Environmental Governance in China: Centralization of Local Environmental Policy in the Prevention and Control of Air Pollution in Key Regions plan

Sammanfattning: The purpose of the thesis is to showcase the affect environmental policy has on the centrallocal relations in contemporary China. The thesis argues that the central government is centralizing control of environmental policy by the use of the Prevention and Control of Air Pollution in Key Regions plan (Prevention Plan). The Prevention Plan introduces policies to enhance cooperation on a regional level to prevent and control air pollution and a more stringent control of infrastructure development in a select group of cities, so called city clusters. However, the plan does not address the implementation problems in terms of improving the ability of local governments to prevent and control air pollution themselves, rather the plan aims towards a more top down approach of implementation. The thesis will analyse the policies of the Prevention Plan through the use of the theory, de facto federalism. The theory will operationalize environmental policy into central-local relations and provide a framework in which the Prevention Plan can be understood. The thesis will also use secondary data to showcase the results of the policies in the Prevention Plan, therefore the methods used in the thesis are a case study longitudinal design to analyse the local governments included in the Prevention Plan.