This paper analyzes the determinants of alternative automobile fuel regulation and development support with a particular focus on methanol fuel. We find that embedded interests, bureaucratic reforms, and political circumstances in the Chinese national, provincial, and municipal governments have...

China’s national leaders see restructuring and diversification away from resource-based, energy intensive industries as central goals in the coming years. On the basis of extensive fieldwork in China between 2010 and 2012, we suggest that the high turnover of leading cadres at the local level...

Research on the relationship between information, technology, and environmental governance in the current Information Age has gained momentum in recent years. Nevertheless, much theoretical, empirical, and normative issues remain seriously under-explored. Existing studies also tend to be...

A variety of social credit systems (SCSs) are being implemented in China in order to steer the behavior of Chinese individuals, businesses, social organizations, and government agencies. The architects of these SCSs – national and local governments, as well as commercial firms – claim such...

In the existing literature there is general agreement that the effectiveness and efficiency of command and control instruments versus market-based instruments is highly context specific. A country’s particular regulatory environment and state capacity, as well as the features of given...

China's national leaders have recently made a priority of changing lanes from a pollution-intensive, growth-at-any-cost model to a resource-efficient and sustainable one. The immense challenges of rapid urbanization are one aspect of the problem. Central-local government relations are another...

This paper examines developments in the renewable electricity sector in Brazil and China since 2000. The two countries share many interests with respect to solar and wind power, but institutional differences in state-business relations led to different outcomes. In China, in a context of state...

Recent literature on environmental governance in China frequently ascribes blame for China's environmental problems to subnational governments' lax environmental enforcement. Such research implicitly assumes that more central control would lead to better results but, as yet, the role of the...

Chinese cities are increasingly using digital technologies to address urban problems and govern society. However, little is known about how this digital turn has been implemented. This study explores the introduction of digital governance in Shenzhen, one of China’s most praised smart cities....