Lili Liu

Biography

This research examines the fundamental issue of how authoritarian regime accommodates itself with the citizen’s participation in policy making process by studying the green activities and authority's response in urban China. In authoritarian and transitional systems, the authority generally restricts citizen engagement to public sphere, although some have gradually loosed control over the emergence of civil society. But as we look at the actual data in China's environmental politics, there is a spectrum of ways environmental activisms organize, attitudes of local governments' response, and interactions between these two actors. The wide variation among the decentralized local governments challenges the authoritarian regime's primary targets of development and stability. What account for the variations? She conducted the fieldwork in three cities: Shenzhen, Kunming and Xiamen during 2014-2015. She found that embedded strength of the environmental activists and the degree of autonomy and adaptation of local state may explain the differences. This research examines the fundamental issue of how authoritarian regime accommodates itself with the citizen’s participation in policy making process by studying the green activities and authority's response in urban China. In authoritarian and transitional systems, the authority generally restricts citizen engagement to public sphere, although some have gradually loosed control over the emergence of civil society. But as we look at the actual data in China's environmental politics, there is a spectrum of ways environmental activisms organize, attitudes of local governments' response, and interactions between these two actors. The wide variation among the decentralized local governments challenges the authoritarian regime's primary targets of development and stability. What account for the variations? She conducted the fieldwork in three cities: Shenzhen, Kunming and Xiamen during 2014-2015. She found that embedded strength of the environmental activists and the degree of autonomy and adaptation of local state may explain the differences.

Research Interest

politics