Bureaucratic Deliberation and China's Engagement with International Ideas: A Case Study on China's Adoption of Carbon Emissions Trading. Issue 136 (4th July 2022) - Yu, Bowen
ABSTRACT: This article proposes an analytical framework on China's engagement with international ideas that stresses the crucial role of Chinese bureaucracies' deliberation. It argues that bureaucratic deliberation is influenced by three factors: orthodox bureaucratic norms, candidate ideas' performance in policy experimentation, and bureaucratic interests. When orthodox norms decline, bureaucracies become more open to novel ideas. But only when policy experiments with a novel idea generate positive performance and when the new policy fits bureaucratic interests, can the idea be adopted. China's adoption of Carbon Emissions Trading (ET) was influenced by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the deliberation within which was influenced by the change of China's defensive position in climate governance, the unsatisfactory performance of command-and-control measures, and the NDRC's political interests.