Public Participation Mechanism In Environmental Protection In Perspective Of Benefit Equilibrium

The worldwide progress in environmental policies development has been moving from the single command-and-control instruments to a more multiplex system, including government regulation, market mechanism, information disclosure and public participation et al. As one of the most important environmental policies, the information disclosure and public participation mechanism is facing the conflicts of strong demand and insufficient supply in China. This research tries to take Community Environment Roundtable Meeting as an example to examine the role of public participation in China's environmental protection. The policy design, policy implementation and policy performance are investigated to identify the factors that restrict the process of public participation in China.First, this research introduces and compares different types of environmental policy instruments, particularly the strengthening of means of the public participation in the evolution of environmental policies system worldwide. The development of public participation mechanism in water environmental protection in Japan is specifically introduced, as well as the current development status of China's environmental protection is pointed out. Based on these introductions, this research questions, research framework and research methodology are proposed.Second, this research elaborates the theoretical basis of public participation in environmental protection, which includes:1. Based on the dialectical relationship that proposed by opposing theories of political development between economic development, public participation in environmental protection, and the harmony between man and environment, this research argues that only by improving the effectiveness of environmental policies including public participation, the harmony between man and environment would be promoted; 2. Based on the government- market-society relational model, this research argues that public participation and other social forces must be introduced to environmental protection, in order to effectively making up the government and market failure, and improving the current environmental governing dilemma; 3. Based on the theories of institutional change and institutional trading, this research argues that the institutional pattern of environmental protection also needs change from redistributing economic advantages to reallocating economic opportunities, that is, through the institutional arrangements of information disclosure and public participation and other approaches, to change the cost-income ratio between different stakeholders related to environmental protection, thus promote environmental collaboration among various stakeholders on environmental issues, eventually form a co-regulatory mechanism of public participation for environmental protection. On the basis of a typical case analysis, the dissertation proposes a co-reacting mechanism of public participation——gaming and balancing among various interests.Third, in order to promote the gaming and balancing among different environmental interests, this dissertation proposes a new model of public participation for environmental protection—the community environmental roundtable meeting mechanism. According to the supply and demand curve of environmental quality, a theoretical model of community environmental roundtable meeting is designed and the policy design ideas are described in details:through the synergic action with other environmental management tools to improve the supply level of environmental quality, and through the communication to reach consensus for guiding the rational public demand of environmental quality. Besides, this research also discusses the model of political entrepreneurs and the transformation of government functions from the perspective of government, explores the mechanism of corporate environmental and social responsibility from the perspective of enterprise, as well as analyzes other key factors of environmental roundtable meeting mechanism. Based on the introducing of the Implementation Measures of Community Environment Roundtable Meeting, we investigated the pilot project of community environmental roundtable meeting in Jiangsu province, records, questionnaires, data processing and analysis are carried out through the investigation. This research also takes two cases of community environmental roundtable meeting during the implementation process of National Water Pollution Control Technology Major Projects as case study, to analyze the key elements of community environmental roundtable meeting, which are government officials who act in the first role, public leaders and pioneers of entrepreneurs. Institutional framework of community environmental roundtable meeting is proposed based on the case study research. The statistical analysis is carried out through the questionnaire survey on the Jiangsu province pilot project, which indicates the problems of environmental information disclosure and public participation. In accordance with the problems, we suggest the further developing of community environmental roundtable meeting in China should focus on strengthening the legal system of information disclosure and public participation at the policy level, improving the monitoring and protection system of the government's environmental information and public participation at the organizational level, strengthening the platform of environmental information disclosure and public participation based on networks and e-government construction at the operating level, and so on.Finally, on the basis of comprehensive content of this dissertation, we sums up the problems of the public participation in environmental protection in China, such as the low level of participation, lack of participation channels, the randomness and passiveness, the decion making based on individual cost-benefit analysis, and so on. The main reason of these problems are also analyzed and listed:national governance pattern, economic development level, cultural traditions and other factors at macro level, lack of judicial guarantees, inadequate of social development, lack of local government responding capacity, inadequate technical support for public participation, lack of participation channels, and poor performance of corporate environmental and social responsibility at the meso and micro levels, etc. For solving the problems, we proposed corresponding policy recommendations for enhancing public participation in environmental protection in China:developing strategies of public participation in environmental protection, reforming the government environmental management, taking public participation into the energy saving and emission reduction framework, conducting the growth and development of civil society, promoting the legislation of public participation in environmental protection, conducting pilot projects of environmental public participation by steps, promoting environmental information disclosure, expert consulting, open media and other mechanisms which as technical supports for environmental public participation protection, enhancing public environmental awareness and environmental education, and promoting the construction of corporate environmental social responsibility system.