Abstracts Political Science

Experts and the science-policy interface in China’s climate policy

by L.-Y. Chen

This thesis explores the ways in which experts engage in China’s climate policies at four different administrative levels (i.e. international, national, provincial, and prefectural) and how politics simultaneously influences the science-policy interface (SPI) in an authoritarian context and a multi-level governance framework. First, experts play an essential role in shaping China’s foreign climate policy by loading science/politics co-constituted ammunition to negotiate with their counterparts in global climate politics. At the national level, the demand of Chinese policymakers is setting the related targets and developing the policy framework for both climate change mitigation and adaptation. While the experts provided sufficient scientific advice, policymakers tend to add some political considerations due to different timing and factors at the higher (international) and lower (subnational) governance levels before making the final decision. Given that local Chinese officials, in general, lack capacity and expertise for addressing climate change, experts engage not only in formulating low-carbon development-related plans but also in carrying out such policy programmes. Political performance and accomplishment, feasibility and achievability of policy goals, and regional competition are considerations regarding the uptake of experts’ advice at the lower government levels. While the past SPI literature focuses primarily on the scientification of policymaking, the political considerations and conditions for explaining SPI identified in the thesis can be a hypothesis to test in other countries to improve our understanding of the science-policy-politics nexus.