The extant literature focuses more on the patterns and the driving forces of climate adaptation at the local level in Western institutional settings. However, local governments in China have also taken diverse adaptation actions to realize the national blueprint for carbon emission reduction. Thus, it comes to the research questions: why do local governments differ in climate adaptation actions? More specifically, what are combinations of factors and their leading mechanisms that account for local climate adaptation actions in China? To that end, this study adopts the theoretical framework of social-ecological systems (SES) to conceptualize the underlying patterns for diverse climate adaptation actions of local governments. An archetype analysis is conducted by a large-N QCA (qualitative comparative analysis) approach to extract combinations of factors that lead to diverse local climate adaptation actions from 289 cities in China, corroborating the theoretical hypotheses with a robustness test of FCA (formal concept analysis) approach. The research findings show that: (1) in the region with high level of economic development, the local government tends to take long-term adaptation actions (e.g., green infrastructure investment, personnel training, knowledge dissemination) to mitigate its endowment disadvantages and avoid the potential impacts of climate hazards on local economy, driven by the economic incentive that further increases its fiscal revenue; (2) in the less developed region, the local government tends to take short-term adaptation actions (e.g., instant plans for flooding and drought) to exploit its endowment advantages and tackle the immediate climate hazards, driven by the political incentive that magnifies its political performance of ensuring and improving people’s livelihoods and social-ecological security. This study highlights the underlying patterns for local diversity of climate adaptation actions with large-scale empirical evidence and contributes to a better understanding of governing the climate commons in transitional countries.
As digital common good, public data is of great importance for digital governance. Data silos in the government bureaucracy are traditionally associated with political structures that keep power decentralized and promote internal competition, but are they also present in highly centralized regimes? This study uses the Data Management Bureau (DMB) as a vehicle to understand how China’s local governments try to tackle data silos across the bureaucratic organizations. It analyzes two different mechanisms of data integration drawing on extensive field research across eastern and southern China conducted from 2022 to 2023. By leveraging campaign-style enforcement and institutional reform, a new vertical functional department has been established to manage public data and build the data pools. The collaboration among local government agencies, private and state-owned high-tech companies, research institutes, and civil society has been achieved through large-scale digitalization projects in the past decades. While identifying both technical and political barriers to efficient data integration, this study also investigates local governments’ relentless attempts to strengthen centralized control from the top down. The increasing tension embedded in the ‘tiao-kuai’ system requires policy innovation for inter-agency collaborations. Specifically, this study contributes to the literature on collective action by illustrating the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in collective decision-making.
The common pool resource (CPR) theory has inspired the recognition of community self-governance in natural resource management. However, many CPR literature treated government as an external variable to community, without sufficiently considering the close interaction between the two, especially in strong-government context. In this paper, we applied two case villages on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau of China with different governance systems for caterpillar fungus (Ophiocordyceps sinensis), a CPR with lucrative values, to study the effects of the different interventions of the local government with multiple tasks from higher authorities. In both villages, we find that the local governments have demonstrated a resolute commitment to completing their tasks, with a particular focus on the core tasks, which has significantly influenced the institutional design in caterpillar fungus governance. However, in the institutional enforcement, local governments wield considerable discretion, which results in diverse paths and levels of effectiveness of caterpillar fungus governance. Rather than a forceful government that supplants community self-governance, a facilitative government that assists in monitoring and sanction can foster more robust community self-governance of caterpillar fungus. Our findings underscore the pivotal role that local governments play in CPR governance, which defines the characteristics of CPR governance in strong-government context. Furthermore, these findings enrich the applications of CPR governance theory, particularly in the aspect that how government-community interacts to develop a self-governance institution in strong-government context.
This paper contributes to scholarship on the role of state-reinforced self-governance, in averting the tragedy of urban commons by looking at China’s community regeneration program. The scholarly works on self-governance’s effectiveness are peppered with diverse arguments suggesting that: (i) the authority may destroy self-governing institutions of users, stay away so that users can develop self-governing institutions for management; (ii) the state-reinforced self governance allows a financially, technologically, statutorily, and politically strong state to assist community members to manage their commons. Thus, this article examines the management of the urban commons in China through a community regeneration program, explores the mechanism of state-reinforced self-governance, with the aim of improving the effectiveness of public participation.
Ostrom’s Social-Ecological System (SES) approach, is empolyed to illustrate how user self-governance occurs with strong state involvement. Community regeneration in China has undergone a process from the transformation of simple physical space to improving a comprehensive community environment. Studies demonstrate that urban commons management within community regeneration has been subject to failure or underperformance when the level of public participation were relatively low. Community regeneration involves a wide range of diversified and complex individuals and groups, while multiple factors affecting participation effects. Given this, the case of China is unique in that the state reinforces user self-governance and does not become involved in local operational activities, despite offering substantial assistance.
This article involved a review of the extant literature, a conceptual analysis, and participant observation, as well as extensive visits to the C Community in S City, China. To obtain information from the varied sources, the research team members volunteered to assist residents with their car parking activities, and interviewed local officials, property managers, and practitioners on numerous occasions. We also attended several decision-making meetings arranged by the communities.
The most important lesson that China’s state reinforced self-governance system conveys is that, when a state provides the resource users with financial, technological, statutory, and political support without undermining user autonomy, users can develop much stronger self-governing institutional arrangements that are needed.
Market is a complex and rigorous environmental governance instrument, and building a nested institutional system is a necessary condition for the market mechanism to play its advantages in the governance of the rural commons. Institutions can not only limit the profit-seeking nature of the market mechanism and reduce the transaction cost of the market, but also help expand the market and achieve the unity of fairness and efficiency. Focusing on whether and how the market mechanism can improve the governance of rural living environment, this paper makes an empirical analysis with 133 villages and 976 farmers in southwest of China as samples. Research shows that it is difficult for a single market mechanism to improve the governance of rural living environment. When the government-led institutional rules intervene, the advantages of market mechanism can be brought into play under the protection and constraint of high-level institutional rules. On this basis, this paper discusses the relationship between the government and the market in the governance of the rural commons by using the nested institutional system analysis framework, and summarizes the institutional design of "market under institution". The institutions have a crowding-out effect on the market mechanism, that is, although the government-led institutional rules will weaken the promotion of private interests by the market mechanism, these reduced private interests will also be transformed into public interests under the influence of institutional rules, thus promoting the improvement of social benefits and finally achieving the compatibility of fairness and efficiency. Furthermore, this paper analyzes the internal mechanism of transforming private interests into public interests by using the institutional design of "market under institution". In this process, without losing the role of the government, the market is not losing its efficiency, the combination of promising government and effective market is realized, and the balance between public interests and private interests is achieved in the governance of the rural commons.
Keywords: Market mechanism; Government; Institutions; Collective Action; Rural Living Environmental Governance
This article identifies multiple roles that "bridging organizations" play to promote the co-production of public services: an institutional system embedder that implements multi-dimensional empowerment, a socially skilled agent that carries out institutional production, and a social network actor that stimulates individual motivation. It examines the mechanisms of how bridging organizations promote co-production: hierarchical nested capability mechanism, the capital conversion mechanism, and the socio-psychological mechanism. This paper argues that, at macro level, social organizations need to be integrated into the system of institutional relations and jointly promote the multi-level capability enhancement of multiple stakeholders in public services. At meso level, social organizations are in a unique ecological niche in the entire social network and contribute to the reproduction of the institution through the circulation of resources, knowledge, and information. At micro level, the co-production of public services emphasizes the role of informal systems to activate social norms and create new values.
Collective action has been a central theme in the discourse on commons governance, reflecting the inherent challenges of managing shared resources. However, there is the lack of coherence in addressing how multiple factors operate in unison within a single scenario, and whether there are interplays between different elements that could influence the governance of commons. China has the world's largest irrigation system, which is one of the typical commons. In the past decade, the China Institute for Rural Studies (CIRS) at Tsinghua University has organized large-scale rural investigations every year to collect data on agricultural and rural development including water conservancy and irrigation management, to form a large rural survey database on irrigation system (CISD). Based on the CISD, more than 30 pieces of works has been produced in the past decade, including a dozen of international publications, which provides an opportunity to analyze multiple factors and complicated relationships in a unified scenario of the commons. This study aims to address the aforementioned gaps by synthesizing studies based on CISD that examine collective action within the Chinese context, utilizing a unified database and consistent measures. We firstly provide an in-depth examination of the collective action challenges and solutions within China's irrigation commons. We then integrate these findings within the commons theory framework. Based on the Chinese context, we tested the applicability in the Chinese context of the variables that achieve consensus, responded to controversial variables, and discovered some new influencing factors. In addition, our research focuses on the causal mechanisms affecting collective action. Through causal path analysis, we identified the complex mechanisms that weaken and promote collective action. The implications of this research are twofold: it reveals the institutional diversity and dynamic adaptability in the management of collective action, and it demonstrates the potential application of delicacy governance.
Community engagement has emerged as a significant trend in China, spanning multiple scales from community projects to district guidelines and national policies. While existing studies have examined both top-down interventions and bottom-up initiatives, the complex interplay between these approaches at the community scale remains understudied. Through a case study of a Community Party-mass Service Centre renovation in Wuhan, China, this paper investigates these intermediary processes to understand the dynamics of community commons governance in an Eastern context. The government initiated this renovation project to enhance community governance and explore policy implementation methodologies in a relocated community.
Through in-depth ethnographic research focusing on the Centre as a confluence of contested interactions between hierarchical and grassroots agencies, this paper demonstrates how the community governance system is contextualised and appropriated to facilitate the process of commoning. By examining the transformative transition during the renovation of the space, the paper reveals dynamic tensions between top-down and bottom-up agencies in defining and redefining the space.
The findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of governmentality and local participation in urban China. By unpacking the complex dynamics of community governance, we reveal how community commons is cultivated through collaborative processes that bridge state authority and community needs.
This paper challenges simplistic notions of top-down governance versus bottom-up participation, suggesting instead a model of community commons where agencies meet, interweave, and manoeuvre through the process of commoning. It offers valuable lessons for urban planners and policymakers seeking to foster resilient, participatory, and hopeful urban communities by balancing governmentality with meaningful local participation.
Keywords:
Community governance, Urban commons, Community participation, State-society relations, Chinese urbanisation
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