Factors Influencing Health-related Environmental Action In China And The Contribution Of Public Participation In Sustainable Environmental Policy Making

During the last years,there is an increasing number of social unrest in China,which among other reasons also stems from the large scale of pollution.Local governments usually implement projects that do not comply with the environmental standards.Such practices undermine environmental preservation while at the same time they afflict severely human health.Chinese citizens do not any more seem eager to tolerate such level of pollution and frequently take action in order to express their objections.Thus,the present paper is a study regarding the possible factors that influence the willingness of the Chinese citizens to engage in health-related environmental action.However,citizens do not only take action just to indicate their objection regarding the potential projects that cause severe pollution.Such(re)actions(mainly demonstrations and protests)may also be perceived as an indication of the citizens to be actively involved on the decision making process with respect to environmental issues.This brings in the spotlight the second part of the study which describes the contribution of public participation to the(sustainable)environmental policy making.The study begins by analyzing the cultural and political context in China.As far as the cultural context is concerned,the study attempts to give insights with regard to the possible link between culture and the willingness of the Chinese citizens to engage in health-related environmental action.The paper elaborates five cultural theories namely Hofstede cultural theory,the World Value Survey(analyzed)by Roland Inglehart,Schwartz cultural value theory,the GLOBE project and Michael Minkov study.Due to the significant correlation among those cultural studies,the present paper analyzes the Chinese cultural context based on the Hofstede and Inglehart models.Following the analysis of the two cultural theories,the present study also analyzes the longstanding and widespread Chinese philosophies such as the Confucianism in order to identify environmental values that may be rooted in those philosophies and play a role in health-related environmental action.Since both the cultural analysis and Chinese philosophies studied in the present paper couldn't give sufficient clues to explain the relation between health-related environmental action and culture,the study afterwards attempts to approach any possible link by presenting two studies that elaborate the correlation of eco-friendly behavior and pro-environmental action with culture,in particular with Hofstede's dimensions collectivism versus individualism and power distance since those dimensions seem to be the most relevant while they are also the only dimensions mentioned in the literature with respect to environmental action.The studies indicate that individualistic societies tend to be more eager to take action against polluting phenomena in contrast to collectivistic societies.As the second study specifically indicates,in collectivistic countries the focus to motivate citizens to take some kind of action should be paid directly in motivating the whole society rather than trying to motivate individual preferences(such as household energy consumption).Regarding the political context,the study divulged the majority of factors that may influence the willingness of the Chinese citizens to engage in health-related environmental action.In that part a distinction between the legal and political action is made.Legal action is exercised in courts but due to the low rate of successfulness is not frequently practiced by Chinese people.In contrast political action,that is demonstrations or protests,is more often practiced as a means to object possible polluting phenomena that affect human health.In the beginning of the analysis of the political context,the paper analyses important and very basic aspects of the Chinese state that indirectly may exert influence on the citizens namely the political power structure of the state,the territorial division,the judicial and the electoral system and the cadre evaluation system.Following that and besides the fundamental aspect of the Chinese system,the study firstly examines individual characteristics that may influence citizen's health-related environmental action while subsequently it scrutinizes the role of the very essential but slightly complementary aspects of the state such as the institutions,the media,internet and communication technologies,the NGOs,polluting companies and lawyers.The study indicated that the dominant driver for health-related environmental action is pollution and more specifically information and knowledge about the possible negative consequences of pollution on human health while,according to the interviews carried out,an equally significant factor is the extent to which citizens are directly affected by the potential development.What is more,the present paper also indicated that the fundamental aspects in conjunction with the complementary aspects of the system may exert significant influence with respect to the willingness of the Chinese citizens to engage in health-related environmental action.However,indirect or direct restrictions imposed by the Chinese state confine the active contribution of those supplementary aspects with respect to the motivation of the citizens to take healthrelated environmental action.The second part of the analysis pertains to the contribution of public participation in regard to the(sustainable)environmental policy making.Public participation in China seems to be not well established while it also has to deal with several impediments such as its ineffective framework that stems from weak laws and regulations and(probably)its inefficient method to engage the majority of the public that may stem from the time consuming conventional way of public participation.As far as the framework is concerned,the analysis performed indicated that public participation should change,be more strict and precisely documented.However,those considerations have to be made by the legislative branch of the state through the design of an adequate legal framework.Regarding the public's side,the paper suggests a few considerations that should be taken into account for a better engagement of the public such as the implementation of online participation.Finally,in order to better integrate the implementation of public participation in the Chinese sociopolitical context,the analysis also takes into account Chinese cultural characteristics as well as the political regime which is characterized a(semi)authoritarian.As for the sustainable environmental decision making,public participation can indeed improve the quality of the final outcome.In a sense,public participation implies sustainable development through a compromise among the social,environmental and economic pillars that comprise the concept of sustainability.The actors involved in public participation should eventually reach a joint decision which would be the result of the trade-off between the needs and interests of participating members.Usually and in the absence of public representatives,decisions are mostly made based on the economic performance with none or less consideration for the environment which eventually undermines sustainable development and human health.Since the public is more concerned about the environment,public participation may lead to more sustainable solutions through the integration of social and environmental pillars in decision making process.However,public participation does not undeniably lead to sustainable outcome but the odds in favor of a sustainable outcome are definitely increasing.The link between sustainable environmental policy making and public participation is not straightforward.The process of public participation includes elements that can indirectly contribute to the development of sustainable solutions.For example,through public participation,citizens would have the opportunity to educate themselves about environmental issues or they would be able to supervise the progress of the project or raise their objections regarding the potential plan and so forth.Those considerations confine the unique focus on economic performance by putting in the spotlight other aspects of the potential development(by the public representatives)which most probably would relate to the benefits for the society and environment.Subsequently,in order to validate the findings of the theoretical research,the study presents and illustrates six cases that caused major social unrest in China such as the Xiamen anti-PX project in 2007,the Kunming anti-PX project in 2013,the Maoming anti-PX Project in 2014,the Liu Li Tun garbage incineration plant in 2007,the Panyu incineration plant in 2009 and the Pingwang incineration plant in 2008.In addition,in order to make the findings even more robust and to possibly obtain additional information several interviews with experts carried out.The next part of the present paper is related to the discussion part in which the findings of the desk research,the cases' descriptions and the interviews are combined and discussed together while the last part summarizes the findings and makes recommendations for further research.