How can public participation improve environmental governance in China? A policy simulation approach with multi-player evolutionary game

This study explores how public participation can help reshape environmental governance in China. As China is committed to constructing an ecological civilization, a new participatory mechanism has become necessary for promoting environmental democracy. A non-cooperative tripartite evolutionary game is employed to model the dynamic strategy interactions among local governments, polluting enterprises, and the public for participatory governance. A new mechanism design for public participation is proposed to accomplish cooperative evolutionary equilibrium. Simulations show that with adequate support, public monitoring and activism can help release local governments' supervision burden while still being able to reach the desired outcome. Public participation benefits cooperative equilibrium by reducing governance costs and improving policy flexibility, especially when long-term aspirations of reputational effects and environmental tax reform are embraced. Strong support and ensured independence are crucial for unleashing the full power of public participation in environmental governance. From a methodology perspective, policy simulation in an evolutionary game framework represents a novel addition to the research toolbox for policy studies.