中国基层环境治理中的 “链式协同” —— 基于 S 市工业园区的一项案例研究

To modernize the ecological governance system and governing capability is an important part of the national governing system and capability. The central government has recently proposed to "fully mobilize all stakeholder groups to protect and improve the ecological environment" in consolidating the past achievements and ensuring to build a modern environmental governance system. But how to achieve this key policy goal? In China, intergovernmental collaboration is the main form of environmental collaborative governance, and the collaboration between the government and non-governmental entities posts a new and significant challenge for the government.
In this research we first present the core premise of "partnership" between government and non-governmental entities from a theoretical perspective established from the collaborative governance literature. Second, we adopt the concept of "responsibility chain" which is widely used in China's accountability system. Finally, we propose a "chain-style collaboration" as a new collaborative governance mechanism with China's characteristic by establishing a critical role of the responsibility system in collaborative partnership.
In the empirical analysis, because the collaboration between government and non-governmental entities is still a limited practice in China, we adopt an in-depth case study method to examine the data. We select the "Environmental Management Partnership Program" of the S City Industrial District as our sample based on its long term collaborative practice and data availability. All empirical data in this research comes from the authors' field collection and the official data released by the S City Industrial District.
This research finds that the "chain- style collaboration" mechanism consists of "partnership" relationships and "responsibility chain" practice between local governments and non- governmental entities in collaboration, with the leadership of local governments. Specifically the mechanism is implemented through establishing a collaborative "circle of friends" and the "effective use of the accountability mechanism". The policy implications of the research are as follows. First, local governments play a leading role in environmental collaborative activities in overall policy direction and assessment process. Second, the efforts of non-governmental entities to protect and improve the ecological environment are fully mobilized by constructing "partnerships" between government and non- governmental entities. Third, the local governments should further improve the design of the accountability system within the collaborative governance framework to establish a community of interests and responsibilities between themselves and non-governmental entities.
The theoretical contributions of this paper are as follows. First, the mechanism of the "chain-style collaboration" contributes to the literature through articulating the roles and relationships of government and non-governmental entities in environmental collaboration in China, which has not been adequately explained. Second, by introducing the concept of "partnership" which is the core premise of collaborative governance theory, this research highlights the critical nature and forms of this collaboration. And it effectively bridges the gap in previous studies where local governments and non-governmental entities are only loosely related in the environmental collaborative governance process. Finally, this research further articulates the role of the accountability system in environmental collaboration through the "responsibility chain", which effectively addresses the ambiguity of accountability mechanism in existing literature of collaborative governance.