when it addresses the efficiency/legitimacy conflict by providing policy incentives and reorganizing a clear hierarchy of political authority. The article concludes with a discussion of the strengths and limitations of campaign-style enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on political opportunity and resource dependency theories, this paper traces the development of 28 environmental NGOs (eNGOs) in China and examines the political and institutional factors that have constrained or facilitated these organizations' policy advocacy activities. The paper shows that political structural changes have created greater opportunities for eNGOs' policy advocacy, and eNGOs with better financial resources and connections to the party-state system are more capable of utilizing these opportunities to enhance their policy advocacy capacity. Yet party-state connections may in turn constrain the types of policy advocacy pursued by these eNGOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]