Public Participation’s efficacy in China’s hydropower projects: The ability of the participatory channels to inform government’s decision making

Abstract

To many observers the Chinese economic development of 80s and 90s constituted the preconditions for the establishment of the liberal democracy also in the Asian country. Citizens begun to strongly ask for a more participatory and transparent governance in order to have a more meaningful role in the decision making processes impacting on their lives. They requested the establishment of more public participation mechanisms by which, they could be involved in the decision-making process. These expectations were not met and China have not become a democracy. As a matter of fact, the authoritarian nature of its regime has shown remarkable resilience. However, during the last decade of the 20th century, authorities made mandatory different channels for the implementation of the social necessities: elections, meetings and workshops were spread in the national territory with guidelines for their regularization. To date, considerable skepticism remains as to the effectiveness of these channels. Indeed, despite all the attempts and the measures issued to make them popular and standardized, informal methods of public participation such as the use of social media and public manifestations are often preferred to institutionalized channels by those who wanted to make their voices heard. This paper intends to shed light on the capacity of institutionalized and non-institutionalized public participation methods and on the public and societal relevance in the decision-making process. To achieve such aim, we analyze four different case studies belonging to the hydropower sector, which has been traditionally a core locus of experimentation of participatory practices in China. The four cases considered by our work are hydropower stations located all four along the Yangtze River (长江Chángjiāng). They were selected in order to represent the different stages of public participation procedures. The Three Gorges Dam (三峡大坝sānxiá dà bà), the first project analyzed, was officially approved in 1992 when no kind of public participation was already planned. The other cases all refer to the Xiluodu Hydro Power Project (溪洛渡计划xīluòdù jìhuà), it includes the Xiluodu Dam (溪洛渡大坝xīluòdù dà bà), the Xiangjiaba Dam (向家大坝xiàng jiā dà bà) and the Wudongde Dam (乌东大坝wū dōng dà bà), which was approved in the 2010 and still under construction. Conclusions indicate that despite progresses made, considerable room for improvement remains in China to pursue forms of participation that allows for a meaningful contribution by affected people.