摘要
Abstract
Regional restrictions on environmental impact assessment(EIA)approvals are a key administrative instrument for curbing the expansion of regional pollution.Characterized by a dual nature of internal administrative restraint and external regulatory interven-tion,this instrument raises pressing concerns regarding the constraint of administrative power through legislation.However,since the re-vision of the Environmental Protection Law of the People's Republic of China in 2014,progress toward legal institutionalization at the central level has remained relatively slow.Against this backdrop,this study examined whether local legislation could assume the role of constraining the power of regional restrictions on EIA approvals in the absence of sufficient central legislation.Drawing on a systematic review of 81 provincial-level local regulations and 9 specialized normative documents across China's 31 provincial-level administrative regions,the study analyzed local legislative practices along four dimensions:decision-making authority,regulated entities,applicable circumstances,and implementation oversight.The results indicated that local legislation failed to effectively constrain the power of re-gional restrictions on EIA approvals;instead,it exhibited a prevailing tendency toward power expansion,manifested in the downward shift of decision-making authority,the expansion of regulated entities,a marked increase in applicable circumstances,and the absence of effective oversight mechanisms.To further explain the mechanisms underlying this expansionary tendency,the study adopted the mul-tiple streams framework,integrated multi-source data on environmental governance and socio-economic conditions,and employed fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to identify key configurational conditions.The findings revealed that high levels of pollutant emis-sions constituted a foundational driver of local legislative innovation,while whether such innovation evolved toward power expansion de-pended on the interaction of multiple conditions,including environmental enforcement capacity,the bargaining power of industrial en-terprises,public environmental demand,and the level of local environmental legislative activity.In regions characterized by high pollu-tion pressure,strong public environmental demand,and relatively limited impacts on enterprises,local legislation was more likely to ex-pand the power of regional restrictions on EIA approvals.Based on these findings,the study argues that the codification of China's Eco-logical and Environmental Code should explicitly establish mechanisms to constrain the power of regional restrictions on EIA approvals and impose strict limits on the expansionary tendencies of local legislation in this domain,thereby ensuring the standardized exercise of administrative power.关键词
环评区域限批制度/地方立法创新/多源流理论/模糊集定性比较分析Key words
regional restrictions on EIA approvals/local legislative innovation/multiple streams framework/fuzzy-set qualitative com-parative analysis分类
社会科学
