Governing eco-cities in China: Urban climate experimentation, international cooperation, and multilevel governance.

• International eco-cities face unique governance challenges. • We examine Chinese international eco-cities from a multilevel governance perspective. • Multilevel governance provides possibilities for establishing bilateral cooperation. • Effectiveness of multilevel governance is conditioned by intermediary institutions. • Effectiveness also depends on maintaining the attention of national governments. International cooperation has become an important element of urban climate experimentation, particularly in developing countries. Using the Sino-German Eco-Park in Qingdao as a case study, we argue that while multilevel governance and international cooperation are often discussed separately, these two governance tendencies are in fact both important to China's urban climate experimentation. In particular, Chinese multilevel governance enables bilateral cooperation by (re)shaping the national vision at the local level and resolving potential conflicts or contradictions. It also allows local and foreign intermediaries to coordinate and match resources among different interests and actors. The effectiveness of multilevel governance in eco-city projects is conditioned by intermediary institutions' resources and capabilities. Effectiveness also depends on maintaining the attention of national governments to the eco-city projects. Thus, the cooperative form, the actors' attributes, and the resources mobilised by actors are three important factors that affect the outcomes of international eco-city projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]