Richard Balme

Environmental governance in the People’s Republic of China: the political economy of growth, collective action and policy developments – introductory perspectives

The special issue is introduced here by considering the state of the environment and environmental governance in the PRC. While significant, substantial developments in legislation and policymaking remain insufficient to tackle the degradation of the environment and the increasing saliency of environmental issues in Chinese politics. Tremendous challenges remain in the areas of natural resources governance, environmental health, and transition paths in agriculture and urban development. They need to be addressed by an even stronger commitment of the Chinese leadership, accompanied by significant reforms in the areas of environmental litigation, the transparency of local government decision-making, and the capacity of the self-organisation of Chinese citizens in mobilising on environmental issues.

Mobilising for environmental justice in China

This article assesses the situation of environmental rights in China in terms of political interactions and their implications for Chinese politics. Environmental justice is primarily conceived as equity in access to environmental goods and fairness in social processes dealing with market or government failures to provide environmental security. The argument is that environmental deterioration has a significant influence on the pattern of inequalities in the PRC, occasionally creating situations of extreme injustice. The developments involving legislation, collective action, public participation and litigation over the last decade have served as converging factors to allow for some significant improvements in environmental policymaking procedures. Although these developments have remained far from reversing the general state of the environment in China, they have introduced significant changes in the patterns of interaction among policy stakeholders.

Convergence, Fragmentation and Majority-Cycling in French Public Opinion

The shock of Sunday, 21 April 2002, when Front National (FN) leader Jean-Marie le Pen qualified for the second round of the presidential election, eliminating the Socialist candidate and incumbent Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, raised doubts about the quality of the democratic process in France. Since the foundation of the Fifth Republic, the presidential election has been the cornerstone of the regime, forming the basis for executive power and grounding its legitimacy upon a direct majoritarian election. For the second time, the left would not participate in the final round of the elections.1 For the first time, a conservative candidate faced an extreme-right candidate in the final stage of the competition for State leadership. A large part of the French public (some 43% of votes for the left in the first round) faced the dilemma of supporting Jacques Chirac to stop Jean-Marie Le Pen or abstaining in the second round. After two weeks of massive demonstrations against the National Front leader, Jacques Chirac was elected by 82 per cent of the vote compared to 18 per cent for Le Pen. Abstention remained at 20 per cent, revealing large numbers of crossover votes from the left to Chirac. The emotional shock soon calmed down.