Data analysis

To find how non-state actors have been included in environmental planning processes and how planning arrangements influenced environmental development, the information from the interviews was analyzed. The structure of the analysis followed the aspects identified as important in influencing policy outcomes in policy network studies. This refers to number and type of participants, consensus/conflict, and structures of power (Jordan & Schubert, 1992; Rhodes & Marsh, 1992; van Waarden, 1992; Dowding, 1995; Aars & Fimreite, 2005; Khan, 2013).

The analysis proceeded according to the following steps. The first step consisted of going through the interview transcrips to identify the key planning documents with an influence over the environment in Rizhao. This was followed by identifying which actors have been involved in drafting key policy documents, and determining what principle has been used in including these actors. The interview transcripts were then studied in detail to identify any planning conflict related to the urban environment, which actors were involved in these, and what their views were. The next steps consisted of determining how planning conflicts were resolved, what interests and development agendas influenced decision making, and which actors are able to pursue their interests in case of planning conflict. The last step consisted of considering how planning processes influence environmental development in Rizhao, for example in terms of resource use, environmental protection and spatial planning.

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To find how new modes of urban climate governance have contributed to urban climate action in Rizhao, the collected information was analyzed as follows:

 Identification of key energy saving and emission reduction policy and programs in Rizhao in relation to environmental protection, energy conservation and use of renewables in the industrial and construction sector, and emission reduction schemes in the transport and waste sectors. Climate programs are defined as projects with an explicit goal of energy conservation, increased use of renewables, enhanced carbon sinks or carbon fossil management (Solow et al, 2004).

 Identification of the role of actors from the public, private and civil society sector in each scheme, as well as nature of collaboration with other actors.

 Identification of policy instruments used in each program, as well as roles of actors, to identify mode of governance (authority, provision or enabling).

 Determine (wherever possible) energy use and environmental trends associated with climate schemes, as well as establishment of new companies, development of environmental technology and expansion of the new energy sector.

To find how partnerships have contributed to climate action in Rizhao, the collected case study information was analyzed as follows:

 Identification of whether energy saving and emission reduction schemes involved cross-sector collaboration and the actors involved in these.

 For schemes involving partnerships, form (actor constellation) and function (rule setting, service provision, demonstration, and information sharing and technology development) was determined.

 To find whether partnerships contribute to innovation, each initiative was studied to find whether it had resulted in technology or policy development, as well as the mechanisms involved.

Policy discourse analysis

To answer the second aspect of the first sub-question, the language use in national and municipal policy documents was analyzed and compared with key environmental policy priorities presented through interviews. The textual analysis focused on China’s 12th _{FYP and}

Rizhao’s 12th _{FYP, which are the main documents outlining the development agendas and}

policy guidelines on a national and municipal level. These documents were selected because they are comprehensive planning documents that determine overall development direction of the city in terms of economic structure, urban form, resource consumption, and environmental protection efforts.

The aim of the textual analysis was to find how environmental policy preferences are related with broader policy priorities. The assumption was that by deconstructing language use and framing of energy and environmental agendas in key policy documents, it would be possible to reveal how these agendas build on certain problem definitions and assumptions (Dryzek, 1997). Dryzek (1997) studied such belief systems by analyzing how different environmental policy discourses have been advocated by groups with diverging interests and underlying assumptions about problems and solutions over the past decades. To capture the essence of these different narratives, Dryzek created a taxonomy of environmental discourses, where “environmental problem solving” is a dominating narrative based on dealing with environmental issues through pragmatic public policy (Ibid, p.15). Three forms of problem solving are widely applied: administrative rationalism, democratic rationalism and economic rationalism. Another narrative that has gained enormous traction is the sustainability discourse. This concept was introduced through the 1987 UN Report Our Common Future, which combines traditional development concerns with environmental protection. The sustainability

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concept has been hugely popular, because of its promise that economic development can be achieved while maintaining a healthy natural environment.

Another influential environmental discourse is ecological modernization. The theory of ecological modernization explains how industrialized nations cope with ecological deterioration by perceiving science, technology and market forces as key solutions to environmental issues (Mol, 1997). The concept represents the idea that capitalist society can transcend into an environmentally sustainable future through reliance on far sighted leaders and firms that profit on environmental friendly technology (Dryzek, 1997). The discourse portrays environmental issues as positive-sum games in which economic growth and environmental solutions may be reconciled (Hajer, p.26, 1995). The ecological modernization discourse was widely embraced because it allows societies to have it all: continued industrialization and social progress without harm to the natural environment (Gibbs, p.10, 2000). In 2005, Meadowcroft referred to ecological modernization as the strongest claim to a “general theory” in contemporary environmental politics (p.482). Although the concept now is used to a lesser extent, this thesis argues that the concept is relevant in explaining current technology centered energy policy in China.

Drawing inspiration from theories of CDA, it was assumed in this thesis that analysis of language could be used to reveal how some groups are empowered, while others are marginalized (Jorgensson and Phillips, 2002). The method used for textual analysis of the two policy documents was thematic analysis. The qualitative data analysis and research software

Atlas.ti was used to perform co-occurrence runs of codes in the documents. The process of

analysis followed the steps proposed by Braun and Clarke (2006), as is explained below. The first step consisted of familiarization with data. The two FYPs and interviews carried out in Rizhao were read multiple times and initial ideas were noted down and compared with ideas from previous studies of environmental policy discourses. The second step consisted of generating initial codes and applying these to the FYPs and the interview transcripts. The theory guiding these creation of these initial codes were Dryzek’s (1997) environmental narratives (administrative rationalities, carrying capacity, environmental protection, market rationalities, ecological limits), political slogans in China (beautification, circular economy, environmental industry development, harmonious development, livable city, resource conservation, resource efficiency, scientific development, technology and innovation, three represents), and previous studies of environmental and energy policy in China that have identified specific discourses as especially important (energy security, modernization, energy efficiency, conservation, sustainable development) (Beyer, 2006; Cherni & Kentish, 2007; Zheng & Tok, 2007; Qi et al, 2008; Meidan et al, 2009; Tsang & Kolk, 2010).

The next step consisted of refining the codes into themes. The most commonly appearing codes were clustered together and arranged into themes. When creating themes, adjustments had to be made to adjust codes based on Dryzek’s environmental discourse theory to the political and language context. In particular, it turned out that discourses such as “sustainable development” or “ecological modernization” were interwoven with Chinese policy slogans (such as “scientific outlook on development”). To tackle this issue, complex concepts were broken down into components, such as “industrial upgrading”, “resource conservation”, “technology innovation” and “resource efficiency”. After repeated reviews of the policy documents and transcripts, the large number of codes was narrowed down to a smaller number of themes that were most commonly used in the policy documents: market measures for resource saving/environmental protection, administrative measures for environmental protection, industrial upgrading for resource saving and environmental protection, technology and innovation, and ecological and environmental protection.

Next, specific searches were made to find connections behind themes. Using Atlas.ti, the themes were analyzed by using a code co-occurrence explorer. A co-occurrence explorer analyses to what extent codes are occurring in proximity to each other in the documents, for example by being mentioned in the same sentence or paragraph. The explorer calculates how

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often different codes are mentioned in proximity to each other and represents the occurrence as a fraction (for example, out of all the references to “energy”, a third are made in relation to “technology and innovation”). The co-occurrence explorer was used to find to what extent references to “energy”, “environment”, “ecology”, “low carbon” and “climate” policy connected with the coded themes. In particular, the co-occurrence explorer was used assess connection between “low carbon” and “energy” with the themes “industrial upgrading”, “technology innovation”, and “ecological protection”.

Finally, co-occurrence between themes in the municipal and national FYPs were compared with interview transcripts. The last step of the analysis consisted of finding how language use in the formal policy documents differed from language use in the interview transcripts. The themes in the policy documents were, in particular, compared with the way in which planners from central research institutes presented environmental issues and solutions. Any systematic differences in the way that environmental issues were framed was identified. For example, this includes tendencies of different actors to refer to environmental agendas as policy issue associated with economic development strategies, industrial policy, technology innovation, or ecological protection.