The role, burden, and capture of regulatory intermediaries : NGOs in China's environmental public interest litigation system

Abstract

The involvement of regulatory intermediaries in regulatory governance has received growing attention in the analysis of different policy fields recently. Regulatory intermediaries are third parties that provide assistance to regulators and/or regulatory targets in the regulatory process, drawing on their own capabilities, authority and legitimacy. The recently proposed Regulator-Intermediary-Target (RIT) model has established a general theoretical framework for analyzing the roles and implications of regulatory intermediaries in diverse settings. Although applications of the model are found in the emerging literature, they often focused on intermediaries’ voluntary roles in mediating the regulator-target relationship and promoting social norms under “soft laws” settings. Scant research attention is paid to their authorized involvement under formal-institutional settings. To fill this gap, the thesis examines the case of China’s Environmental Public Interest Litigation (EPIL) system. EPIL is a newly established legal-institutional arrangement in the country’s environmental regulatory regime. It authorized environmental NGOs (ENGOs), as the representative of the general public, to initiate public interest litigation against environmental law violations, such as pollution, natural resource damage, and other climate-related offenses. Drawing on insights from public interest theory, capture theory, regulatory intermediary theory, and administrative burden theory, this thesis studies the process and outcome of the intermediary-involved regulatory arrangement by examining the corresponding role of ENGOs as regulatory intermediaries, the burden they experienced, and the regulatory capture to which they are exposed. The first empirical chapter explored the role of ENGO intermediaries with an in-depth case study of the ENGO, Friends of Nature. The study found that ENGOs could act as facilitators assisting the regulators, monitors towards both regulators and regulatory targets, and feedback providers to policymakers. Their active participation in the rulemaking stage of regulation supports a dynamic view of the RIT relationship. The second empirical chapter examined the burdens ENGOs faced in fulfilling their intermediary roles. In accommodating the experiences of these organization policy-takers, a new dimension of “reputational cost” was introduced to the literature. Through extensive interviews, the study found that their burdensome experiences, both in kind and magnitude, varied with their organizational capacities, and the different intermediary roles they take in the regulatory process. The burdens they experienced in the EPIL process also helped informed their active influence on state actions. The third empirical chapter revealed the potential capture mechanisms in the regulatory process of EPIL with ENGOs as intermediaries. Through analyzing the outcomes of all the EPIL cases brought by ENGOs in the initial years of EPIL with fsQCA, the study identified the factors and conditions that affect their proper functioning as intermediaries in the process. The findings highlight the considerable influence of local governments in the implementation of EPIL. Overall, this thesis enriches our understanding of intermediary-involved regulation. It contributes to the wider regulatory governance literature by recognizing the participation of non-state actors as regulatory intermediaries. It also provides novel perspectives for evaluating and enhancing regulatory intermediation in regulatory governance. Finally, the thesis also demonstrates the changing state-society relationship in China’s environmental governance in which the contribution of the civil society is increasingly significant.