环境治理的信息政治学:中央环保督察如何驱动公众参与?

Information Politics of Environmental Protection: How Central Inspection Drives Public Participation?

信息问题是国家治理的核心问题之一,现代国家同时依靠自上而下的信息采集和自下而上的民意反映来监督和激励地方政府。督察工作对中央及时掌握地方情况、推动中央政策有效执行具有重要意义,但作为一种自上而下的信息汲取方式,其与自下而上的公众参与在地方环境治理中存在何种关系?文章认为,中央环保督察并非替代公众参与的作用,反而发挥着动员公众参与的效应,且这种动员效应存在异质性。文章利用中央环保督察这一自然实验机遇,将其与人民网地方领导留言板各地市板块的公众参与相匹配,使用双重差分模型,分析了中央督察对公众参与的影响效应。研究发现,中央督察显著提升了环保参与,且动员效应随着时间推移而逐步放大。动员效应存在地区和参与类型异质性,城市居民中动员效应比农村更强,动员效应主要体现在投诉和感谢类信息反馈上,而对问询和建议类参与没有影响。文章一方面论证了中央督察和公众参与两种监督机制并非互斥而是互为补充,另一方面阐明了督察驱动公众参与的作用机制,加深了对国家通过短期政策干预影响公众参与的理解。

Information is one of the most important components of national governance.Modern state relies on both top-down and bottom-up mechanisms to monitor and motivate local governments.Top-down inspections are the key channel for the central government to collection local information efficiently and promote the effective implementation of their policies.However,as a top-down information extraction mechanism,how does it interact with the bottom-up information feedback mechanism in local environmental governance?The article suggests central environmental inspections will not only replace the role of public participation,but also have a mobilizing effect on public participation.We collected massive public participation records from local leaders’message boards and then employed natural experimental design to examine the relationship between top-down inspections and bottom-up participation with the Difference in Difference approach.We found central inspections have significantly increased the scale of environmental participation in general,and the mobilization effect has gradually increased over time.In addition,the mobilization effect is heterogeneous in regions and participation types.Compared with rural area,the mobilization effect is stronger among urban residents,and the mobilization effect is mainly reflected in the public feedback on complaints and gratitude,but has no effect on inquiries and suggestions.This article demonstrates the top-down and bottom-up information mechanisms are not mutually exclusive but complementary.Top-down inspections actually drive the bottom-up participation to collect rich information and implement effective supervision for local governance.