The State Pushing Back: Anti-Incineration Protests vs. Pro-Incineration Governance in China

• In Event: 2251 - Section on Environmental Sociology Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 13. Environmental Social Movements

Abstract

This paper highlights the limits of environmental pluralism in China through exploring incineration boom despite rising protests against incinerators. Prior scholarship largely focuses on resistance with varying degrees of success and on short-period cases. This research instead takes a relatively long-term view to examine cases in which protests ultimately fail to derail incineration projects and to document authorities’ increasing commitment to incineration and their tactics to dampen and contain resistance—using political campaigns, a carrot-and-stick approach, and legal means. In a departure from the bulk of studies centering on gaps between the central and local governments, this study makes a case in which local authorities endeavor to enforce the central government’s policy and manage to overcome grassroots opposition. Contributing to a deeper understanding of environmental governance in China, the paper also helps overcome the narrowness of social movements studies by looking beyond contention per se and puts movements in their place.

Author

• Yao Li, Harvard University