What do state-enforced factory closures and COVID-19 lockdowns have in common? They are examples of “blunt force regulations,” i.e. harsh and ad hoc policy measures that states resort to in the face of complex and urgent problems. In this impressive book, Denise Sienli van der Kamp looks at how the Chinese state employed and continually advanced blunt force regulation as a solution once it had “set its mind (and resources) to the task” (p. 184) of solving the country’s pervasive industrial air pollution problem.
Blunt force regulation in the case of air pollution in China most often means blanket production cuts or regulatory bans, or even the sudden relocation or complete shutting down of local companies that are perceived as polluters. It involves measures characterized by inflexible enforcement procedures, based on arbitrary standards and justifications, and embodying coercive state intervention at the most local level.
Van der Kamp argues that while these measures may be effective in reducing pollution in the short term, they are inefficient in the long term because of the high costs involved. Heavy-handed state intervention creates insecurity and distrust in affected communities, harms local economic development, not least by deterring future business investment, and discourages real compliance with the regular laws and institutions that also exist to combat pollution.
These observations also lead to the main puzzle that motivates van der Kamp’s study: if blunt force regulations are so costly and inefficient, why does the Chinese state resort to these fractious measures? Why does it knowingly accept these costs and, not least, the fierce opposition of businesses and workers and thereby (local) instability, when it could have chosen other measures?
The explanation, according to van der Kamp, lies in weak state capacity. Drawing on Michael Mann’s theorem, she argues that the Chinese state “lacks infrastructural power” to ensure that lower levels of the government hierarchy implement the policies (or rather, the policy goals) of the central leadership. She shows that blunt force regulation is indeed deliberate (p. 20); it is a calculated response to weak bureaucratic control and an unwillingness to involve societal actors and institutions such as the courts in environmental policy making and monitoring.
With this argument, van der Kamp claims to contradict the bulk of the existing literature, which argues that the observed harsh implementation of environmental policies and the often somewhat odd measures chosen (as in the case of “blue sky” manufacturing for major events) are evidence of strong state capacity, and that these studies tend to focus only on outcomes (p. 51). This is a somewhat unnecessary juxtaposition, and – given the lack of specific references to these texts and statements – it can easily be argued that most of the empirical literature on “authoritarian environmentalism,” for example, rather focuses on the authoritarian nature of these measures. This literature indeed describes the outcome-at-any-price fixation of leaders in using these measures, but – in my reading – it does not necessarily argue that this means that the Chinese state as a whole is very capable.
Beyond these juxtapositions, van der Kamp makes her case convincingly. Her book is novel and an invaluable contribution to our understanding of environmental policymaking in contemporary China. She demonstrates in great detail that blunt force regulation is more than political theatre, because it means that local governments are taking action and that air pollution is actually being reduced. She carefully assesses how blunt force regulation is “a representation of both the state’s extraordinary reach and the inescapable limits of governing under authoritarianism in China” (p. 184). While she also discusses the possibility that blunt force regulation is a transitional phenomenon, she seems to doubt that it will be replaced by other means, such as “bottom-up enforcement” based on citizen participation and the courts, in the short to medium term, especially in times of economic crisis. Overall, her remarkable account of the economic and social costs of blunt force regulation also undermines any argument for this kind of environmental authoritarianism as a cure that may appeal to other polities facing massive environmental problems and climate change.
Van der Kamp’s study is based on a unique breadth and depth of empirical material, focusing in particular on the period 2010–2018. Extensive fieldwork and interviews in the provinces of Guangdong, Hebei and Jiangsu are used to develop hypotheses, which she then tests on a nationwide scale through quantitative analyses of documented city-level blunt force regulation measures and socio-economic development information, as well as, for example, satellite data that can verify pollution reductions.
Van der Kamp puts the resulting study in dialogue with a remarkably wide range of political science and China studies literature, which makes her findings and arguments connectable with general scholarship on authoritarian politics, bureaucracy, policy implementation, state capacity and forms of state power, civil society, social movements, the rule of law and much more. An entire chapter is devoted to comparative excursuses looking at cases of blunt force regulation in India, the UK and the Philippines.
Elegantly written, illustrated with tables and diagrams, and including an appendix of definitions and data notes, van der Kamp’s book is essential reading for anyone interested in the politics of air pollution control in China and beyond. Her theory of a “top-down solution to bureaucratic noncompliance” (p. 59) and its real-life consequences, as well as her assessment of the present and future of China’s green transition, will have a significant long-term impact on our field.
