Presentation short abstract

This study proposes a nuanced critique of the authoritarian responsiveness theory by adopting a political ecology perspective on a a contested molybdenum-copper plant project in Shifang city, which highlights how China’s state capitalism shapes local governments’ response to environmental activism.

Presentation long abstract

Under state capitalism, government-industry relations in China are widely recognized as being extremely tight and complex. However, existing research on government responsiveness to environmental protests has largely overlooked the influence of business interests in shaping government decisions regarding targeted projects. This study proposes a nuanced critique of the authoritarian responsiveness theory through an in-depth analysis of a notable but understudied case: the multi-million-dollar molybdenum-copper plant project promoted by the government of Shifang city in Sichuan Province in the early 2010s despite significant popular mobilization, and yet was later quietly abandoned. While a superficial appraisal of this case might attribute the government decision to its responsiveness to the protests, our longitudinal analysis demonstrates that it resulted from a shift in the local government’s perception of its business interests, which was driven by changes in the political relations surrounding the companies involved in the project. Using process-tracing methodology and systematic triangulation of diverse secondary and primary sources, we first show how the government’s perception of its business interests evolved in response to changing politico-business dynamics. Second, we show and explain why this shift in interests outweighed the impact of popular mobilization in influencing the decision to pursue and later abandon the project. Our findings contribute to the development of theories on authoritarian responsiveness by bringing a political ecology perspective highlighting how China’s state capitalism shapes the ways in which its local governments respond to environmental activism surrounding industrial projects.