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Explora: Environment
and Resource The development of the river chief in Nantong and Huzhou

By loosening policymaking restrictions at lower levels The issue becomes even more significant when it is
of government, the Chinese central government and realized that most rivers in China flow across different
party created “policy laborites” that helped launch the administrative areas. This created a situation where local
2
internal policy transfer processes – phenomena that have governments and agencies found themselves in conflict
occurred in the United States since its founding. As local when pollution events occurred, particularly when
3
governments engaged in policy experimentation (under an upstream pollution impacted downstream jurisdictions
environment of intense competition to be seen as leading and when left and right banks fell under different
or advanced), the same issues that have been discussed administrative jurisdictions. 17
in the policy transfer literature emerged across China, To address these (and other) issues, Wuxi established
including problems associated with the transfer of what is river chiefs at the municipal and county levels to monitor
often discussed as “best practice” models. 4-16 To illustrate and take direct responsibility for 79 river sections in the
this, we will draw on the movement of the river chief from area. Based on Wuxi’s success in cleaning river pollution
Wuxi to the Jiangsu Provincial government, Nantong, and and bringing accountability to the water management
Huzhou, focusing on the role of structural and individual system, other municipalities began their experiments with
motivations in shaping the outcomes of the transfer river chiefs. As information on the river chief system
18
process.
filtered up to provincial governments and eventually the
In 2007, a cyanobacteria outbreak on Taihu Lake central government (and the party apparatus), a decision
threatened Wuxi’s drinking water. In response, Jiangsu was taken to implement the river chief nationwide between
province issued the Wuxi City river section water quality 2016 and 2018.
control objectives and assessment methods policy (on a trial The problem we will examine in the remainder of this
basis). The core idea was to allow Wuxi to establish a river article is that the best practice developed in Wuxi turned
chief system that held the named party and government out to be the best for only a few places outside of Wuxi. 19-22
officials accountable for water quality management and Part of the reason for the disjuncture is due to the need
restoration. In addition to holding named individuals for learning in the transfer process and the complexity of
accountable for water quality (based on the level of core the processes needed to engage in hard learning versus
pollutants in the water), the trial instituted the office of the soft learning. 15,23,24 This comes to the forefront when it
river chief to better coordinate the range of departments
and subunits involved in water management. The is realized that transferred information tends to move
problem created by having over 10 different departments through a range of networks, agents, and institutions
during the transfer and adaptation processes.
25-34
and subunits involved in water management was the
confusion of responsibility for overall water quality and While discussions of how policies are translated
the development of numerous approaches and policies (transformed) during the transfer process have added to
governing the same body of water. Furthermore, having the transfer literature, in general, these discussions fit into
multiple agencies responsible for water led to a lack the original continuum offered by Dolowitz and Marsh
5
of bureaucratic and individual accountability in water relating to what happens to a policy as it transfers and enters
management. To give a flavor of this issue, we note that its new setting. Specifically, Dolowitz and Marsh argue
7
the core departments involved in water management that transfer can fall along a continuum running from a
include (but are not limited to) the Water Conservancy perfect copy of the original model to being translated to
Department, the Environmental Protection Bureau, the such an extent that a new policy is little more than a hybrid
Bureau of Housing and Urban–Rural Development, the of many different policies drawn from a range of actors and
Development and Reform Bureau, the Department of settings. As such, we will be utilizing a slightly modified
Natural Resources, the Health Bureau, the Bureau of version of the continuum originally offered by Dolowitz
5
Agriculture and Rural Affairs, and even the Economy and and Marsh (Figure 1) to analyze the transfer of the Wuxi
Trade Bureau. This complex arrangement led to a situation river chief system.
where: At its base, a transfer is possible because policymakers
[T]he local water pollution control is not effective, face similar issues and challenges despite differences
though the local governors are accountable for this, between systems and settings. When faced with similar
they would shirk part of their responsibility toward issues, transfer is an attractive option because it allows for
the departments in the vertical line. Therefore, local a degree of certainty and speed in developing a solution.
governors are not motivated to take responsibility for After all, policymakers can see what has already been done
water pollution control. 17(p1) to address the issue. 35

Volume 2 Issue 3 (2025) 2 doi: 10.36922/EER025110018