Chapter 1 - Introduction

Summary

In the past decade, the Chinese government has resorted to forcibly shuttering entire industries or industrial areas to clean up the air. These “blunt force” measures are often taken as a sign of authoritarian efficiency; the state uses its coercive powers to swiftly eliminate polluting industries and then silence social dissent. This chapter introduces an alternate perspective: that blunt force regulation is a sign of ineffective bureaucratic control. When institutions are too weak to hold bureaucrats accountable, central leaders increase oversight by drastically reducing the number of steps and resources required to produce a regulatory outcome – resulting in blunt force measures. Through an overview of the causes and consequences of China’s blunt force pollution regulation, this chapter challenges the tenets of authoritarian environmentalism, forcing us to rethink what it means to be a “high-capacity” state.