The archetype of a ‘big green state’? What China tells us about green macrofinancial regimes

Mathias Larsen

Review of International Political Economy, 2025, vol. 32, issue 6, 2115-2146

Abstract: Driven by the urgency of the climate crisis, political economists are debating how the state can best ensure financing for a green transition. Providing a conceptual scaffolding for discussing different state roles, the theory of green macrofinancial regimes presents four ideal types from limited to extensive state intervention, as measured by public spending and discipline on private capital: from ‘carbon shock therapy’, to ‘weak or robust de-risking’, and to a ‘big green state’. Problematically, both the debate and the scaffolding focus predominantly on Western countries. Here, I examine the largely untested prevailing assumption that China is the archetype of a big green state. I find that China’s political economy model indeed fits the institutional mold of a big green state. However, while the country primarily uses big green state tools, it also uses a number of tools thought to belong to other regimes. This suggests that the institutional complementarities of regimes do not make them as mutually exclusive as currently thought. From that, I discuss how the lines between regimes are predominantly fluid in only one direction: While a big green state can use tools across regime types, less interventionist states lack the capacity to use big green state tools.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2025.2530547

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