Introduction
Since opening up in the 1980s, China has encountered fundamental challenges in governance. Those challenges are becoming even more pressing as the country attempts to streamline the relationship between the government and the market while maintaining a semi-authoritarian, one-party system and transforming the role of government by making it more law based and service oriented. Chinaâs need to consider how it should govern itself while addressing these challenges has been emphasised by a number of transformations in contemporary China, especially urban China.
One major transformation has been the recognition of the increasing complexity of policy problems (climate change being a case in point) and the increasing interdependency of policy areas (urban development, the built environment, urban infrastructure), policy levels (national, provincial, municipal) and policy actors (public, private, people). Further, globalisation has increased the dependency and influence of actors, to which China has not been immune (Bai 2007; Balme 2011). Nongovernmental actors (businesses, professional organisations, civil society organisations), whether independent or co-opted within the political system, have also become more directly involved in policy making and are increasingly affecting policy choices (Wu 2003). At the same time, citizens are generally wearier, less trustful and more mindful of what the Chinese government does and does not do (He and Thøgersen 2010; Ho 2007; Ho and Edmonds 2007). Reforms in the Chinese public sector have brought additional challenges concerning how best to organise the task of governing (Appendix II: CPC Central Committee 2013; Lieberthal 1997; Lieberthal and Lampton 1992; Lieberthal and Oksenberg 1988).
In responding to similar challenges elsewhere, the concept of governanceâ the way collective action steers and controls society to achieve collective goalsâhas become one of the most thought-about and researched in the social sciences, with policy makers and academic scholars trying to make sense of how to govern societies (Kooiman 1993; Levi-Faur 2012; Pierre 2000; Pierre and Peters 2000; Rhodes 1997; Torfing et al. 2012). The interest in governance reflects the ongoing attempt to understand public leadership, public institutions and social patterns of behaviour. What, though, do we mean by governance? How is governance approached in the context of urban politics? What does governance mean in China?
In their recent, highly analytical and thought-provoking account of governance, four of the best intellectual minds in public administration, Jacob Torfing, Guy Peters, Jon Pierre and Eva Sorensen (2012), reopen once more the debate about governing contemporary societies. They encourage us to think not only about the traditional forms of governing through formal state actors and bureaucratic procedures but also about the reality of governing in the contemporary world through informal, multi-actor, multi-interest, multigoal processes. They term this style of governing âinteractive governanceâ and formally define it as âthe complex process through which a plurality of actors with diverging interests interact to formulate, promote and achieve common objectives by means of mobilising, exchanging and deploying a range of ideas, rules and resourcesâ (Torfing et al. 2012: 14). Their thinking acknowledges contrasting explanations of governing as âgovernance without governmentâ (Rhodes 1997), which conceives the state as primus inter pares with no special privileges for decision making, and âgovernance beyond governmentâ (Kooiman 1993), which sees governing as a bottom-up decision-making process based on interactions among various actors, of which the state may or may not be the initiator. Without subscribing to these more extreme views of governance, Torfing et al. provide a highly analytical account of âhow we should think about, empirically observe, as well as interpret and evaluate these open-ended, fluid, complex, multiparty approaches to solving problems that are not controlled by state actors nor confined to mere conventional policy networksâ (Hart 2013: 1071).
Yet while interactive governance depicts the way governing is conducted in many advanced democracies of the Global North (for example, Scandinavia, UK, US), it does not fully explain the way of governing in most democracies in transition (for example, Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan) and nondemocratic societies (China) of the Global South, nor does it prescribe how to govern these polities and/or all of their policy areas (see, for example, Heâs 2012 account of the Chinese practice of complex, deliberative governance). Thus, interactive governance may be contrasted and compared with other forms of governing that are deducted from in depth theorisation and empirical observations of comparative case studies across societies (of the Global North and South), policy sectors (environment, employment, welfare, etc.), disciplines (sociology, economics, anthropology, etc.) and research areas (urban studies, development studies, legal studies, etc.).
In this book, our aim is to reduce this dearth of knowledge by improving our understanding of the urban governance of climate change mitigation in China through conceptualising collaborative municipal networks (CMNs) and observing their dynamics in the process of greening the building and transport sectors of Chinese cities. We formally define CMNs as follows:
The complex process of interaction among a plurality of state and nonstate actors with the objective of achieving climate mitigation goals through functions such as knowledge transfer and resource exchange while maintaining municipal autonomy in vertical or horizontal coordination, and enhancing municipal capacity in horizontal collaboration. These interactions are manifested in collective decision making, which includes consensus building and joint rule making.
Urban studies and urban politics is an area of research with an institutional system (that of the city) that is struggling to maintain its capacity to govern (Torfing et al. 2012: 38). Three features depicting the challenges of governing at the subnational level can be identified from the urban governance literature, most of which is based on studies of cities in the Global North conducted by geographers, planners and political scientists. First, there are political and institutional constraints imposed on cities. Cities have limited autonomy in relation to higher levels of government. Urban politics tends to include a dialogue with higher institutional levels in the region, the province and the nation. This dialogue of bargaining also includes transnational institutions, those that cut across jurisdictional borders and that are established based on citiesâ shared objectives. Various models of multilevel governance, originally depicting governance in the European Union (EU) (Hooghe and Marks 2001), can also be applied to the role of urban areas with complex systems of governance (Francesch-Huidobro 2012). This literature is based on empirical observations of cities in the Global North. As we argue in Chapter 2, the political and institutional constraints imposed on Chinese cities are very different from those in their Western counterparts. Administratively, for instance, Chinese cities have higher levels of autonomy due to the decentralisation of the system, although politically they are more constrained by the authoritarian state structure than cities in the West.
The second feature depicting the challenges of governing at the city level is the predominance of private capital and corporate resources. This is another feature of urban governance in the Global North but also increasingly of societies in economic and political transition such as China. Political leadership forges coalitions with the corporate leadership, which boosts the cityâs governing capacity.
Third, the relationship between the city and civil society is another feature of urban governance that is broadening cooperation across the publicâprivate divide. This feature is also found in the modes of urban governance, CMNs, as we propose in this volume. In considering these features, one must be mindful of the literature on collaborative planning (Booher and Innes 2010; Healey 2007) that has emerged from recognising the limitations of the rational and linear planning models.
In addition to these three features challenging urban governance, urban governance research is concerned with the role of local political institutions and their particular roles in the process of governing (Bulkeley 2005; Bulkeley et al. 2009). It queries, more broadly, how cities are coordinated and planned through decentred forms of governance, a result of the need of local governments to mobilise private resources and secure consent (legitimacy; Francesch-Huidobro 2012). Finally, research in urban politics points to the importance of vertical interaction through some form of multilevel governance (Corfee-Morlot et al. 2009). All of these features depicting the challenges of governing cities are discussed in depth in Chapters 2 and 3, in which we address the challenges of urban climate governance in China.
The urban governance of climate change has been mostly researched in relation to the transnational coalitions between citiesâthat is, the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) programme and the Large Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) (Bulkeley 2005, 2010, 2012; Bulkeley and Newell 2010; Levi-Faur 2012). Increasingly, comparative studies are considering how climate-mitigation responses and low carbon transitions are governed in cities across the globe (Bulkeley et al. 2013).
More recently, we and other scholars have analysed various aspects of climate governance in Chinese cities. For example, Chu and Schroeder (2010) discuss the Hong Kong corporate sectorâs attempt at driving climate change mitigation; Dhakal (2009, 2011) analyses the internal dynamics of several Chinese cities in relation to energy use and CO 2 emissions; and Schroder (2011) discusses the operationalisation of the clean development mechanism by Chinese local authorities. The textbook by Harris (2012) contains a succinct analysis of the governance of climate change in Hong Kong, while Miao and Lang (2010) offer a broad discussion on Chinaâs climate change trajectory and energy profile, national responses to climate change and the evolution of state institutions (Li et al. 2011). Our more recent work has focused on the issues of legitimacy and the role of epistemic communities in climate governance in several Chinese cities (Francesch-Huidobro 2012; Francesch-Huidobro and Mai 2012). Finally, a group of Chinese scholars working for state-sponsored research institutions has compiled an edited volume on issues affecting climate change policies in China, with reflections on experiences elsewhere (Wang et al. 2013).
Against the backdrop of this scholarship, we recognise the importance of studying the context, dynamics and challenges of the governance of climate change in Chinese cities and of developing adequate conceptual frameworks to explain contemporary practices and changes, what, how and why these changes occur and the implications for future research and practice. In other words, we need to examine what goes on beyond the radar of the official accounts and the model-oriented studies of climate mitigation in China and the vacuum around studies of how climate mitigation is being governed.
As mentioned, Chinese cities have been important sites for rapid economic development and have contributed to the transformation of the nation into a modern state. At present, China has 665 million urban dwellers, up from 191 million 30 years ago. By 2030, 350 million new rural migrants will need to be accommodated in Chinaâs cities (Liu and Salzberg 2012). UN projections indicate that by 2050, 73 percent of China will be urbanised, with cities populated by 1.02 billion dwellers (Dhakal 2011: 73). Meeting their needs will put pressure on resources, which in turn will bring problems related to air pollution, energy efficiency, transport, solid waste and water pollution. In addition to these challenges, China has made a commitment to lower the carbon intensity of its economy by 40 to 50 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels. In the current 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011â15), a 17 percent reduction target for carbon intensity has been set. As Chinese cities contribute more than 70 percent of energy-related carbon emissions, addressing citiesâ emissions is an essential element of this plan.
In light of these developments, and within the conversations about urban governance and governing broadly in contemporary China, this book provides the first critical introduction to the challenges that Chinese cities are facing with regards to the governance of climate change mitigation. It considers these challenges from the perspective of the development of three intertwined issues driving carbon emissions and reduction in Chinese cities: municipal governance, including the effects of globalisation and decentralisation, financial and personnel incentives for municipal authorities and their legitimacy and emerging forms of governance; the policy desig...
