Contingent Policy Design: Political Accountability and Environmental Governance in China

Existing scholarship often conceptualizes policy design as a static stage in the policy process whereby decision-makers craft policies based on given institutional settings. Our research contends that the fundamental logic underlying policy design can be contingently reshaped by external shocks such as central institutional change. When the central government restructures political institutions, it reconfigures local officials' decision-making rationales throughout the policy process. Leveraging a novel dataset encompassing the removal of Drinking Water Source Protection Zones in Chinese cities from 2005 to 2018, this study examines how cities transformed their policy design rationales in response to a newly established political accountability system by the central government. Empirical results reveal that prior to the reforms, policy design followed an “economic performance logic” based on city economic characteristics. After the implementation of accountability in water governance, policy design shifted toward a rationale combining a political accountability logic, aimed at hiding misconduct, with a capacity-based logic, focused on achieving quick deliverables within capacity constraints. This study advances the understanding of how institutional arrangements shape policy designs among local policymakers in China.