Governance and cooperation in environmental project delivery: a case study of Tai’an

Cao, Xidong 2020. Governance and cooperation in environmental project delivery: a case study of Tai’an. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

In China, collaborative measures have been chosen and adopted to support the implementation process for many environmental policies and projects. This adoption provides a possibility to study the operation of these governance measures in the context of China. This research targets key factors affecting the collaborative and cooperative process in environmental project delivery. By connecting implementation and networking theories, it builds a framework to identify the roles, attitudes and behaviour of the actors involved, the divergent resources and conditions and the intertwined human relationships, in the process of the intergovernmental collaboration, and cooperation between governmental and non-governmental sectors. The policy implementation models show basic implementation process and governance theories provide key governance arrangements and elements for the framework. However, there are serious gaps founded in the literature review, i.e., the limitation of the typical focus in the policy implementation and environmental governance areas, the contextual inapplicability, overly general impact factors and challenges in governance practice. To fill these gaps, this research targets the collaborative and cooperative process in environmental project delivery and focuses on small cities of China. The research findings, therefore, make a contextual-based contribution to the literature and be of assistance on environmental governance in the less experienced small cities. This study selected Tai’an as a case study area because of the importance of environmental resources in the city where there were two typical ongoing environmental projects, the Sponge City project and the Mount Tai Regional Landscape Forest Farmland Lake Grass Ecological Protection and Restoration Project (Mount Tai Project), which were selected for the research. In the pilot study stage, the ‘ambition-action gaps’ in Tai’an’s collaborative and cooperative environmental project delivery were noticed by the researcher. Therefore, in order to explore why and how overarching intervening factors produce these gaps and the significance and problems associated with collaboration and cooperation processes at the local level, with regard to environmental project delivery in China’s small cities, this study puts forward five research questions as follows. Research Question 1: What forms of governance measures have been used in environmental project delivery at the local level in China? Research Question 2: For what exogenous reasons do local governments in China’s small cities start to collaborate and cooperate in the environmental project delivery process and why, and how do key actors conventionalise collaboration and cooperation under such governance arrangements? Research Question 3: Why do some key actors hold different perspectives towards collaboration and cooperation, and how do these perspectives shape their behaviour with regard to joint environmental project delivery? Research Question 4: Why and how do intervening factors create or prevent the ‘ambition-action gap’, after governance tools are employed in environmental project delivery process of small cities? Research Question 5: To what extent do guanxi influence environmental governance in small cities? To address the research questions, a multi-method qualitative research agenda with a case study design as its core was adopted as the research methodology. The pilot interview in the case study for the Sponge City project justified the relevance of the research questions and examined the feasibility of the research methodology. The follow-up case studies for the Sponge City project and the Mount Tai project generated in-depth data about the collaborative and cooperative project delivery processes. In detail, the data was collected by reviewing relevant policies and local documents, organising four initial and twenty-seven in-depth interviews, and participating in two three-month observations. For each case, the qualitative data was analysed longitudinally, followed by a thematic review across the two cases.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Geography and Planning (GEOPL)
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Governance; Collaboration; Partnership; Environmental project delivery; Small Chinese city
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	18 February 2021
Last Modified:	17 Feb 2022 02:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/138607

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