ABSTRACT
The case studies presented in the preceding chapters come from the Western hemisphere. We now move to China, where the culture, institutional setting and stage of development differ considerably from the earlier case studies. The findings of the Chinese case study largely support the main proposition of Institutions in Environmental Management concerning the mutually reinforcing relationship between environmental institutions and the cognitive models of decision makers. Fundamental differences in the institutional setting and the stage of social and economic development, however, became evident early in the data collection phase of the research. Because of cultural and language barriers, caution is necessary in drawing inferences from the interviews. As a result, the following investigation and the institutional design implications drawn from it rely much more than the previous ones on an analysis of the conceptual and cultural context of Chinese environmental management. Despite the reservations and limitations, China brings valuable nuances to our understanding of the feedback between mental models and environmental institutions. It is also a country one cannot omit from the analysis, if simply because of the magnitude of its environmental problems.
