Research, part of a special feature on The Next Wave in Water Governance

INTRODUCTION

Freshwater accounts for only 2.5% of global water sources and is essential for human survival and global sustainable development (Oki and Kanae 2006). There are critical water security challenges with respect to freshwater management, including water shortages and water pollution. This is particularly true in developing countries’ river basins (Kattel 2019, Tang et al. 2022). Water pollution from agricultural and industrial sectors aggravates water crises and causes diseases in many countries (Jiang 2015). Agricultural water pollution in developing countries is more serious than in developed countries because of the conflict between economic development and environmental protection (Xiao et al. 2021). This aggravates the global burden of diseases and development. Identifying approaches to resolve social-ecological conflicts and control water pollution in river basins has been a significant challenge for developing countries. Water pollution in river basins is a highly complex problem requiring collective action. The solution to such problems requires many governance actors^[1] to coordinate and collaborate to take concerted actions (Nohrstedt and Bodin 2020); this approach is often presented as polycentricity.

Polycentricity is described as a self-organizing system, which focuses on how multiple actors coordinate and interact across different decision-making processes and social-ecological issues (Ostrom 2005). Multiple governance actors at different jurisdictional levels (e.g., local, regional, national actors) engage with each other within one or more action-based situations; through these interactions, they initiate actions toward a collective goal (Ostrom 2005, McGinnis and Ostrom 2011, Galaz et al. 2012). The interactions can be positive (e.g., collaboration, cooperation) or negative (e.g., resistance, evasion), and are influenced by complex social-ecological changes. Scholars examining the polycentricity form of governance have dynamically analyzed institutional and social-ecological changes using the combined Institutional Analysis and Development and social-ecological system (IAD-SES) framework (Cole and McGinnis 2014), but few studies have discussed the negative interactions and changes in behaviors of local actors in detail (McCord et al. 2017).

China is the world’s largest developing country with the largest total population, and faces serious water scarcity and water pollution (Xiong et al. 2020). China has struggled with the practice of polycentricity for a long time; however, its water governance regimes have exhibited some successful polycentric traits in recent decades. Identifying ways to ensure the effectiveness of a polycentric system remains difficult for China or other Asian countries with large bureaucracies. The effectiveness of polycentric governance depends on whether actors’ interactions can overcome complex collective action challenges (Berardo and Scholz 2010, Ostrom 2010a). It is difficult for multiple actors with different backgrounds to initiate coordinated actions. When actors in a weak position feel that systems or policies are not effective and it is moral to resist these systems or policies, they may resist (Polese 2023). Informal evasive behaviors include “the art of bypassing the state” in Eurasian spaces and beyond (Polese 2023). For example, China’s target-based cadre evaluation system incentivizes grassroots governments to take negative informal actions, such as manipulating or falsifying performance data (Gao 2016). These local informalities directly influence the effectiveness of polycentric governance.

Polycentric water governance in China’s Wanfeng Lake is a good case study, because it began to transition from failure to success in 2018. It illustrates how polycentric water governance can be effective despite conflicts between economic development and environmental protection. To analyze the case, we use the combined IAD-SES framework to identify key variables’ changes within the social ecosystem, providing a dynamic analysis of local actors’ behavioral evolution (McCord et al. 2017). This approach also shows how local actors’ behaviors affect the effectiveness of polycentric governance.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORY

Polycentricity was first proposed in The Logic of Liberty to describe the fact that multiple centers of authority are free to pursue objectives and interact toward a collective goal within general rules (Polanyi 1951). Ostrom further developed the concept of polycentricity as it applies in metropolitan-area governance and common-pool resources (CPRs) governance, noting that multiple centers of decision making may achieve better outcomes than a more centralized system (Ostrom et al. 1961, Ostrom 1990). Polycentricity is usually defined as an autonomous governance system with multiple independent and semi-autonomous decision-making centers coordinating to provide public goods and services (Ostrom et al. 1961, Ostrom 2005). These decision-making centers often overlap, as they are nested at multiple jurisdictional levels (e.g., local, regional, and national) and sometimes include cross-jurisdictional governance units (Ostrom 2005, McGinnis and Ostrom 2011). The overlapping jurisdictions can be geographic or functional (Andersson and Ostrom 2008, Galaz et al. 2012).

From a monocentric perspective, overlapping jurisdictions are often identified as “chaotic” or “pathological,” resulting in governance inefficiency (Aligica and Vlad 2012). In contrast, polycentric systems with multiple decision-making centers can improve governance efficiency, because positive interactions (e.g., sufficient coordination,^[2] cooperation, mutual learning) among the decision centers can effectively integrate resources (Ostrom et al. 1961, Tengö et al. 2014). Polycentric governance systems function through multiple semi-autonomous decision centers, which coordinate within a shared set of rules that emerges from interactions (Ostrom 2010a, 2010b, McGinnis and Ostrom 2011, Pahl-Wostl and Knieper 2014).

Ostrom published eight institutional design principles in 1990, including well-defined boundaries, congruence between appropriation and provision rules and local conditions, collective-choice arrangement, monitoring, graduated sanctions, conflict-resolution mechanisms, minimum recognition of rights, and nested enterprises. And the concept of polycentricity is often used by Ostrom as the alternative to the eighth principle (i.e., the nested enterprises). Since then, more scholars have considered the advantages of polycentric governance for maintaining CPRs (Nagendra and Ostrom 2014, Pahl-Wostl and Knieper 2014). Polycentric governance, described as self-organizing network governance, emphasizes the involvement of diverse actors and multiple paths toward a shared goal in a complex social-ecological system (Ostrom 2005, 2010a, 2010b). Some researchers have argued that the provision of public goods and services is usually more efficient in polycentric governance systems compared to more centralized systems (Andersson and Ostrom 2008).

Previous studies highlight the following main advantages of polycentric governance. First, decision centers with a certain degree of autonomy^[3] support reciprocal learning and experimentation. This reduces the risk of failure due to information asymmetric (Marshall 2009, Ostrom 2010a). Second, polycentric regimes effectively integrate political, financial, and social resources (e.g., power, funds, local knowledge, social capital) among diverse actors and across spatial levels to enhance the resilience and adaptive capacity for coping with the complex and changeable social-ecological system (Folke et al. 2005, Pahl-Wostl 2009, Ostrom 2010a, Pahl-Wostl and Knieper 2014).

Third, polycentric regimes allow multiple local actors to devise rules that adapt to local needs and conditions, increasing the system’s resilience to address collective action challenges (Galaz et al. 2012, McCord et al. 2017). Local actors are more familiar with the resource system; their informal rules, combined with the government administrators’ formal rules, can effectively regulate local actors’ behaviors (Folke et al. 2005, Ribot et al. 2006). Therefore, polycentric governance systems are generally assumed to perform better than more centralized or fragmented systems (Pahl-Wostl and Knieper 2014).

There are many arguments about why polycentric systems are likely to perform well; however, other studies argue that polycentric systems do not always deliver good outcomes. The success of polycentric governance depends on many factors, including interactions among actors (e.g., cooperation, competition, conflict, and conflict resolution) and how well the actors fulfill the eight design principles proposed by Elinor Ostrom in 1990 or the 11 more detailed design principles (Ostrom 1990, Cox et al. 2010, Carlisle and Gruby 2019). Cooperation is an integral process identified by Ostrom et al. (1961) and is described as voluntary joint actions, such as collaboration. However, it is time-consuming for multiple actors with different backgrounds and interests to overcome collaborative barriers (Raab et al. 2015, Bodin 2017). For example, the transaction costs (e.g., the costs of consultations, reaching agreement, and enforcing agreement) associated with the collaboration are consistently high because of a large or geographically dispersed system (Huitema et al. 2009, Carlisle and Gruby 2019). Multi-actor collaboration requires legitimacy, accountability, decision-making procedural transparency, and fairness (Klijn and Skelcher 2007).

Additionally, the dispersion of responsibility in polycentric systems also creates challenges for multi-actor collaboration (Huitema et al. 2009, Lieberman 2011). Hence, the effectiveness of polycentric governance depends on the goals being pursued and the specific context (e.g., social, economic, and cultural) in which it is embedded (Carlisle and Gruby 2019). In other words, the success or failure of polycentric environmental governance is a function of political, social, and ecological processes (Bodin 2017, Morrison et al. 2023). Complex polycentric systems with multilevel actors may mask governance problems, resulting in a weak capacity to overcome collective action challenges (Morrison et al. 2023). In developing countries, polycentric governance may fail because of social-ecological conflict and local organizations’ rent-seeking. Under a target-based performance measurement system, grassroots governments may pay more attention to economic indicators and adopt expedient policies to address environmental protection tasks, such as output distortion (Gao 2016). These expedient policies give local people more chances to evade responsibilities for protecting the environment, undermining the effectiveness of polycentric governance.

In summary, a polycentric governance system does not always perform well; this is vividly demonstrated in our case study. Previous studies on the performance of polycentric governance system have mostly focused on the unilateral or static level; few have discussed local governance actors’ behavioral evolution over time. Further, scholars have examined the failure and success of polycentric governance by focusing on its building blocks (Morrison et al. 2023); however, they have not yet described the interactions among local actors playing an important role in polycentric governance. Based on the previous studies, we focus on the polycentric governance transformation from failure to success in China’s Wanfeng Lake, and analyze how multiple governance actors redesign institutional rules to generate effective polycentric water governance.

The study contributes to the literature as follows. First, the case study of water pollution control in Wanfeng Lake shows a dynamic transformation from dysfunctional to successful polycentric governance, and illustrates changes in the social-ecological system during the transformation. We provide empirical explanations for this transformation. Second, polycentric governance is a general trend. However, identifying ways to overcome collective action challenges and forming an effective polycentric system remain key issues for China and other Asian countries with large bureaucracies. This study sheds light on these issues. Third, informal actions at local levels have appeared in China, and in Western and some Asian countries. We describe how informal behaviors at local levels influence the effectiveness of polycentric governance in China and provide useful lessons for other countries facing similar circumstances. In addition, we explore the roles of governments at different levels in polycentric systems and how governments’ informal actions affect the behaviors of other governance actors within one or more situations.

METHODOLOGY

Study area

Wanfeng Lake is China’s largest artificial lake and fifth-largest freshwater lake. It is located at the juncture of Guizhou and Yunnan provinces and the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region (i.e., Guizhou, Yunnan, and Guangxi). The lake covers an area of 176 kilometers², stretching for miles and weaving in and out of the mountains, with 10.26 billion cubic meters of water. It is formed by the Tianshengqiao I Hydropower Station Dam, a key national hydro power project located at the nexus of Guizhou, Yunnan, and Guangxi. The left bank of the Tianshengqiao Hydropower Station Dam belongs to Anlong County of Guizhou, and the right bank belongs to Longlin County of Guangxi.

Wanfeng Lake plays an important role in the water supply of the Pearl River Delta region and China’s west-to-east power transmission. In addition to these water and power functions, the lake has rich fishery resources and beautiful scenery. As such, it has emerged as a paradise for water sports and outdoor lovers, as visitors can go wild fishing, speed boating, yachting, and kayaking; and engage in other water recreational programs surrounded by karst peaks and ethnic villages (Fig. 1).

Net cage fish breeding^[4] and industrial production are the main industries along Wanfeng Lake. Before 2017, net cage fish breeding scale in the lake gradually expanded, resulting in serious water eutrophication (Document 3). Rapid industrial development and expansion led to a consistent increase in the concentration of organic wastewater, generating serious pollution and environmental harm. To address these pollution problems, multiple governance actors (e.g., local, regional, and national actors) coordinated and collaborated with each other to implement corrective measures. Superior governments (e.g., central, provincial, and municipal governments) received a satisfactory response from grassroots governments. However, the water governance on the ground continued to perform poorly, based on feedback from central environmental protection inspections and public-interest lawsuits (Document 3). To jointly address these problems, the superior governments created more venues to motivate different governance actors along the lake to participate in water pollution control (MoEE 2018). Water governance in Wanfeng Lake began to improve at the end of 2018, especially in Longlin Watershed. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment subsequently reported that the cross-sectional water quality of Longlin watershed in Wanfeng lake rose each year in the national ranking (MoEE 2020). From 2021 to 2022, it ranked among the top 10 in China for two consecutive years.

In this case study, we found that multiple governance actors had promoted the polycentric governance transformation from failure to success. We were interested in learning from this case study and exploring how local actors’ behaviors influence the effectiveness of polycentric water governance. To answer this question, we conducted research at local levels and analyzed polycentric governance transformation within Wanfeng Lake’s Longlin Watershed (WLW).

Research methods

This study relied on both primary and secondary data. Primary data were generated by identifying key actors and conducting 58 semi-structured interviews with a county leader (1), township leaders (3), villager leaders (4), villager cadres (6), law enforcement officials (6), enterprise managers (3), ordinary employees (5), and villagers (30) along the WLW. According to the State Food and Drug Administration of China Guidelines on Ethical Review of Drug Clinical Trials (2010), the Ministry of Health Guidelines on Ethical Review of Biomedical Research Involving Humans (Trial; 2007), and the ethical principles of the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki, the study has been recognized as in compliance with academic ethics. Specifically, it did not involve the activity of conducting research on human physiology, pathological phenomena and methods of diagnosis, or treatment and prevention of diseases. And the semi-structured interview was conducted anonymously. At the beginning of each interview, the Interviewer would inform the interviewees of the relevant contents of the informed consent form and explain how to protect the information provided by the interviewees. Therefore, verbal informed consent was adopted in this study. The semi-structured interview only began after obtaining the verbal informed consent of interviewees. And during the interview, complete and understandable necessary information would be provided.

Interviews were conducted between 14 January and 13 March 2023, and each lasted about 30 to 60 minutes. Data for each interview were organized and irrelevant contents were eliminated. Details about interview sample characteristics are in Table 1. To obtain reliable interview data, some actors were interviewed more than once in several rounds of fieldwork. Secondary data were collected between 2015 and 2022, and included academic articles and policy documents. We searched for the policy documents and archival materials related to the water pollution control of Wanfeng Lake on government websites and from China’s major news media sites (Table 2). Interviews with government personnel also provided internal archival materials that are not publicly accessible.

Based on the artifacts above, we apply the combined IAD-SES framework to explore the social-ecological changes in Wanfeng Lake and analyze changes in local actors’ behaviors. The IAD framework places action-based situation(s) at the center and analyzes the interactions among actors in a particular context (Fig. 2A). Since being proposed by Ostrom in 1982, the IAD framework has been widely used to analyze CPR governance (Wang et al. 2016, Omori and Tesorero 2020). However, the IAD framework does not fully address key biophysical attributes.

Given the growing complexity of the social-ecological environment, Ostrom defined the social-ecological system (SES) framework based on the IAD framework (Ostrom 2007, 2009). The SES framework allows for multiple tiers of variables (Fig. 2B): first-tier variables include the resource system (RS), resource unit (RU), governance system (GS), and actors (A). Scholars then propose a set of second-tier and third-tier variables based on specific cases (Table 3). This diagnostic tool has been widely applied to explore social-ecological systems (SESs), such as irrigation, fisheries, and water governance (Meinzen-Dick 2007, Ostrom 2007, Madrigal et al. 2011, Basurto et al. 2013).

The IAD framework and the SES framework are both widely used to analyze SESs; however, IAD does not fully analyze ecological systems in-depth and SES does not reveal dynamic changes. Given these characteristics of the IAD and SES frameworks, scholars have integrated the two frameworks together to form the “combined IAD-SES framework” (Cole and McGinnis 2014). This framework (Fig. 2C) mitigates the shortcomings of the IAD framework’s inability to address biophysical attributes and the SES framework’s focus on static analysis (McCord et al. 2017). Our research using the combined IAD-SES framework shows the dynamic changes of social-ecological systems over time, and provides insights about the behavioral evolution of local actors.

FINDINGS

Polycentric governance transformation from failure to success

After 2016, polycentric governance in the WLW gradually experienced two stages: Stage 1 was failure, and Stage 2 was success. We identify the variables changing between the two stages based on the policy documents and interview data. In addition, the outcomes produced in the social-ecological system are shown in Table 3. The first-tier variables changing between the stages included the resource system, resource unit, governance system, and actors (Fig. 3).

Stage 1: polycentric governance failure

In the first stage, failure, polycentric governance in the WLW had insufficient institutional support, unreliable stakeholder commitment, regulators with misaligned interests, and was overly centralized. The first-tier variables were manifested as follows. The resource system was large in scale, with poor resource unit mobility. There were serious vulnerabilities in the governance system, and autonomous actors were bystanders (Fig. 3).^[5]

Large resource system and poor resource unit mobility: Wanfeng Lake is a classic open common-pool resource. Its management is assigned to five counties (cities): Xingyi, Luoping, Anlong, Xilin, and Longlin County (Document 1). The scale of the WLW resource system is large (RS3), making it difficult to establish effective coordination mechanism (Ostrom 2007, 2009). Wanfeng Lake had been seriously polluted as a result of urbanization and social-economic development. Since 2002, the water quality had continued to deteriorate, mainly because of net cage fish breeding along the lake (Interview 2). From 2016 to 2017, central environmental protection groups conducted two inspections on Wanfeng Lake, highlighting the water pollution problems (Document 2). Then, after simple discussion, three provinces launched remediation programs, leading to short-term compliance with the water quality standard (Interview 1). Beginning in 2018, however, the self-purification capacity of the WLW continued to decline (RU3) because of decreases in rainfall and a declining water level (Interview 3).

Weak governance system: Constitutional rules (GS7), collective-choice rules (GS6), and operational rules (GS5) are important second-tier variables in governance systems (Ostrom 2007). The formation of operational rules are influenced by constitutional rules and collective-choice rules from superior governments. And the operational rules directly influence the interactions among actors within action-based situations (Ostrom 2005). Grassroots governments are nested at the collective-choice level and operational level, and dominate the formation of operational rules. However, this level of government’s leading role is often difficult to fulfill because of conflicts between multiple administrative tasks and financial resource shortages, and potential conflict between government and the public (Interview 1 and 3). Grassroots governments are usually eager to pursue economic development and engage in horizontal digital competitions and may choose to “acquiesce” or “compromise” on the operational rules generated by local enterprises and villagers based on resource dependence (Fig. 4). Horizontal digital competitions refer to contests between governments at the same administrative level to achieve a number of accomplished targets (i.e., pursuing digitized results). In this stage, self-organizing actors included local enterprises and villagers with poor autonomy (GS6a, interview 4 and 5). The grassroots government remained the main governance actor (GS1a), treating the water pollution control as an ordinary administrative task (Interview 16 and 17). Local cadres issued a remediation scheme after a simple investigation, without coordinating with local people (GS3b, interview 9, 25, and 40, document 5). This reflected an incohesive governance network with strong government intervention (GS3a), and contributed to the high-cost coordination and monitoring mechanisms (GS8, interview 4, 10, and 18).

Actors with weak connections and low-participation: Prior to 2018, there was a shortage of law enforcement officials (A5, interview 9). And each law enforcement official needed to take on more workload (Interview 19). In addition, a large amount of knowledge was generated in local people’s production and life, but the traditional knowledge and advantages of local people were not be used effectively in this stage (A2 and A7, interview 4, 11, and 36). Even the production and living traditions on which local residents relied for survival were ignored in the complex social-ecological system (A3, interview 27 and 38). Moreover, the trust between the government and local people was low (A6), given the grassroots government’s long history of lax law enforcement and weak stances (Interview 10 and 35). As a result, many local people did not cooperate with government’s remediation work. Specifically, they did not take the “Deadline Remediation Letter”^[6] issued by the grassroots government seriously. Their pollution behaviors continued after the government officials finished their inspections (Interview 12, 16, and 28).

Stage 2: polycentric governance success

After the end of 2018, polycentric governance of the WLW entered a new stage, manifested as follows: top-down oversight and bottom-up feedback were strengthened; and local people exerted their autonomous capacity and participated in water pollution control on their own initiative. During this stage, the resource system was divided by county governments according to the administrative boundaries of townships. The self-purification rate of resource units rose. The governance system was gradually improved and strengthened, and actor autonomy was enhanced (Fig. 3).

Moderate-scaled resource system and improved resource unit mobility: After 2018, Longlin County government divided the WLW into three areas for treatment according to the administrative boundaries of townships; this included Tianshengqiao Township, Gebu Township, and Jinzhong Township (RS2, document 5). Further, the county government implemented the lake chief system, dividing the WLW into appropriate governance scales (Interview 1 and 4). Moderate-scaled resource systems (RS3) generally can be adequately staffed with regulators and facilitate effective coordination among governance actors (Ostrom 2007, 2009). Grassroots government set up garbage collection stations and sewage treatment devices in all townships along Wanfeng Lake, reducing pollution from domestic garbage and industrial wastewater (Interview 3, 11, and 21). The self-purification capacity of Wanfeng Lake began to gradually improve (RU3, interview 5 and document 8).

Cohesive governance system: Both the constitutional rules (GS7) and the collective-choice rules (GS6) changed in the second stage (Fig. 5). At the constitutional level, the central government connected the intermediate governments through a cross-provincial environmental public-interest lawsuit. The actors nested at the collective-choice level chose the rules for joint enforcement. In 2019, the central government’s environmental public-interest lawsuits, in conjunction with Yunnan, Guizhou, and Guangxi, led to multi-level environmental public-interest inspections and the strengthening of top-down oversight (GS8, Interview 2, 6, and 7). This also changed the operational rules (GS5), and the operational rules were ultimately designed by the government and the resources users. In addition, the problems of a single governance organization (GS1a) and an incohesive governance structure (GS3a) were successfully addressed through local actors’ positive response. The county government also built trust and strong ties with local people, by conducting petition processes and implementing governance actors’ congresses (GS3b, interview 5, 6, and 8). A joint internal and external monitoring mechanism was formed by the government and local people (GS8). This reduced monitoring costs and improved law enforcement efficiency (Interview 9 and 20). And this highlighted the autonomous capacity of local residents (GS6a). For example, village cadre S mentioned: “More residents now have a certain sense of self-governance and will take the initiative to report illegal pollution discharge around them more than before” (Interview 13).

Actors with strong connections and high-participation: During this stage, the knowledge of local actors was fully recognized and utilized in the governance system (A7, interview 1, 11, and 35), and the level of trust that local enterprises and residents had in government was increasingly high (A6, interview 23, 37, and 55). More and more actors, especially those with certain advantages, were willing to participate in protecting the lake (A5, interview 9 and 12). This was beneficial to combine the internal and external elites to promote the successful water governance (A2, interview 4). In addition, the resource utilization history of local people was taken seriously during the governance (A3, interview 29, 31, and 54). Many enterprises and fishermen along Wanfeng Lake had made a living through net cage fish breeding for a long time and faced difficulties in supporting their livelihoods after removing the net cages. But in this stage, there was no need for local people to worry about their livelihood with the help of the government.

How do local actors’ behaviors affect the effectiveness of polycentric governance

The previous section provided an overview of the characteristics associated with failing and successful polycentric water governance in this case study. Polycentric governance not only focuses on rule-in-form, but also requires considering rule-in-use, the role of non-government actors and their interactions with formal authorities (Partelow et al. 2020). Here we shed light on how local actors’ behaviors affect the effectiveness of polycentric water governance (Figs. 6 and 7). The local actors include formal authorities and resources users in the WLW.

Local actors’ campaign-style responses^[7] in Stage 1

Prior to 2018, there were no well-defined pollution limits for enterprises and residents along the WLW (GA5a) because of the shortages in law enforcement officials (A5) and weak regulation by the grassroots government (GS8). In China’s administrative system, administrative tasks are subcontracted down to the grassroots government through central government and intermediate governments (Zhou 2016). The grassroots government is the connection point between the state and society and generally plays a dominant role in the operational arena with its authoritative and dominant resources. However, in the multi-tasking context, the grassroots government faces the problems of increasing targets level-by-level,^[8] inconsistent powers and responsibilities, and shortages in financial resources. Therefore, given the constraints of formal rules, the grassroots government adopts diverse informal methods to balance the relationship between policy pressure and organizational resources (i.e., campaign-style response).

Specifically, in order to promote economic development and win first place in horizontal digital competitions, county government engages in selective governance. Selective governance is a common way of campaign-style response and refers to selective policy implementation by a grassroots government, based on its own goals (O’Brien and Li 1999). This evasive tactic leads to some policies being shelved or governance failures. The specific strategies adopted by county governments to cope with the tasks from superior governments in this stage were to provide knowingly incorrect data, and to cover up the polluting behaviors of local people using selective law enforcement (A5, interview 1, 2, 4, 7, 12, and 18). In July 2016, Guangxi was subject to an inspection of its ecological and environmental protection practices, receiving a remediation letter (Document 4). In 2018, feedback from a second inspection showed that water pollution in Wanfeng Lake had not been improved; this conflicted with the data submitted by the grassroots government.

Before 2019, Longlin County had not been completely lifted out of poverty, and its main economic support came from net cage fish breeding and industrial production along the lake (S, interview 1, 19, and 20). The government’s forcible removal of the breeding cages and floating houses would not only lead to its defeat in the associated horizontal digital competition, but also cause conflicts between government and local residents (A6); this shaped a sparse governance structure with strong intervention (GS3a, interview 3, 13, and 14). More specifically, in this stage, the grassroots government chose to acquiesce or compromise with respect to local people’s polluting behaviors, unless their behaviors caused great harm (Interview 8); this contributed to the vulnerability of the governance system in the WLW. If pollution by a large enterprise was serious, generating negative public opinion, government arranged for relevant departments to negotiate (Interview 2 and 4). However, the water pollution was only controlled for a while. For example, Q, a resident along the lake, said the following:

The pollution discharge of an industrial enterprise upstream is particularly serious, affecting our lives. And we have reported it to the government several times. But each time it stops for a period of time and then starts again. The government can do nothing about it. (Interview 35)

In a legal sense, Longlin County has a higher degree of autonomy than ordinary counties (Document 6); yet in fact local residents do not have a strong sense of autonomy (A2) and have long relied on the government (Interview 4, 13, and 20). The county government’s remediation plan did not consider the autonomy of the local people (A2, document 5), nor did it fully respect the production and living traditions on which local residents relied for survival (A3, interview 21, 22, 27, 38, and 41). In this way, local people distrusted the government and responded to the county government in a campaign-style way based on the rational calculations (A6, interview 12 and 18). Industrial enterprises and net cage fish breeding enterprises along the WLW were important economic pillars in Longlin County; they were also important autonomous actors. Therefore, maximizing their autonomy was crucial to forming an effective polycentric governance pattern. However, in the first stage, many enterprises believed that participating in water pollution control was unprofitable and increased their cost burden (Interview 21, 22, and 23). Hence, most enterprises chose to jointly evade responsibility; this was specifically manifested in protecting each other’s illegal actions and jointly responding to government inspections. This rational choice might conflict with the preferences of institutions and result in inefficient or suboptimal outcomes (Miller 2000).

Industrial enterprises used to discharge sewage into Wanfeng Lake, and the cost of sewage disposal was almost zero (Interview 21 and 26). After the government prohibited them from discharging sewage directly into the lake, they needed to purchase and install sewage disposal facilities or entrust the sewage disposal companies for treatment, which increased operating costs (Interview 23 and 27). Although the grassroots government established incentives to encourage enterprises to report illegal polluting behaviors, the rewards enterprises received were insufficient to offset the increased costs (Interview 21). According to Afroz et al. (2016), collective water management depends on the individual economic incentives for participation. Thus, most enterprises who were not sufficiently incentivized chose to protect each other and jointly resist the government’s remediation policies, which had contributed to an increase in monitoring costs (GS8).

In addition, identifying ways to quickly sell stored fish and remove net cages was the core problem in water pollution control (Interview 14). The tradition of net cage fish breeding in the WLW had been active for a long time (Document 6). Aquaculture enterprises were distributed on both sides of the WLW. Grassroots government promised to assist them in selling stored fish, but with no concrete results (Interview 22 and 28). Many enterprises publicly promised to remove net cages and cooperate with the government’s work. In secret, however, some leading aquaculture enterprises with affluent economic resources entered into a conspiracy with the grassroots governments (Interview 13, 22, and 30). When superior governments started conducting inspections on the lake, grassroots cadres (government officials) who have a close relationship with the enterprises would immediately notify the enterprises to jointly prepare for the inspections. This resulted in a huge loophole in the governance structure (GS3a). Mr. Y, the head of a fishery company, said the following:

Government inspections have been very common in the past few years. There is just thunder, but no rain. If you pay the fines, you’ll be fine. No one will care about you after a while, and a lot of enterprises operate in this way. (Interview 22)

Regarding villagers along the WLW, they can best assess policy effectiveness. According to Ruiz-Mallén et al. (2015), market and state economic incentives may influence local actors’ motivations to engage in conservation projects. In other words, when they feel their interests are being violated and not compensated, they would strategically resist the remediation work carrying out. Strategic resistance refers to the campaign-style way that people respond to or resist policies in a guerrilla-like fashion to bypass the government (Interview 32, 42, 43, 49, and 51). In the first stage, the villagers along the WLW were both the “victimizers” and “victims” of water pollution. Many villagers were deeply troubled by water pollution, but chose to be “victimizers” of it because of resource dependence and the traditions of production and daily life (Interview 11, 34, and 38). Unlike enterprises with financial resources, local residents with lower voices were more dependent on the lake for food and maintaining a family (A8, interview 9, 33, and 48). Therefore, many villagers chose to spontaneously resist policies and breed net cage fish in a hidden way (Interview 36, 37, and 52). This guerrilla behavior could not easily be caught by government; and it was the key reason why the effectiveness of water governance cannot be sustained for a long time.

Village cadres are village-level clerks who rely on national financial subsidies, but are not public officials in the official sequence of the national establishment (Interview 13). In this case study, many village cadres had lived near the lake for a long time and were familiar with local conditions (A2, interview 9 and 14). They believed that the superior governments’ policies did not adapt well to local conditions, and understood and sometimes protected the polluting behaviors of villagers (Interview 14). This weakened both formal and informal monitoring on the pollution behaviors (GS8). To evade government inspections, villagers generally chose to breed net cage fish in a more hidden location (Interview 40, 47, and 48). For example, in the daytime, villagers would cover up activities with greenery to disrupt the inspectors’ views (Interview 44 and 53). Sometimes, several villagers would take turns to assume the role of sentinel (Interview 42 and 45). Once the inspectors appeared, the sentinel would inform other villagers to be cautious, which contributed to the failure of polycentric governance.

Local actors’ positive responses in Stage 2

During the first stage, weak top-down oversight was an important factor driving the grassroots government to adopt selective governance. In the second stage, superior governments strengthened top-down level-by-level and cross-level oversight using different methods, including the central environmental protection inspectors’ “look back,” top-down environmental public-interest lawsuits, and multi-level joint prosecution (Document 7; Interview 1, 4, and 7). Meanwhile, given favorable economic conditions, the grassroots government adopted integrated governance, mobilizing many local people to participate in a short period (Interview 4 and 5). The grassroots government’s specific behaviors included: actively giving feedback upward, seeking help from superior governments, and mobilizing local people to participate in governance (Interview 1).

According to Li et al. (2023), elites play an important role in generating the collaborative network and facilitating local actors’ awareness. In our case study, county government established autonomous groups to integrate administrative cadres (A5, interview 1 and 3); this convened self-governing elites into governance networks, forming a co-governance structure of internal and external elites (GS3a). Autonomous elites are people considered to be politically, economically, or socially outstanding in enterprises and villagers. Political elites hold both formal and informal resources, such as controlling village cadres. These actors generally act as commanders and organizers in mobilization practices and can mobilize social resources better than other members (Interview 9). Economic elites are the more affluent people within enterprises and villages, and social elites are people with wider networks of interpersonal relationships.

These three types of autonomous elites have a stronger voice compared to other actors and can help governments understand situations on the ground and mobilize local people (A5, interview 9 and 13). Autonomous groups link the government and local people and play an important role in giving feedback upward and mobilizing downward. For example, these groups identify the problems they cannot solve, and communicate the problems upward to the grassroots government (Interview 9, 45, 46, and 54). If the grassroots government is unable to solve these problems, they then seek attention and help from superior governments (Interview 2). This can strengthen exchanges and cooperation among actors at multiple levels (GS3b) and achieve a joint governance by multiple actors (GS1a). In this case study, the autonomous groups helped the grassroots government mobilize enterprises along the lake to actively assume social responsibility and cooperate with the government, by offering appropriate support and concessions (Interview 35, 36, and 58). As the typical political elites, village cadres with formal and informal resources were important members of autonomous groups (A5, interview 7). Local people’s decisions and choices are rooted in social conventions (Nelson and Katzenstein 2014). Thus grassroots government made full use of the village committee to stimulate villagers’ autonomy through informal methods, such as culturally based mobilization and emotionally grounded mobilization (Interview 3 and 7). To be specific, the autonomous elites took advantage of their formal resources and social capital to coordinate with local residents on the timing for net cage dismantling. This reduced the potential conflicts and closed the distance between government and local residents (Interview 10 and 56).

Moreover, the autonomous groups gathered the requirements and conditions of local people and fed them back to the county government (Interview 9). And the county government reviewed and revised the remediation scheme based on local conditions (Interview 1 and 6). For industrial enterprises, grassroots government built sewage disposal facilities in villages along the WLW, and provided subsidies and training support to enterprises involved in remediation (Interview 4 and 5). For aquaculture enterprises and villagers, grassroots government incentivized those who dismantled their net cages on schedule, and set up special fish purchasing centers to assist them in selling fish (Interview 14 and 22). In addition, the grassroots government increased villager income by revitalizing collective land and developing more industries (Interview 11, 13, and 14). Thus, the remediation scheme became more localized (A7), and better considered the needs and livelihoods of local people (Interview 2). This enhanced the level of trust that local enterprises and residents had in government (A6), and a high level of local people’s trust in government can positively influence their compliance in the formal rules (Hamm et al. 2013). For example, an industrial enterprise manager, Mr. S, mentioned the following:

In addition to building the sewage disposal facilities along the lake, county government has also provided us with online and offline channels to learn and improve production technology. The amount of sewage produced by the enterprise has indeed declined a lot. (Interview 21)

And many aquaculture enterprises have expressed their satisfaction with the government’s actions:

County government has helped us solve the major problem of fish selling, and has really taken our interests into consideration. So, we are willing to cooperate with the government's work. (Interview 25)

Mobilized by the grassroots government, enterprises’ behavior gradually shifted from jointly evading responsibility to actively taking responsibility. This positive response was manifested as actively participating in and cooperating with water pollution control (Interview 20 and 23). During this stage, it was found that industrial enterprises along the WLW had greatly reduced sewage discharge and collaborated with grassroots government to provide more job opportunities for local residents (Interview 25, 28, 39, and 57). This means that the connections among resources users became closer (GS3b). By relying on the natural resources of the WLW, aquaculture enterprises have gradually turned toward ecological tourism (Interview 22). All enterprises along the WLW have installed the contaminant receiver software and they would actively upload daily pollutant data to the software, realizing data management of sewage disposal (Interview 24 and 25). In addition, most of the enterprises along WLW have organized their own volunteer teams to participate in the regular patrols of the lake (Interview 23 and 26); this reflects that the degree of autonomy in the governance system has increased (GS6a).

Regarding the villagers along the WLW, they saw the potential development opportunities, and chose to shift from strategically resisting to engaging in land-based industry based on a rational cost-benefit calculation. In this context, autonomously engaging in land-based industry means that local people voluntarily give up net cage fish breeding and engage in fruit farming, after weighing the pros and cons (Interview 47, 49, and 55). After 2019, villagers were mobilized and led by village cadres to voluntarily sign net cage removal agreements with the grassroots government (Interview 50 and 51). And most of them took an active part in the vocational training provided by grassroots government (Interview 14). It was observed that some villagers gradually turned to fruit-growing industries, such as tangerines and mangos (Interview 53 and 54). Mr. D, a resident along the lake, said the following:

With the help of the government, I contracted the collective land in the village after removing the net cages and planting tangerines. The income in a year can be much higher compared to previous net cage fish breeding. (Interview 54)

And the others chose to work for the enterprises near their home or develop their own careers in countryside tourism (Interview 55). Improvements in infrastructure and environment made it convenient for villagers to earn a living and support their families (Interview 54, 57, and 58). In this way, the villagers have learned that participating in water pollution control was the best option for them. And they chose to collaborate with other governance actors and actively participate in the lake protection squads organized by the villagers committees (A5 and A6). This positive response contributed to increase the degree of autonomous governance and maintain the effectiveness of polycentric water governance. Mr. T, a resident along the lake, mentioned the following:

After several seminars with the government, the county government decided to give us a grace period to dismantle our net cages and help us sell all stored fish. This helped us a lot. And we realize that the polluted environment is poisonous to our health and we can not let the pollutant destroy the homeland we live by. Thus we are willing to cooperate with the government’s work. (Interview 52)

DISCUSSION

Polycentric governance occurs when multiple governance actors interact and coordinate within one or more action-based situations. Developing countries are working to establish polycentric regimes or collaborative networks to more effectively promote environmental and natural resources management (Nabiafjadi et al. 2021). However, it is difficult for multiple actors with different backgrounds and interests to overcome collaborative barriers (Raab et al. 2015, Bodin 2017). This is particularly true in many developing countries that are emphasizing gross domestic product (GDP) growth over environmental protection. And the success or failure of polycentric governance depends upon whether actors can coordinate and collaborate to overcome interdependent collective action challenges or not (Carlisle and Gruby 2019). Resolving compounded environmental problems with a range of collective action characteristics requires an effective collaboration network (Bodin 2017). This network structure differs in different contexts and time nodes (Bodin and Crona 2009). It was found in our case study that multiple governance actors got into a collective action dilemma in the first stage and got out of the dilemma in the second stage. During the first stage, namely polycentric governance failure, every governance actor along the WLW was obsessed with their own goals and ignored that their homes are at high risk of water pollution. Thus they could not establish a cohesive collaborative network and take concerted action against the water pollution. In the second stage, namely polycentric governance success, they realized that if they did not collaborate with each other and resolve collective action problems to protect the lake, their development would be halted because of water pollution. Therefore, they have changed their behaviors and generated a cohesive governance network with flexible mobilization.

According to Ostrom (1990), the eight institutional design principles can maintain cohesive collaboration and successful governance in the complex and dynamic social-ecological system. Polycentricity is derived from the eighth principle (i.e., nested enterprises) but implies more than nestedness, highlighting the interrelation and interaction among multiple actors (Carlisle and Gruby 2019). We have learned from our case study that governance actors are nested at multiple levels including constitutional level, collective-choice level, and operational level. At the constitutional and collective-choice level, superior governments are responsible for issuing policy guidance and standards, and supervising the policy implementation at the operational level. At the operational level, the operational rules influence local actors’ behaviors and choices. And local actors, in turn, determine the formation of operational rules. Specifically, local actors’ informal behaviors that emerge despite and beyond the state may influence the effectiveness of the polycentric system (Polese et al. 2018). The evolution in behavior from campaign-style response to positive response promoted effective polycentric governance in the WLW. Past studies on government information disclosure indicate that local politicians’ promotion incentives drive them to adjust environmental data to generate a positive picture (Liu and Kong 2021). In this case study, these informal behaviors in the first stage gave local enterprises and villagers more chances to jointly evade responsibility and strategically resist policies. When the state rejected these falsehoods and addressed information distortion at local levels using central inspections and lawsuits, it enabled grassroots governments to adopt integrated governance to mobilize local residents to participate in water pollution control and achieve effective polycentric governance.

The research evidence from our case study has also shown how multiple local actors’ behaviors design and redesign the institutional rules to promote the polycentric governance transformation from failure to success. First, The degree of self-governance is one of the key variables that make the polycentric water governance effective. It was found in our case study that the county government ignored the real condition and needs of local people in the first stage. In the second stage, the county government provided more opportunities for local people to express their views and participate in decision making. This ensures the congruence between governance rules and local conditions. And the county government supported local people to make their own rules to fight against water pollution, as long as they did not violate the regulations made by the superior governments. These measures have increased the degree of self-governance and ensured the effectiveness of polycentric governance in the WLW .

Second, the success of polycentric water governance requires effective coordination mechanisms. In developing countries, poverty and the urgent need for development make it hard to realize effective polycentric governance by relying solely on self-governing actors. In this case study, local actors had some autonomy to make their own rules in the first stage but resisted policies out of self-interest (Polese 2023). This may lead to higher transaction costs with respect to top-down coordination in the particular context of developing countries. As a connection point between the state and the public, the grassroots government plays an important role in enhancing resource users’ autonomy and establishing a cohesive collaboration network. It was found in our case study that the county government divided the WLW into appropriate governance scales. This is beneficial to generate the informal communication and coordination channel between government and local people. Local actors are generally more inclined to coordinate and collaborate within their respective social network and homogeneous areas (Lubell et al. 2017). Therefore, culturally appropriate and emotionally grounded mobilization by grassroots cadres may motivate local elites to participate in autonomous groups. And the effective monitoring mechanism with multiple governance actors and conflict-resolution mechanism with flexible mobilization are established by relying on the advantages of autonomous elites. This strengthens bottom-up coordination and reduces top-down coordination costs.

CONCLUSION

Previous studies described effective polycentric governance that used top-down mobilization (McCord et al. 2017) but did not analyze changes in crucial stakeholders’strategies from a micro-perspective. Using the combined IAD-SES framework, we describe the transformation of polycentric governance from failure to success in the case of China’s Wanfeng Lake and outline how polycentric governance can be effective despite conflicts between economic development and environmental protection. This work advances the broader understanding of polycentric governance practices that can be applied by developing countries when implementing river basin governance. This is done by discussing the behavioral evolution of governance actors, using a micro-perspective at local levels.

Specifically, the combined IAD-SES framework provides a valid diagnostic tool for our case study. We clearly describe changes in the four variables of the resource system, resource unit, governance system, and actors before and after the transformation of polycentric governance. Focusing on governance system and actors shows the evolution of local governance actors’ behaviors from negative to positive and illustrates how this evolution influences polycentric system effectiveness. Local actors’ informal behaviors that take campaign-style actions (e.g., resistance) may lead to a failure of polycentric governance. This study also describes how actors’ interaction and collaboration within a homogeneous area contribute to successful polycentric governance. This approach identifies barriers to deploying polycentric principles and ways to promote effective polycentric governance on the ground when there are many governance actors. Additional research is needed to assess whether the conditions of effective polycentric governance in this study area are applicable in other countries. We encourage future researchers to provide additional empirical evidence, and explore more interactions and coordination among actors, to provide a deeper understanding of polycentric governance with respect to natural resources.

__________

^[1] Governance actors in the social-ecological system include central government, intermediate government, grassroots government, local enterprises, and residents.
^[2] Coordination refers to appropriately handling the relationships among multiple actors, creating favorable conditions for CPR governance, and promoting the effective polycentric governance.
^[3] Autonomy refers to the consciousness and ability of self-governing actors to take an active part in decision making or governance.
^[4] Net cage fish breeding is a method of raising fish in net cages that are placed in a lake or river.
^[5] Central and intermediate governments belong to superior governments. Intermediate governments include provincial and municipal governments. Grassroots governments include governments at the county level and below.
^[6] Deadline Remediation Letter is a non-public text that we obtained from government personnel.
^[7] Campaign-style response is a terminology relative to the campaign-style enforcement. Campaign-style enforcement from superior governments is usually adopted when regular enforcement fails and urgent tasks require timely responses (Liu et al. 2015).
^[8] In China’s context, raising the targets level-by-level can be passive or active. Passively raising the targets occurs when administrative tasks under a vertical pressure-based system are reinforced by the central government, provinces and municipalities, and are then subcontracted to the grassroots government. Actively raising the targets occurs when the grassroots government takes the initiative to raise targets to win a horizontal performance championship. For example, after a national policy target is issued, provincial governments set an 85% achievement rate, municipal governments set a 90% achievement rate, and county governments set a 95% achievement rate.

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