横向合作与纵向干预:府际合作如何影响环境治理?——基于三城市群的比较研究

Horizontal Cooperation and Vertical Intervention:How does Inter-Governmental Cooperation Affect Environmental Performance?——A Comparative Study of Three Urban Agglomerations

跨界环境问题已成为制约区域高质量发展的瓶颈之一,环境污染的地理边界往往会突破治理的行政边界,城市群已成为应对环境问题负外部性的有效治理单元。基于制度性集体行动的理论视角,使用长三角、京津冀和珠三角三大城市群2010—2019年的面板数据,检验横向合作与纵向干预,对区域环境治理绩效的差异化影响。研究发现,上级政府通过纵向干预形成的正式安排,成为提升区域环境治理绩效的关键;环保支出在府际合作与环境治理绩效之间的中介作用,形塑了城市群环境治理绩效的异质性。在理论上,制度性集体行动框架中所演绎的“集体行动困境”,在中国情境中依然具有解释力,而中国行政体制下的纵向干预则为其提供了新的实践视角。

Cross-border environmental problems have become one of the bottlenecks limiting regional high-quality development,the geographical boundaries of environmental pollution often break through the administrative boundaries of governance,and urban agglomerations have become effective governance units to deal with negative externalities of environmental problems.Based on the theoretical perspective of institutional collective action,panel data from 2010 to 2019 for three urban agglomerations,the Yangtze River Delta,Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei,and the Pearl River Delta,are used to test the differential impact of horizontal cooperation versus vertical intervention,on regional environmental governance performance.It is found that formalized arrangements formed by higher-level governments through vertical interventions become key to enhancing regional environmental governance performance;the mediating role of environmental expenditures between inter-governmental cooperation and environmental governance performance shapes the heterogeneity of environmental governance performance in urban agglomerations.Theoretically,the“collective action dilemma”as interpreted in the institutional collective action framework still has explanatory power in the Chinese context,and the vertical intervention in the Chinese administrative system provides a new practical perspective.