Abstract
This thesis investigates the history and the current operation of the Chinese regulatory state, which has emerged in the wake of the marketisation, privatisation and liberalisation of the 1980s. The aim of this thesis is to advance academic understanding of risk regulation and governance in general and of China’s distinctive regulatory state in particular through the case of food safety regulation and China’s struggles to reform its regulatory systems and adopt western policy instruments.After a brief introduction, literature review and methodology chapters, there are then four loosely connected analytical chapters and a conclusion. The first analytical chapter draws on policy document analysis and in-depth interviews with key informants in government to explore the evolution of the Chinese food safety control system and charts the changing organisational structure, policy instruments, and strategies adopted by the emerging Chinese regulatory state as its focus has shifted from the age old problem of food security to new concerns with food safety. A second analytical chapter then combines multivariate statistical analysis with qualitative case study interview data to investigate whether, how and why regulatory structure and the configuration of food safety regulators at the prefecture-level impacts on regulatory effectiveness, as measured by the percentage of food products from each jurisdiction failing to meet regulatory standards in a national surveillance testing. Third, based on interviews with regulators at each level and across the country, this thesis investigates and explains the national adoption and local implementation of risk-based regulation. Fourth, combining interview data and quantitative social media analysis, the final analytical chapter explores whether nudge style disclosure policies (‘scores on doors’) change the behaviour of consumers and businesses and the reasons behind that.
This thesis concludes with a comprehensive depiction of risk regulation with Chinese characteristics. In particular it highlights a paternalistic tradition of state protection to the people, formal zero-tolerance to risk, super-department structures, strict accountability and blame avoidance, reactive regulation style and insufficient competence as distinctive factors shaping China’s approach to risk regulation and governance. In this way the thesis refutes claims about the universality of international practices of risk-based regulation and nudge-style disclosure by illuminating the strong constraints posed by nationally-specific governance traditions on the adoption, implementation and effectiveness of these policies in China. This thesis also advances knowledge of Chinese governance by exploring how the traditional fragmented authoritarian model has evolved and become more accountability-oriented and responsive. This thesis also contributes to knowledge of food safety governance by helping better understand diverse concerns of food safety across countries and the interaction between regulatory accountability and noncompliance among small- and medium-sized food businesses.
| Date of Award | 1 May 2022 |
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| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | David Demeritt (Supervisor) & Henry Rothstein (Supervisor) |