Dr Annemieke van den Dool, Duke Kunshan University

Wednesday 2 February 2023 at 1–2.30pm

Location: in person, Room 208B, Adam Smith Building, University of Glasgow and online with registration at 

https://uofglasgow.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEtduGtpjkvH9WimtzjDzpnss_2oRDQsNbH 

Abstract

Although the literature on agenda setting and policy change is flourishing, it predominantly focuses on democracies. As a result, our understanding of the policy process in autocracies remains limited. In response, this project aims to identify driving forces of policy change in China through qualitative case studies of change national-level laws in the domains of health and environment, including the Food Safety Law, the Infectious Diseases Law, and the Soil Pollution Law. The presentation will zoom in on the latter. Although soil pollution threatened public health and ecosystems for decades in China and although the legislature passed other environmental laws in the 1980s-2000s, this law was not included in the official legislative agenda until 2013 and only passed in 2018. Through qualitative content analysis of a dataset consisting of several hundred Chinese-language policy documents, legislative records, and newsarticles, the case study identifies two forces that contributed to the relative late inclusion of the Soil Pollution Law in the legislative agenda. First of all, soil pollution data was not released until 2013 and was considered a state secret. Secondly, policymakers disagreed about the need for a soil pollution law. This impasse was overcome after top-level political leaders started to pay attention to soil pollution, which happened after the completion of the national soil pollution survey. Based on this and other case studies, the project contributes to identifying features of China and it's political system that shape the policy process. 

 

Biography

Annemieke van den Dool is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy at Duke Kunshan University in China. Her research examines policymaking and implementation in China, especially in the areas of health and environment. Broadly speaking, she studies the driving forces of policy change and stability in China, as well as the content of such policies. Research topics include antimicrobial resistance, health reform, epidemic outbreaks, food safety, crisis management, natural disasters, soil pollution, and environmental accidents. Most of her research focuses on national level policy, especially the process of lawmaking by China’s National People’s Congress. In terms of methods, she uses document analysis, interviews, and surveys.

 

The Scottish Centre for China Research Seminar Programme gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the MacFie Bequest.

For more details on the SCCR Seminar Series: https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/socialpolitical/research/sccr/events/ 

 

First published: 2 February 2023

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