The Formation Mechanism And Governance Strategy Of Urban Environmental Spatial Conflicts

The process of urbanization has entered a postmodern stage that can be called the "Environmental Era",and the development model has undergone a profound transformation.Land,power,capital,ecological environment and other elements are re-organized and re-utilized based on specific spatial purposes in the overall form of urban environmental space,which is of great significance for promoting the sustainable development of people,economy,society and the natural environment.However,the trend of generalization,normalization and localization of urban environmental spatial conflicts has gradually become a typical dilemma that restricts urban development transformation and environmental quality improvement,which is mainly reflected in the process of spatial planning and site selection decision-making of urban environmental industrial projects with negative environmental externalization.On the one hand,the "paradox" manifested by environmental spatial conflicts declares the contradiction between environmental rights protection and local economic and social order under the awakening of environmental awareness and civil rights,which are mutually exclusive and cannot be achieved simultaneously.On the other hand,the evolution trajectory of "extremism" and the strategy of "compromise" to quell environmental and spatial conflicts easily fall into a strange cycle of "building then resistance,resistance then stopping,no building equals no resistance".Not only does it fail to achieve the expected goal of improving public interests,but it also causes problems such as waste of resources,spatial planning disruption,and even cause legal authority damage.Therefore,the understanding of why and how urban environmental spatial conflicts occur requires a more in-depth mechanism explanation and research.This is not only to understand and decipher the theoretical need for environmental governance "de-spatialization",but also because this issue affects the modernization of ecological civilization and the governance ideal of "cities make life better",and reflects the current resolution of social contradictions,traceable governance and governance community building and other important practical topics.This study is based on the general logic that "theoretical foundation—analysis framework—mechanism explanation — theoretical improvement — policy recommendations",and gradually conducts research from several aspects such as "constructing a theoretical framework","identifying causal relationships","explaining the formation mechanism",and "exploring governance strategies".Firstly,based on interdisciplinary perspectives such as public management,political science,and sociology,a theoretical explanation framework for the formation mechanism of urban environmental spatial conflicts is constructed using resistance politics theory,spatial production theory,communicative action theory,and environmental governance theory as theoretical resources.This framework takes the main body of resistance,spatial cognitive differences,spatial actions,communication space,and government trust as theoretical elements that aid in the analysis of results in environmental spatial conflicts.Secondly,based on the theoretical interpretation framework,following the ideas of multiple research methods and embedded analysis design,the analysis of the formation mechanism of urban environmental spatial conflicts is completed in two parts: causal relationship testing and causal mechanism explanation.Firstly,based on fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis(fs QCA)and necessity analysis(NCA),these identify the relationship between conditional variables and outcome variables and construct a configuration model.Secondly,based on a comparative analysis of three stages of case studies,hypothesis testing,mechanism explanation,and theoretical development which will be conducted on the relationship between various theoretical elements and the results of environmental spatial conflicts.Finally,based on empirical research and positive case analysis,a guiding framework and specific strategies for the governance of urban environmental spatial conflicts are proposed.The main research conclusions of this study are as follows.(1)There are two necessary conditions and five sufficient conditions for urban environmental spatial conflicts,and the different combinations of conditional variables constitute five equivalent configuration models.Among them,"lack of communication space" and "low government trust" are necessary conditions for urban environmental spatial conflicts,while "spatial cognitive differences","discourse frameworks","technological power","organizational strategies",and "resistance subjects" are sufficient conditions for urban environmental spatial conflicts.The intermediate scheme of configuration analysis shows that the five configuration models have high solution consistency and solution coverage,and their values are 85.9% and 98.5%respectively and have passed the robustness test.(2)The confirmatory case analysis reveals three driving mechanisms for the formation of urban environmental spatial conflicts,namely "issue construction" driven,"weak identity" and "network public opinion" driven,"elite politics" and "elite interests" driven.The three driving mechanisms jointly support the following viewpoint:firstly,there are spatial cognitive differences in value concepts,interest demands,and risk allocation between local governments and protest entities regarding spatial decision-making of urban environmental industrial projects;Secondly,in order to give their spatial cognition a dominant position,the protesting subject initiates spatial resistance through the use of discourse frameworks,technological forces,or organizational strategies,while local governments take spatial disciplinary actions to counter it;Thirdly,the spatial discipline actions of local governments have led to the blockade and compression of communication spaces,which in turn has intensified the tendency of the protesting parties to "destroy" communication spaces;Fourthly,under the catalysis of low government trust,the moral judgment and anger of the protesting subjects are amplified,accelerating the "destruction" of communication space;The fifth is the offline confrontation between the main protesters and local governments,which results in environmental space conflicts: mild "occupation" or violent "destruction" of authoritative space.(3)There are differences in the driving forces behind the three sets of explanations for the formation mechanism of urban environmental spatial conflicts.One is that the "issue construction" driven model provides an explanatory framework that does not distinguish the identity of protest subjects,that is,both urban and non-urban homeowners attempt to "question" protest demands through the deconstruction of authoritative narratives by utilizing "survival narratives" and the confrontation between online public opinion and technological monopolies,thereby expanding the influence of anti construction and forcing local governments to include them in policy agendas and respond.Second,when the main body of the resistance is non-urban owners,the "identity of the weak" and "Internet public opinion" driven by the use of "home destruction","body metaphor",and "inter-generational injustice" strengthens the weak narrative,deconstructing the "overall situation","environmental security","expert argumentation" and other authoritarian narratives,highlighting the plight of living space being appropriated;The internet media further "amplifies" the symbols of the weak,forming a public opinion space that is opposite to the official public opinion space through emotional interaction,group identification,and consensus cohesion mechanisms,thereby promoting local governments to adopt "technological monopoly","split identification",and "focus shift" with discipline and countermeasures.Thirdly,when the main body of the protest is urban homeowners,the driving force of "elite politics" and "owner’s interests" is manifested in the use of rationale narratives such as "objective cognition","regulatory transparency",and "procedural openness" to deconstruct authoritative narratives such as "overall situation","technological security","stigmatization",and "procedural legality",driven by the pursuit of public participation rights and legitimate economic interests,directing attention from "technical disputes" to "procedural disputes",Creating cyberspace for anti-construction public opinion to achieve a "virtual breakthrough" against technological monopolies,and collaborating with environmental NGOs to establish an "organizational alliance" to expand political resource boundaries,thus causing local governments to react with space regulation.(4)Fourthly,in order to adjust and resolve urban environmental spatial conflicts,establishing an embedded framework of "Institution-Life-Space" to provide guidance for specific governance strategies.One is to replace "production politics" with "life politics" to provide a new value orientation;The second is to improve the institutional design of urban environmental spatial production and decision-making,improve the visibility of spatial information,predictability of environmental risks,legitimacy of spatial decision-making,and rationality of spatial benefit distribution.The third is to propose a spatial creation plan for the "boundary flow" of urban environmental industrial facilities,enhance the elasticity and flexibility of the city’s boundaries,and create multiple spatial overlapping scenes.The fourth is to promote the reproduction of communication space with the direction of subjectivity construction,including cultivating personalized communication methods,shaping social elites to "construct consent" between the government and the community,establishing the knowledge production mechanism of spatial decision-making "negotiating reality",and providing governance strategies of algorithmic politics,computer-aided decision-making and virtual reality technology to guide the "controllable" and "good" of cyberspace.Based on the above research work,the formation mechanism of urban environmental spatial conflicts has been revealed,and the corresponding theoretical explanation framework and research hypotheses have been constructed and tested,which has certain innovations in theoretical development and the application of diverse research methods.The mutual coupling of institutional systems,living worlds,and spatial order can provide practical solutions for important government governance issues such as environmental public participation,resolution of grassroots social conflicts and disputes,and high-quality urban development.