Democratic Innovations in Illiberal Democracies: Institutionalisation of Public Participation in Environmental Impact Assessment in China

Recently, the demand for mechanisms through which citizens can be directly involved in decision-making has emerged not only in established democracies but also in the states which are quite far from democratic standards. An example of such a phenomenon is the process of institutionalisation of the public participation procedure in EIA in China. As is well known, civil rights and freedoms are under strong pressure in this country. Nevertheless, during the recent decade, as a consequence of environmental incidents and extensive public protests, new legislation aiming to strengthen the environmental impact assessment and, in particular, the public participation in the procedure have been gradually developed, so as to “ensure the public right for participation, knowledge and supervision in environmental protection” (ME, 2012). Although many gaps still exist as compared to internationally recognized standards of the procedure, these norms have increasingly paved the way to practices of public participation in the country, brining up a growing awareness among both environmental authorities and the public (organized and non) about the relevance of such a procedure as a tool of a more effective environmental decision-making at local level. Obviously enough, the intensity of such a phenomenon can hardly be compared with the democratic innovations in established democracies (Smith 2009), but it triggers a number of theoretical and practical challenges that should be addressed in the contemporary debate about democratic institutions. The proposed paper will first unpack in a systematic manner the normative box of the international standards of public participation procedure in EIA and it will then analyse the evolution of this procedure in China, measuring the degree of its institutionalisation and questioning the appropriateness of the newly established normative and institutional settings for an effective public participation in the selected context.