TY - JOUR
T1 - Policy Accumulation in China
T2 - A Longitudinal Analysis of Circular Economy Initiatives
AU - Ma, Wenting
AU - Hoppe, Thomas
AU - de Jong, Martin
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - In response to the mounting environmental problems the circular economy (CE) has become a popular policy concept to achieve sustainable production and consumption goals (SDG12). In line with this China's national government has issued and implemented a series of policies over the last fifteen years, leading to a sudden increase in the volume of CE policies. In the literature this phenomenon is referred to as ‘policy accumulation’, a concept which occurs when governments adopt increasingly more policy than they terminate. In the case of China, the question can be raised how CE policy accumulation has manifested. The present paper analyses policy on national policy spanning 2006–2021 and uses expert interviews to gain more insights in factors driving policy accumulation. Results show that after a stable period with limited growth (2006–2015) government issued increasing numbers of policy over 2016–2021. CE policy goals experienced a shift in focus from improving production efficiency via lowering of consumption patterns, to embracing whole life cycle thinking. CE policy instruments moved from predominantly economic instruments (2006–2015) to regulatory instruments along with accompanying communicative and network instruments (2016–2021), which indicates a move from a market and innovation policy approach to a more centralized model emphasizing hierarchical instruments. Several factors explain for CE policy accumulation: (i) a response to economic growth and environmental degradation; (ii) national government institutions, their interests and agendas; and (iii) policy learning. Implications pertain to future research critically analyzing CE policy accumulation in other contexts or in sub-domains regarding topics referring to SDG12.
AB - In response to the mounting environmental problems the circular economy (CE) has become a popular policy concept to achieve sustainable production and consumption goals (SDG12). In line with this China's national government has issued and implemented a series of policies over the last fifteen years, leading to a sudden increase in the volume of CE policies. In the literature this phenomenon is referred to as ‘policy accumulation’, a concept which occurs when governments adopt increasingly more policy than they terminate. In the case of China, the question can be raised how CE policy accumulation has manifested. The present paper analyses policy on national policy spanning 2006–2021 and uses expert interviews to gain more insights in factors driving policy accumulation. Results show that after a stable period with limited growth (2006–2015) government issued increasing numbers of policy over 2016–2021. CE policy goals experienced a shift in focus from improving production efficiency via lowering of consumption patterns, to embracing whole life cycle thinking. CE policy instruments moved from predominantly economic instruments (2006–2015) to regulatory instruments along with accompanying communicative and network instruments (2016–2021), which indicates a move from a market and innovation policy approach to a more centralized model emphasizing hierarchical instruments. Several factors explain for CE policy accumulation: (i) a response to economic growth and environmental degradation; (ii) national government institutions, their interests and agendas; and (iii) policy learning. Implications pertain to future research critically analyzing CE policy accumulation in other contexts or in sub-domains regarding topics referring to SDG12.
KW - China
KW - Circular economy
KW - Policy accumulation
KW - Policy goals
KW - Policy instruments
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85140045072&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.spc.2022.10.010
DO - 10.1016/j.spc.2022.10.010
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85140045072
SN - 2352-5509
VL - 34
SP - 490
EP - 504
JO - Sustainable Production and Consumption
JF - Sustainable Production and Consumption
ER -