China Environmental Science & Sustainabili ty Research
Li Guo
PhD Candidate\, Department of Political Science\, U niversity of British Columbia (UBC)
Politics of Biodiversity Conse rvation in China: The Rising Epistemic Community and National Park Reforms in an adapted Multiple Stream Framework analysis
How would an aut horitarian developmental state respond to challenges and difficulties in go verning technically complex issues\, such as nature conservation systems? W hat roles do scientists and experts play? Why do some ideas prevail while o thers fall aside in the policy making process？
Using China’s past two decades of protected area reforms as a prism\, my research proposes an ada pted multiple stream framework to shed light on the role of experts and sci entists in China’s mixed process of policy formation and decision making. T his modification of Kingdon’s MSF allows us to bring in political regimes w hile focusing on social agency in the policy process\; in particular\, this adapted MSF allows us to focus on the dynamic interactions between the bur eaucratic state and social actors enabled by political events.
By loo king into how the IUCN’s ideas of national parks and protected areas are ma de into China’s reform agenda\, I argue that the domestic epistemic communi ty’s advocacy and contestation are key to the diffusion of international no rms\, and the impacts of the epistemic community are conditioned on the dev elopments in the political stream.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
LI GUO is a PHD candidate in the Department of Political Science at UBC. Her dissertation investigat es authoritarian responsiveness in the public policy making process\, with a particular focus on the emerging social actors and the conditions of thei r policy impacts in China’s biodiversity conservation and biosafety politic s.