What Drives People to Complain about Environmental Issues? An Analysis Based on Panel Data Crossing Provinces of China

Jingjing Zeng, Meng Yuan and Richard Feiock
Additional contact information
Jingjing Zeng: School of Public Administration, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan 430000, China
Meng Yuan: Department of Political Science, Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, IL 60115, USA
Richard Feiock: Askew School of Public Administration & Policy, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 4, 1-18

Abstract: Strengthening public participation has often proven essential for achieving environmental sustainability goals. The “Xinfang”system, through complaint visits and letters, offers institutional channels through which the public’s grievances can be addressed, and where court judgments can be challenged by filing complaints about environmental problems to Environmental Protection Bureaus. Operating under the monopoly of the state Party, the “Xinfang” system provides the political opportunity for pro-environmental values and interests to be voiced and heard by governments. Importantly, comprehending the evolution of public complaints over a prolonged period of time sheds light on various determinants of this public participation program. This paper seeks to better understand environmental degradation caused by unbridled economic growth in China and the efforts that civic environmentalism has made to reduce the problem. More specifically, it uses panel data on 31 Chinese provincial/first level administrative units, collected over a decade, from 2003 to 2015, to analyze how socioeconomic status in the general public and the political and policy structures have shaped civic environmentalism. We use two Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) models to explore how these actors have propelled the public to protect their environment from discharged industrial wastewater, industrial waste gas, and solid wastes.

Keywords: Environmental complaints; “Xinfang” system; Civic environmentalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/4/1147/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/4/1147/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:4:p:1147-:d:208028

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().