Analysis of Strategy Selection in Third-Party Governance of Rural Environmental Pollution

Abstract

In the context of increasingly prominent rural environmental problems, the third-party pollution governance model has become an important initiative for the comprehensive governance of rural environmental problems in China. However, the current third-party governance initiatives continue to suffer from governance failures caused by unclear responsibility sharing and opportunistic behavior. To analyze the reasons behind the behavioral choices of the various stakeholders involved in rural environmental third-party governance and to provide policy insights for formulating more reasonable rural environmental third-party governance solutions, a game model was constructed between local governments and third-party governance institutions. Specifically, the model examined the different evolutionary game strategies that appear between local governments and third-party governance institutions in different institutional design contexts when responsibility disputes arise in third-party governance. These disputes involve the re-governing of pollution control responsibility, which can be borne either by the local governments or the party causing the damage. The results shown are as follows: It is crucial to define the boundaries of re-governance responsibility in the third-party governance of rural environmental pollution. When local governments bear the primary responsibility for governance, regardless of whether they provide regulatory oversight, third-party governance institutions tend to adopt a passive approach. In such cases, the third-party governance market fails to effectively fulfill its role in governance. By reconstructing the third-party governance market model and dividing the main responsibility for pollution governance among the damaging parties, it is possible to achieve active governance by third-party governance institutions without the need for regulation by local governments.

Evolutionary Game Analysis of Risk in Third-Party Environmental Governance

“…To mitigate collusion, it is advisable to reduce the penalties imposed on emission-producing enterprises when third-party environmental service providers unilaterally breach contracts. In addition to the potential for the division of responsibility for pollution management [31], this paper focuses on the internal game between emission-producing enterprises and third-party environmental service providers. Considering the regulatory role played by emission-producing enterprises when third-party environmental service providers unilaterally default, local governments should reduce the proportion of collusion-related resources distributed by emission-producing enterprises to third-party environmental service providers by mobilizing the internal game between the two parties, which can effectively restrain collusion.…”

A study on the evolutionary game theory of third-party governance of environmental pollution based on the quasi-co-owned relationship of pollution rights

“…First, studies on the third-party governance mechanism of environmental pollution have been conducted. Environmental pollution risk has the characteristics of fluidity and uncertainty and being able to cross time space, which has led to institutional limitations in terms of the national and market governance mechanisms of environmental pollution, and there is an urgent need to construct a third-party governance mechanism for environmental pollution (Wu et al, 2023). With the support and promotion of the government, enterprises, citizens and social groups (Cao et al, 2021), China adopted the third-party governance model of environmental pollution in 2013.…”

“…The study of the third-party governance model of environmental pollution in China involves two main aspects. First, in terms of the definition of third-party governance responsibilities for environmental pollution, some scholars have pointed out that in the current environmental liability system centered around the responsibility of polluting enterprises, pollution-discharging enterprises and third-party pollution-control enterprises are faced with unclear responsibilities (Tang et al, 2019;Wu et al, 2023;Zhou, 2023), unclear legal provisions (Ren, 2021;Ren, 2022), and the imperfect distribution of obligations (Wang, 2020) as well as other problems. Wu et al (2022) proposed that administrative responsibility for environmental management and civil liability for environmental torts should be defined based on the transfer and burden of the actual control rights of pollution risk.…”

“…1) At present, some scholars have paid attention to the importance of promoting the synergy between the third-party treatment of environmental pollution and the pollution rights trading system but have focused mainly on the institutional basis and practical reasons for the participation of third-party pollution-control enterprises in pollution rights trading (Ren, 2023); moreover, no scholars have been able to explicitly propose specific ways in which to realize the synergy between the two. 2) Current studies on the third-party governance of environmental pollution (Zhou C. H. et al, 2019;Wu et al, 2023) and pollution rights trading systems (Zeng et al, 2020;Yao et al, 2022) are abundant, but in terms of the path of third-party pollution-control enterprises in participating in pollution rights trading, there are only a relatively small number of qualitative jurisprudential studies (Ren, 2023), and no scholars have yet quantitatively studied the reasonable path through which third-party pollution-control enterprises actually participate in pollution rights trading. 3) In terms of the definitions of responsibility for pollution-discharging enterprises and third-party pollution-control enterprises, existing scholars have noted that how to divide responsibilities (Tang et al, 2019;Zhou, 2023) and how to define these responsibilities remain unclear (Wu et al, 2023); additionally, scholars have proposed solutions such as the "polluter pays principle" (Zahar, 2019) and the "principle of sharing responsibility" (Huang et al, 2023), but these means have not completely solved the problem of defining third-party governance responsibilities for environmental pollution.…”

“…2) Current studies on the third-party governance of environmental pollution (Zhou C. H. et al, 2019;Wu et al, 2023) and pollution rights trading systems (Zeng et al, 2020;Yao et al, 2022) are abundant, but in terms of the path of third-party pollution-control enterprises in participating in pollution rights trading, there are only a relatively small number of qualitative jurisprudential studies (Ren, 2023), and no scholars have yet quantitatively studied the reasonable path through which third-party pollution-control enterprises actually participate in pollution rights trading. 3) In terms of the definitions of responsibility for pollution-discharging enterprises and third-party pollution-control enterprises, existing scholars have noted that how to divide responsibilities (Tang et al, 2019;Zhou, 2023) and how to define these responsibilities remain unclear (Wu et al, 2023); additionally, scholars have proposed solutions such as the "polluter pays principle" (Zahar, 2019) and the "principle of sharing responsibility" (Huang et al, 2023), but these means have not completely solved the problem of defining third-party governance responsibilities for environmental pollution. 4) In terms of the study of the operation of the third-party governance model, existing studies have considered the importance and significance of government subsidies (Huang et al, 2023), fiscal policies (Zhou W. J. et al, 2019), etc., but no scholars have studied how to maintain stable cooperation between pollution-discharging enterprises and thirdparty pollution-control enterprises when government subsidies are withdrawn.…”