In this interview Binzizi Dong, Dongshu Liu, and Junhao Yu discuss the research and findings of their recent article in Environmental Politics: Persuading the public: nationalist propaganda and support for costly environmental policies in China.
Congratulations on your recent article! What is the key message that you hope people take from this research?
Thank you! One of the key messages from our paper is that carbon reduction policies can be framed as something completely different from climate change efforts for domestic political purposes. As our article shows, China frames this as an important task to compete with the United States economically, and such a frame helps boost domestic support. Nowadays, when climate change policy triggers domestic political controversies worldwide, our findings may be relevant to various stakeholders!
Additionally, we observe a counterintuitive phenomenon in our findings regarding China’s populist narratives on climate change. We note that Chinese populists seem surprisingly approving of elites in Western countries, rather than the masses and grassroots activists, and would be willing to collaborate with these elites. Since populism is typically regarded as an anti-elite narrative, we believe this phenomenon in China’s populist narratives on climate change is particularly interesting!
It may also be interesting to see how the US-China competition shapes Chinese public views on environmental issues. It seems that many Chinese do not only view climate change as an environmental challenge that human beings need to take care of but also view it as an important economic opportunity to “beat” the USA in economic competition, maybe by having technological innovation challenging the oil-based hegemony. We are not entirely sure how this may affect the global climate change movement, but it might bring new insights to climate change opponents in the USA and other Western societies.
Your research found that the primary purpose of propaganda is to mitigate the political costs of policies rather than to increase the public acceptance of them – tell me more!
Basically, the idea is that many climate change policies may not be popular domestically because they impose immediate economic costs, while their benefits will only be realized in the future. Our finding is that China’s propaganda on carbon reduction policy is not aimed at persuading the Chinese people to accept such policies—people still do not like these policies and are unwilling to follow them. However, they are still willing to support the government, even when it promotes a policy that they disapprove of. This may sound a little strange to people in electoral democracies, where the government is politically punished for promoting unpopular policies. In a political system like China’s, however, it seems that people’s political support and policy support can be separated. This could be good news for the global climate change movement, as some governments can escape political consequences while promoting climate change policies that are unpopular domestically. This may make it easier for countries like China to fulfil their ambitious promises.
What narratives do you identify that seek to shape public opinion?
Our main findings focus on nationalist narratives, and we have found that they are effective in shaping people’s attitudes. Specifically, we observe that narratives emphasizing competition with other countries are key in influencing public opinion. However, it seems that Chinese people care more about economic competition than political competition, which may indicate that they are still more economically oriented when considering national development.
China is enacting a lot of environmental policies, presumably because it can manage public opinion in this way. What lessons are there here for other governments, if any?
China has a unique political system that many other countries do not have, so some of our findings may not be directly applicable to those countries. However, one important point to note is that many people perceive climate change policies not solely from a climate change perspective. These policies might be framed and understood in different ways. We believe this is also something you may observe in countries like the USA, where climate change policies are often viewed as domestic political issues. People who support or oppose these policies may not necessarily be thinking about climate change; instead, they may form their attitudes based on other factors. For advocates seeking to garner support for climate change policies in other countries, this is an important consideration. You do not necessarily need to persuade people to worry about climate change in order for them to support climate change policies—they can support them for other reasons.
Finally, what’s next? Are you publishing more on this topic?
Two lines in our research agenda may be relevant to this topic. First, we are examining China’s economic governance, particularly how the country mitigates the potential consequences of its ambitious environmental policies. As you may know, economic development remains a very important issue for China, and many local governments and officials face significant pressure to achieve economic growth. Environmental policies can sometimes contradict the short-term need for economic growth, and we are interested in how China balances its environmental objectives with local bureaucrats’ resistance.
The second line of our research focuses on populism. We are particularly interested in how China’s populist narratives engage with Western right-wing populism. Since environmental issues and climate change are among the most discussed topics in populist narratives, we believe our study will inevitably address environmental protection again in the future.
Bios:
Binzizi Dong, Postdoctoral Fellow at Centre for Public Affairs and Law, City University of Hong Kong. Her research primarily focuses on behavioral public administration, with a particular interest in citizen-state interactions and public e-service delivery. Her research expertise includes experimental vignette methodology and natural language processing.
Dongshu Liu, Assistant Professor at the Department of Public and International Affairs, City University of Hong Kong. His research interests include political behavior and political economy in authoritarian politics, with a regional focus on China. His work has been appeared, or will appear, in Environmental Politics, Democratization, Journal of Peace Research, Political Research Quarterly, among others.
Junhao Yu, PhD candidate at the Department of Public and International Affairs, City University of Hong Kong. His research interests include comparative politics, Chinese politics, public opinion, and political behaviors. His research expertise includes big data analytics and text analytics.
