The Logic Of China’s Air Pollution Prevention And Control Policy Change

In recent years, China’s urban air quality has become the focus of attention, and the large-scale sustained severe haze weather has seriously affected the normal economic and social order, at the same time it has endangeredthe public health and safety, which leads to strong domestic and international reaction. Since the 1970s, China has strengthen the environmental protection work, and introduced a series of air pollution control measures that have achieved certain results, meanwhile the prevention policies went through a variety of reform, adjustment and improvement. Although the overall improvement in air quality was crystal clear, and the pollution situation has achievedcertain containment, from an overall point of view, the regional characteristics of air pollution is increasingly clear, and there is a large gap between the air quality and public expectations. We still don’t get rid of the predicament of "treatment after pollution", and the effectiveness of governance is not significant. The current situation can’t help but make people reflect:in 1973, the Air pollution prevention and control work of China was officially launched, and has accumulated more than 40 years of experience up to this day. At the same time, with the aggravation of the situation of air pollution, governments at all levels attach great importance to promote a continued strengthening series of policies and measures, but why is governance effect unsatisfactory? To some degree, does this mean that the current pollution control policy in China is difficult to meet the needs of atmospheric environmental governance? So, what kind of policy can promote the air pollution control effectively? Therefore, it does have a strong practical significanceto sum up the experience of air pollution control, find the key factors that affect the policy change, and explore the logic of pollution control policy.In order to identify the influence factors of China air pollution prevention and control policy change, and then explore the process logicbehind the policy change, based on historical and realistic combination of angles, this study analyzeschange process of China’s air pollution control policy, by means of institutional analysis, literature analysis and case analysis, combined with the policy network theory analysis framework.First of all, based on the historical facts of policy development, defining the connotation of air pollution control policy, ascertaining the research object of policy change, this paper systemized the evolution process of China’s air pollution control policy since the founding of the PRC, and summarized the surface characteristics presented by the policy change. The study found that China air pollution prevention and control policy has experienced five stages:The administrative control of industrial point pollution (1956-1978), the management and control in legal way (1979-1991), the control of market mechanism introduced (1992-2002), the comprehensive control attempting to break the territorial model (2003-2010), the cooperative governance of legalization (2010-). On the whole,China’s air pollution control policy shows a track of "ladder progressive", and the specificperformance, whichmeansthe diversification of policy actors, the standardization of policy tools, the social action network and other features, has provided the historical clues and the realistic foundation to the search after the influence factors of the policy change.The simple analysis of the history evolution is not far enough for us to get the logic of the policy change, therefore we need to find a theoretical perspective adapted to explain the process of policy change. From the existing research, the study of policy change has undoubtedly taken the multi-angle and multi-channel. However, under the circumstance of contemporary social structure transformation, all sorts of complicated and cross-sectoral public policy agenda are springing up. In the policy process,the quantity of organizers and participants increases, actorsmake diversification, and the similarity of inter-sectoral policies reduces. The long-term relationship between interest groups and policy implementation gradually evolves into more complex network relationship among multiple organizations.The public problems become more difficult to deal with. At present, China is in a critical period of social transition into a market economy, and the diversification of interests group makes policy participants increase, so the policy process in China is also facing the complicated and changeable trend. The traditional policy stage theory and its single linear model are more and more unable to clearly describe and explain the complicated and volatile policy process.The current study shows that, Policy network theory has a strong advantage of description function and unique theoretical analysis to study multi-subject’s participation in the policy process. It takes the actor relation and structure as the breakthrough point to examine and explain the policy process, and tries to break through the paradigm of the policy stage. The policy network has become an analytical approach widely used in the political science and policy research, and more and more domestic and foreign scholars use it. In addition, Air pollution prevention and control policy process is full of cross-sectoral and inter-regional decision-making events, but also inevitably involves multiple stakeholders. On the basis of above considerations, this study suggests that the policy network is the best theoretical perspective to research the process of policy change.Considering Chinese social situation, this study reforms modestly the policy network theory elements, which is originated from western developed countries. Combined with the policy network structure and behavior concept, and with the guidance of the new institutional theory and Giddens’s theory of structure, finally this study structures a new view of policy change "structure-behavior". On this theoretical basis, this paper constructs a framework to explain the change of air pollution control policy, in order to analyze the interaction within actors’behavior in China air pollution control policy. Drawing lessons from policy network analysis framework, this paper discovers that air pollution control policy change is linked to the change of policy network structure and actor behavior. The key influence factors involve network power structure, the strategic behavior of the government and enterprises, and social capital that use the public participation in the network as the main form. Changes in these factors causea change in the policy network structure andthe different levels of interaction between network policy bodies, thus affect the track of the policy operation.Unlike the western countries, from the perspective of the power structure of policy network, in China the center of policy network power has always been existing, and occupies dominance in the air pollution prevention and control.The criss-cross government administrative relations form a matrix type power network structure, and the environmental administrative agencies are faced with the problem of fragmentation of authority. The decision-making power and the right to speak of the Ministry of Environmental Protection have been authoritatively strengthened. To a certain extent, it has changed the distribution pattern of power resources among the main body of policy network and the mode of actor’s behavior, and then promotes the policy change.From the view of government and enterprise strategic behavior, the local government and enterprises is main responsibility for the implementation of the policy of prevention and control of atmospheric pollution, whose policy response behavior is directly related to the policy effect, and the changes in their interactionsare the key factor to influence the policy change. In order to maximize their own interests, local governments and enterprises will choose the best strategic behavior suited to their own from the environment. Interests need producesthe deviation of behavior; then air pollution control policy and its implementation tools are therefore constantly adjusted and changed. The transformation of environmental regulation is to promote the benign interaction between local government and enterprises.From the factors of social capital, as theaggregate resources of policy network it is an important factor influencing public policy operation. The changes of the relationship between the actors in the policy network and in the interactive behavior transform the social capital stocks, the social resources are reallocated in the policy network, thereby alter the structure of the policy network. In the policy network related to prevention and control of atmospheric pollution, the experts, the media and the public because of the use of social capital change their own position in the policy network, embodied as their changing role in the environmental activism. Interaction among the experts, the media, the public and the government’s response indicate that the network action subject in order to build social capital to shape public issues as the main way to promote policy change. The change of air pollution control policy is actually caused by the imbalance of social capital structure in the policy network.This study finally draws the following conclusions:The evolution of China’s air pollution control policy is actually the process of the transformation of China’s environmental governance structure, and it is also the embodiment of the policy network factors in the policy process.There are triple logical trends in the process of the change of air pollution control policy.The logic of evolution from the government, the market to the cooperative governance is the embodiment of the network subject diversification policy. The logic of evolution from the administrative control, the "legal system" to "rule by law" is not only embodied the policy tool of standardization, and also the maturity of the characteristics of the policy network system. The logic of evolution from "authority obedience/ confrontation" to co-regulation is the interactive mode transformation among the main social action, and social action network changes the social environment of air pollution control policy in the operation of the network.The change in power structure of policy network promotes the policy change, and the policy change is the punctuated equilibrium reflection of the power structure.Policy change is the adjustment of policy network actors’interactive behavior regulation. Social capital stock affects the trend of policy change. Policy network and policy change possessesinteractive relations. Policy network helps to develop a better environmental protection policy.In addition, in the study of policy change, the biggest advantage of the policy network theory is that the policy network theory can better describe and interpret the complex process of policy change with multiple actors involved in, and track the root causes of policy change. Its limitation lies in the fact that it cannot be completely separated from the bound of policy process theory in the actual analysis. In the vertical dimension policy changes, its explanatory is weakly. It is difficult to track the policy actors’ history and comparison analysis.Air pollution prevention and control has an urgent need to strengthen top-level system design, and policy design is an important path of the system design. Therefore, it is the crucial to effectively promote air pollution prevention and control policy that we identify the factors affecting the policy change and find the logic of policy change.In order to provide theoretical support for the research of air pollution control mechanism and Governance model, this study is based on the history of China’s air pollution prevention and control policy, summarizes the phase characteristics, uses the connotation, research approaches and methods of policy network theory for reference, analyzes the key influencing factors of policy change, and then try to find the inherentlogic and development trend of policy change. This is not only beneficial to reflect on China’s air pollution prevention and control work and improve the relevant policy formulation, but also to contribute to summarize the experiences and lessons of environment pollution prevention policy changes and accumulate theoretical knowledge of china’s policy changes, and then promote the localization process of policy change theory.