Unveiling Collaborative Environmental Governance at the Local Level in the Transitioning Chinese Environmental State: A Case Study of Dongtan Sustainable City Project

Dongtan Eco-City Project was the nation’s very first and ambitious planning for climate change mitigation. However, the project stagnated before reaching the end of its first-phase development. The author identifies that the core problem in Dongtan failure lies within the black box of collaboration and the limited while fragmented governing capacity at the local level. It is the purpose of this research paper to look into the process of how local government in China finds its way towards collaborative governance given a diverse network of non-state social actors at the local level during the pursuit of constructing sustainable cities. The actors and barriers in collaborative process will be identified and several recommendations to overcome the obstacles are provided at the end of this paper.