Paper short abstract:

The paper focuses on the role of standardization processes within Chinese environmental disclosure in shaping the "fragmented datascape" of environmental governance, and software objects (databases, websites, algorithms, apps) designed to leverage it to foster environmental transformations.

Paper long abstract:

A central role in the shaping of environmental policy in China is played by the uneven interests of central and local institutions. At the level of environmental information disclosure (on the background of the general drive towards institutional transparency epitomized by the 2009 Open Government Information Measures), this has made database design, sorting and querying algorithms and interface design, along with material infrastructure (e.g. pollution sensors, cabling) and legal provisions, controversial objects with multiple local interpretations and implementations, resulting in an "environmental datascape" (Lippert, 2015) characterized by high fragmentation, wherein various actors (human and nonhuman) leverage different parts.

This presentation focuses on the role played by environmental and informational standardization processes, and on how institutional arrangements contribute to the fragmentation. In particular, we will show how the misalignment between national and local standards problematizes comparisons across time (tracking performances) and space (comparing cities/provinces).

Within this fragmented data space, governance efforts enacted by governmental and especially non-governmental actors to foster environmental change require constant alignment practices and complex data governance efforts to entail their own supplementary standardization. This process includes testing and certification measures, which are then inscribed into software objects (websites, databases, scraping algorithms, mobile applications), thus assuming a degree of institutionalization (especially at the supra-national level) which leads to conflict with their official counterparts. While this situation complicates some environmental governance practices and policies, it is also functional to the enactment of a specific institutional arrangement constraining the autonomy of local institutions vis-à-vis central ones.