TY - JOUR A1 - Eaton, Sarah A1 - Kostka, Genia T1 - Authoritarian environmentalism undermined? Local leaders' time horizons and environmental policy implementation in China JF - The China Quarterly N2 - China's national leaders see restructuring and diversification away from resource-based, energy intensive industries as central goals in the coming years. On the basis of extensive fieldwork in China between 2010 and 2012, we suggest that the high turnover of leading cadres at the local level may hinder state-led greening growth initiatives. Frequent cadre turnover is intended primarily to keep local Party secretaries and mayors on the move in order to promote the implementation of central directives. While rotation does seem to aid implementation by reducing coordination problems, there are also significant downsides to local leaders changing office every three to four years. Officials with short time horizons are likely to choose the path of least resistance in selecting quick, low-quality approaches to the implementation of environmental policies. We conclude that the perverse effects of local officials’ short time horizons give reason to doubt the more optimistic claims about the advantages of China's model of environmental authoritarianism. KW - Authoritarian environmentalism KW - Cadre rotation KW - Environmental policy implementation KW - China KW - Leadership KW - Time horizons Y1 - 2014 UR - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-10423 SN - 0305-7410 VL - 218 SP - 359 EP - 380 PB - Cambridge Univ. Press CY - Cambridge ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Harrison, Tom A1 - Kostka, Genia T1 - Balancing priorities, aligning interests: Developing mitigation capacity in China and India JF - Comparative Political Studies N2 - Debates about how to respond to climate change have largely focused on the difficulties in agreeing on national targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. By assuming that the main obstacle to emissions reduction lies in the inability to reach agreement internationally, the current debate underplays the challenges of building the state capacity that will be needed to ensure mitigation takes place. The implementation of mitigation strategies is far from straightforward. It requires careful balancing of competing priorities and deliberate strategies to bring different interest groups on board. We analyze the way this balancing act has been carried out in promoting energy efficiency measures in China and India. The balancing act has been done differently as each country has tailored its approach to the specific context of competing priorities and differing state capacity. We encapsulate these differences by referring to China’s approach as “state-signaling” and India’s approach as a “market-plus” approach. China’s approach is more explicitly statist than India’s, but in both countries, the state plays a central role in building the support base for its policies through processes that we describe as the bundling of policies and interests. These bundling strategies are used to help build informal coalitions in favor of energy efficiency measures. KW - Climate change KW - Domestic politics KW - Energy KW - Coalitions KW - Informal institutions KW - China KW - India Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414013509577 VL - 47 IS - 3 SP - 450 EP - 480 PB - Sage CY - Los Angeles [u.a.] ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kostka, Genia A1 - Zhou, Jianghua T1 - Government-business alliances in state capitalist economies: evidence from low-income markets in China JF - Business and Politics N2 - Based on three in-depth case studies, the study analyzes how and why Chinese enterprises partner with governments in cooperative ventures which aim to simultaneously achieve poverty alleviation objectives and establish profitable business ventures in rural areas. The analysis draws out specific characteristics of three government-business partnerships in China, which vary in terms of governance structure, resource complementarity and incentives. The findings show that in this state capitalist system, outcomes of government-business partnerships depend on firms having unique resources and capabilities that serve particular policy objectives of the government. By the same token, in order to make partnerships attractive to firms, national and local governments must hold the keys to unique resources needed by enterprises looking to do business in low-income markets. The cases further illustrate that, in order to build and maintain successful government-business partnerships over time, the alignment of incentives plays an important role. In sum, complementary resources and well-aligned interests between firms and governments help to explain why some government-enterprise partnerships are more successful than others. Y1 - 2013 UR - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-10440 SN - 1469-3569 VL - 15 IS - 2 SP - 245 EP - 274 PB - de Gruyter CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kostka, Genia A1 - Xiaofan, Yu T1 - Career backgrounds of municipal Party secretaries in China: Why do so few municipal Party secretaries rise from the county level? JF - Modern China N2 - This article examines the career backgrounds of municipal Chinese Communist Party secretaries between 1990 and 2011. Based on an analysis of 898 cadre biographies and 32 interviews with local government officials during 2011 and 2013, this article shows that the majority of municipal party secretaries had spent their careers working at the provincial and municipal levels, while only few advanced up from the county. Our analysis finds that obstacles hindering leading county cadres from rising to the upper ranks of the municipal apparatus include age and education restrictions; limited positions at the municipal level; the lack of networks linking to provincial leaders; and provincial leaders’ appointment preferences. Limited career advancement opportunities for county cadres have important implications for understanding the incentive foundations of China’s bureaucracy. With only slim prospects for leading county cadres to rise to top municipal positions, the political incentives outlined in the cadre evaluation system might not be as effective in steering cadre behavior as currently claimed in the literature. KW - Cadre management system KW - Career advancement KW - County cadres KW - Incentives KW - China Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0097700414539628 SN - 15526836 VL - 41 IS - 5 SP - 467 EP - 505 PB - Sage CY - Los Angeles [u.a.] ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kostka, Genia A1 - Hochstetler, Kathryn T1 - Wind and Solar Power in Brazil and China: Interests, State-Business Relations, and Policy Outcomes JF - Global Environmental Politics N2 - This article examines developments in the renewable electricity sector in Brazil and China since 2000. The two countries share many interests with respect to solar and wind power, but institutional differences in state–business relations led to different outcomes. In China, in a context of corporatist state–business relations, state interventions were more far-reaching, with the state coordinating with state-owned banks, offering large financial and investment incentives to state-owned or state-connected enterprises. By contrast, in Brazil’s public–private partnerships, state support to promote renewable energies was shaped by a stronger preference for competitive auctions and stricter financing rules. The differences in state–business relations help explain the observed developmental trajectories in wind and solar power KW - solar industry KW - wind industry KW - state-business relations KW - Brazil KW - China KW - private-public partnerships KW - state corporatism Y1 - 2015 UR - http://widgets.ebscohost.com/prod/customlink/hanapi/hanapi.php?profile=4dfs1q6ik%2BHI6trd2JLhy6XO1eGS3NLlldzU0trT4ZLZ19elxNzcp6jHspXmyNipz6WP&DestinationURL=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsrep&AN=edsrep.a.tpr.glenvp.v15y2015i3p74.94&site=eds-live U6 - https://doi.org/10.1162/GLEP_a_00312 SN - 1536-0091 VL - 15 IS - 3 SP - 74 EP - 94 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kostka, Genia T1 - Command without control: The case of China’s environmental target system JF - Regulation & Governance N2 - In the existing literature there is general agreement that the effectiveness and efficiency of command and control instruments versus market-based instruments is highly context specific. A country's particular regulatory environment and state capacity, as well as the features of given environmental problems, play an important role in ascertaining what the “right” set of policy instruments for environmental management might be. This article examines how command and control instruments are used as an environmental enforcement mechanism in China's authoritarian state. Based on extensive fieldwork, this paper shows that the reliance on binding environmental targets as the main domestic policy instrument in China has generated numerous undesirable consequences. While China's target-based approach to implementation has incentivized local officials to strictly enforce environmental mandates, there are numerous shortcomings in the system. In particular, target rigidity, cyclical behaviour, poor data quality, and the absence of an independent monitoring agency have generated adverse effects and contribute to a yawning gap between regulatory goals and outcomes. The paper concludes that binding environmental targets as the main command–control instrument in China can be more accurately described as “command without control” as the target-setting central government does not exercise a high degree of control over implementation and monitoring processes. But command and control instruments can be suited for managing “first-generation” environmental problems and addressing environmental issues that have easily identifiable pollution sources and which are easy to verify. KW - authoritarian environmentalism KW - China KW - command and control instruments KW - environmental policy implementation KW - regulation KW - targets Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12082 SN - 1748-5991 VL - 10 IS - 1 SP - 58 EP - 74 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Hammerschmid, Gerhard A1 - Wegrich, Kai A1 - Kostka, Genia T1 - The Governance of Infrastructure. N2 - If infrastructure is a fundamental driver of economic growth and social development, why is it so difficult to get right? This volume makes the case for a governance perspective on infrastructure. This implies moving beyond rational economic analysis of what should be done towards an analysis of the political, institutional and societal mechanisms that shape decision-making about infrastructure investment, planning and implementation. The expert contributions dissect the logics of infrastructure governance in a novel way, providing timely analyses that will enrich debates about how to get infrastructure governance right. Y1 - 2017 SN - 9780198787310 PB - Oxford University Press CY - Oxford ; New York, NY ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Hammerschmid, Gerhard A1 - Wegrich, Kai A1 - Kostka, Genia T1 - The Challenges of Infrastructure: Complexity, (Ir)Rationalities, and the Search for Better Governance T2 - The Governance of Infrastructure Y1 - 2017 SN - 978-0198757436 SP - 1 EP - 20 PB - Oxford University Press ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kostka, Genia A1 - Moslener, U. A1 - Andreas, J. T1 - Barriers to increasing energy efficiency: Evidence from small- and medium-sized enterprises in China JF - Journal of Cleaner Production N2 - This paper analyzes financial, informational and organizational barriers to energy efficiency investments for small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China. Its findings are based on a survey of 480 SMEs in Zhejiang province, and complemented by semi-structured interviews with enterprises contained in the survey sample. Responses reveal that only a minority of SMEs in China actively perform energy saving activities at a significant level. The survey data suggest, further, that informational barriers are the core bottleneck inhibiting energy efficiency improvements in China's SME sector. Financial and organizational barriers also influence a company's energy saving activities, with interview-based evidence stronger than statistical evidence. The interviews point out three additional barriers to energy saving activities: the role of family ownership structures, lax enforcement of government regulations and the absence of government support as well as a lack of skilled labor. More than 40% of enterprises in the sample declared themselves unaware of energy saving equipment or practices in their respective business area, indicating that there are high transaction costs for SMEs to gather, assess, and apply information about energy saving potentials and relevant technologies. One policy implication of the study is that the Chinese government could play a more active role in fostering the dissemination of energy-efficiency related information in the SME sector. KW - Energy efficiency KW - Small and medium-sized enterprises KW - China KW - Energy policies KW - Information access KW - Energy saving activity Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.06.025 SN - 0959-6526 VL - 57 SP - 59 EP - 68 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam [u.a.] ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kostka, Genia A1 - Hobbs, W. T1 - Embedded interests and the managerial local state: the political economy of methanol fuel-switching in China JF - Journal of Contemporary China N2 - This paper analyzes the determinants of Chinese government support for methanol automobile fuel development. At the national level, a preference for low carbon alternatives, ongoing bureaucratic restructuring, and profitability concerns of the national oil companies (NOCs) help to explain a lack of support for methanol fuel. At the local level, a short-term and localized view of industry development explains why some governments actively promote methanol fuel through local standardization, subsidies, and management of NOC opposition. The case of methanol fuel illustrates how local governments with strong, embedded interests have filled in the national-level policy vacuum on this issue. These findings contribute to the ongoing debate on the evolving central–local relations in China and hold lessons for alternative fuel adoption efforts underway in many parts of the world. Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2012.734078 SN - 1067-0564 VL - 22 IS - 80 SP - 204 EP - 218 PB - Taylor and Francis CY - London [u.a.] ER -