Huang Ganlin
State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Center for Human-Environment System Sustainability, Beijing Normal University, No 19, Xinjiekouwai Street, Beijing 100875, China.
Environ Pollut. 2015 Feb;197:313-315. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2014.12.001. Epub 2014 Dec 8.
China has long been regarded as a centralized society where the public has little influence on decision-making. Such a top-down management scheme is perceived as a major obstacle to address complicated environment issues. The recent public campaign in China to urge creation of a nationwide PM₂.₅ monitoring network and mitigation plan provides an unprecedented case of how the public participated and influenced policy-making in a centralized society. This paper reviews key incidents in the campaign chronologically. Here we identify information technology, public awareness of air quality's health impacts and the fact air quality affects everyone as public goods as the major factors promoting public participation. This case demonstrates that public participation can happen in a centralized, top-down society such as China. Continued environmental deterioration may stimulate similar campaigns for other issues. We anticipate this essay to be a starting point for more studies on how environmental issues stimulate incremental social change by making people involved in decision-making process, especially in societies where they are rarely able to do so.
长期以来，中国一直被视为一个中央集权社会，公众对决策几乎没有影响力。这种自上而下的管理模式被视为解决复杂环境问题的主要障碍。中国最近开展的一场公众运动，敦促建立全国性的PM₂.₅监测网络和减排计划，这提供了一个前所未有的案例，展示了公众在一个中央集权社会中是如何参与并影响政策制定的。本文按时间顺序回顾了该运动中的关键事件。在这里，我们将信息技术、公众对空气质量健康影响的认识以及空气质量影响每个人这一公共物品的事实，确定为促进公众参与的主要因素。这个案例表明，公众参与可以发生在像中国这样的中央集权、自上而下的社会中。持续的环境恶化可能会引发针对其他问题的类似运动。我们预计这篇文章将成为更多研究的起点，这些研究将探讨环境问题如何通过让人们参与决策过程来推动渐进式社会变革，特别是在那些人们很少能够这样做的社会中。
