Research On Environmental Group Incidents Governance Based On Polycentric Theory

With the increase of the public’s environmental rights awareness, various complaints about environmental pollution are rising year by year and the environment problems as well as the reasonable environment demands have attached more and more attention of the public. In recent years, environmental group incidents between the public and enterprises as well as the public and the government caused by environmental pollution and ecological protection occur frequently, which impact the normal social order and go against the social stability and unity. In essence, environmental group incident is a kind of expression of the contradiction and conflict among multi interest groups. To govern environmental group incidents, the interest of each participant must be handled well with. Therefore, ever participant faces the same problem: how to govern environmental group incidents effectively? Under the social background of perfect the social management pattern of “the party committee leads, the government takes charge, the society cooperates and the public participates”, it is understandable to discuss the governance of environmental group incidents with the framework of polycentric cooperative governance based on the theoretical basis. With the research theme of division and cooperation of multi-subject participants in environmental group incidents governance, this thesis explores how each participant cooperates with each other to govern environmental group incidents on the basis of clear division. The emphasis of the discussion are as follows: first, to clarify the roles and responsibilities of government, enterprises, non-governmental organizations and the public in the governance of environmental group incidents; second, to clarify how each participant can cooperate firmly with the others to make a cooperative governance.This thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter one mainly explains the basis of this topic and the logical supposition of the writing. Chapter two is mainly about the current situation and problems of environmental group incidents governance in China at present, discussing the necessity and feasibility of this topic with the emphasis on the definition of environmental group incidents and its specificity, pointing out the research questions through the analysis of typical cases. Chapter three analyzes the applicability of polycentric theory and the reasons of present problems in environmental group incidents based on polycentric theory and the current situation of environmental group incidents in China. Chapter four provides experience references for the polycentric cooperative governance of environmental group incidents by summarizing the handling pattern of typical group incidents in west, environmental crisis governance as well as the reality in China. Chapter five aims to clarify the responsibilities of four major participants in environmental group incidents, as well as to establish a consultative dialogue mechanism of environmental group incidents and a platform where the government, enterprises, the public an non-government organizations can communicate effectively, have dialogue equally and solve the problem cooperatively, so that they can govern the environmental group incidents effectively. Chapter six includes a summary of research status and an outlook future.