Governing the green housing transition in China: an institutional analysis of policy implementation constraints from a market perspective

Abstract

AbstractBackground:The Chinese government has stated its ambitions to promote a green housing (GH) transition through the articulation and implementation of policies and regulations. However, this state-led GH transition is not straightforward since market responses will greatly influence the extent to which policies are implemented. This research provides a rare perspective on the investigations of the governance capacities of China’s state-led GH transition by exploring how key market actors have responded to the new “rules” in the housing sector.Results:The research gathers primary data from open-ended interviews with eighteen representatives from both state-owned and private real estate enterprises. A range of institutional constraints in relation of China’s GH transition has been found and discussed through the “three levels of institution” analytical framework. These constraints included “state power in decision-making”, “lack of public participation”, “lack of long-term monitoring”, “strong control over land resources” and “High frequency but low efficiency of current GH policies”.Conclusions:Some special applications have been addressed by this research. It has explored the GH transition in the Chinese institutional context by setting out a reflective critique from the market-side perspective. First, it attends to the research gap in which market voices have been overlooked in GH research, while contributing to knowledge in the GH literature in non-liberal contexts. Secondly, through a case study of the GH transition in China, this research has shed light on the application of the NI theory. Moreover, it has assessed how real estate enterprises’ capacity is constrained or enabled by institutional conditions. It, in turn, reflects the institutional characteristics in the governance of GH in China and the institutional capacities of the Chinese government in relation to its environmental governance efforts.