Local Energy Efficiency Policy Implementation in China: Bridging the Gap between National Priorities and Local Interests*
By Genia Kostka, William R. Hobbs. The China Quarterly, 2012
166 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Abstract This paper analyses Chinese sub-national governments’ implementation strategies to meet national energy efficiency targets in the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006–2010). Previous research has focused on the ways governance practices and decision-making structures shape implementation outcomes, yet very little attention has been given to what strategies local leaders actually employ to bridge national priorities with local interests. To illustrate how local leaders work politically, this paper highlights specific implementation methods officials use to strengthen formal incentives and create effective informal incentives to comply with energy efficiency mandates. The analysis is drawn from 53 interviews conducted in June and July of 2010 in Shanxi, a major coal-producing and energy-intensive province. Findings suggest that local government leaders conform to national directives by “bundling” the energy efficiency policy with policies of more pressing local importance or by “bundling” their energy efficiency objectives with the interests of groups with significant political influence. Ultimately, sub-national government officials frame policies in ways that give them legitimacy at the local level.
Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Political Science and International Relations
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/09b43a35978f7df37c1df0fa28c07de90b633d2e
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Citations in the corpus
- The Reinvention of Development Planning in China, 1993–2012 (2013, background): “With so many targets, the effectiveness of the system can be diluted and policy makers devise strategies to maximize their performance rating in 614 Modern China 39(6) ways that may diverge from the leadership’s intentions (see Kostka and Hobbs, 2012).”
- Perverse Incentive Structure and Policy Implementation Gap in China's Local Environmental Politics (2013, background): “Some researchers have noted that energy and environmental targets in the ‘CPES’ have been combined at some localities, for instance, at Laixi in Shangdong province and Datong in Shanxi province (Heberer & Senz, 2011; Kostka & Hobbs, 2012).”
- Barriers to increasing energy efficiency: evidence from small-and medium-sized enterprises in China (2013, background): “For an overview of China’s energy efficiency policies, see Kostka and Hobbs (2012, 2013), Li and Wang (2012), and Lo and Wang (2013). energy intensity by an additional 16% by 2015.”
- Decarbonizing China’s energy system – Modeling the transformation of the electricity, transportation, heat, and industrial sectors (2019, unknown): “Furthermore, the previous methods for ensuring the implementation of policies on a local level may have proven to be effective in the past, but it might be problematic when implementing environmental policies, as these are characterized by time lags, as shown by Kostka and Hobbs [89] and Kostka and ”
- Implementation and Participation in China's Local Environmental Politics: Challenges and Innovations (2013, background): “Another branch of literature points to the frequent divergence of national and local interests, as local leaders tend to place greater emphasis on economic development than on environmental concerns (Van Rooij, 2006; Mol and Carter, 2006; Kostka and Hobbs, 2012; Kostka and Hobbs, 2013).”