Policy Reinvention in Diffusion: Evidence from Municipal Solid Waste Classification Policy in China

Abstract

Abstract While research on policy diffusion has attracted the attention of many scholars, little attention has been given to policy reinvention in diffusion. With the aim to explore the influencing factors and combination paths of policy reinvention in the Municipal Solid Waste Classification Policy (MSWCP), this study constructs a theoretical framework concerning internal factors, intergovernmental relations and external influence, and carries out an empirical analysis on the MSWCP of 31 large and medium-sized cities in China using the Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Based on the empirical results, this study identifies the different combination paths that induced local governments to reinvent policies and clarifies the various roles of financial resources, government attention, policy experience, peer competition, learning, and social demand in achieving policy reinvention, which is expected to provide new theoretical and practical enlightenment for policy reinvention research.