Journal of Chinese Governance

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How culture shapes environmental public

participation: case studies of China, the
Netherlands, and Italy

Wenqi Dang

To cite this article: Wenqi Dang (2020) How culture shapes environmental public participation:
case studies of China, the Netherlands, and Italy, Journal of Chinese Governance, 5:3, 390-412,
DOI: 10.1080/23812346.2018.1443758

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JOURNAL OF CHINESE GOVERNANCE
2020, VOL. 5, NO. 3, 390–412
https://doi.org/10.1080/23812346.2018.1443758

RESEARCH ARTICLE

How culture shapes environmental public participation:

case studies of China, the Netherlands, and Italy
Wenqi Dang
Department of Public Administration, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

To meet the public requirements for environmental democracy in Received 28 November 2017
the world, many international environmental public participation Accepted 19 February 2018
programmes have been developed by adopting the Local Agenda
21 in Rio 1992. At present, some programmes stress the importance KEYWORDS
of sharing practical lessons on environmental democracy by com- Environmental public
participation; cultural
paring participation policies in different countries. However, few factors; cultural theory
academic studies analyze how a country’s culture affects environ-
mental public participation. The goal of this paper is to describe
how culture shapes environmental public participation by answer-
ing two questions: how do certain cultural factors categorize each
country according to a nation being egalitarian, fatalist, individual-
ist, and hierarchical in the Cultural Theory (CT) model, and how do
the features of CT in each country explain their own environmental
participation. This paper looks at three cultural factors—religious,
democratic, and gender culture—and analyzes the environmental
participation from three cases. This analysis indicates that these
three cultural factors categorize both China and Italy under hierar-
chism in the CT model, while the Netherlands is categorized under
individualism and egalitarianism. Italy also has features of fatalism.
In addition, different features of CT in the three countries explain
the diversity of forms of environmental participation in their con-
texts. This paper specifically contributes to the analysis of the
potential cultural uncertainties in studied countries.

Introduction
Since the Local Agenda 21 was drawn up in Rio in 1992, most Western nations’ public
participation policies have become more decentralized. Subsequently, the Aarhus
Convention in 1998 requested governments to open the decision-making process to
the public. Concomitant with the EU programming and other international influences,
most European countries, including Italy and the Netherlands, now endorse a more
open and transparent decision-making process. Coenen, Van de Peppel, and Woltjer1
studied the evolution of the Dutch tradition of inspraak (involving the public in

CONTACT Wenqi Dang w.dang@utwente.nl Department of Public Administration, University of Twente,

Enschede, The Netherlands
ß 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
 JOURNAL OF CHINESE GOVERNANCE 391

decision-making) from 1970 to 2000, and their research revealed three levels of partici-
pation: non-involvement, representative participation, and collaborative participation.
In addition to the Netherlands, the environmental public participation in most Western
countries went through similar stages of transformation to reach their current more
democratic participation processes.2 In contrast to the environmental governance evo-
lution of EU countries, China, suffering from environmental pollution, shows signs of
taking a different direction with its environmental governance reformation.3
Although most of the EU countries formally share the same goal—better environ-
mental decision-making through formalizing public engagement—the policies are
implemented in diverse ways. Therefore, the question arose what factors account for
these different policies except for differences in how their government institutions are
set up with regard to public engagement, different cultures potentially impact the pol-
icies of environmental public participation. In order to learn from each other, some
programmes started to compare different environmental participation policies from
various political contexts such as the 2014 programme of the European Environmental
Agency,4 the HarmoniCOP Project,5 and the United Nation Environment Programme.6
In academia, many researchers think that national culture has an effect on decision-
making, such as shaping political trust and people’s attitudes towards their govern-
ments,7 influencing political behaviour,8 and forming a style and doctrine of politics
and nationalism.9 In the specific field of policy formation, Elkins and Simeon10 argued
that culture affects which political consequences are legitimated and what criteria (sci-
entific or religious) are employed for policy-making. There are many examples of pub-
lic policies that are influenced by national culture, such as laws governing the use of
environmental resources, the legality of drugs, access to abortion, designating days
that businesses can be open, and criminal justice. Recent research shows that cultural
factors, values, and beliefs influence policy preferences and outputs, such as with vac-
cination,11 HPV vaccine legislation,12 hazard management,13 the preferences of public
engagement,14 and environmental participation for water management.15
In addition, Cultural Theory (CT) was confirmed as “multidimensional, generalizable,
measurable using multiple techniques, and broad enough in scope to operate across
virtually all policy domains”.16 It is specifically able to manipulate the complex cultural
factors into one comprehensive model. Trousset and her colleagues tested how differ-
ent cultural factors impact the degree of public participation using the ordinary least
squares (OLS) model. The results predict that different groups of people engage in dif-
ferent levels of the policy process.
To date, however, there has been a lack of academic studies analyzing how culture
interacts with both people’s and governmental behaviour within a country, in the spe-
cific field of environmental public participation. This paper aims to fill this gap by illus-
trating how culture in the observed countries shapes environmental public
participation. The research question has two components: (1) How do certain cultural
factors categorize each country (China, the Netherlands, and Italy) according to a nation
being egalitarian, fatalist, individualist and hierarchical in the Cultural Theory (CT)
model? (2) How do the features of CT explain environmental participation in each coun-
try? The following sections discuss the process of addressing research questions in more
detail. The first section of this paper selects cultural factors, discusses cultural theories,
and analyzes related factors. The following section describes why three environmental
392 W. DANG

participation cases were selected to study the research questions. The remaining sec-
tions describe how different cultural factors categorize groups of people in the CT
model, and how CT shapes environmental participation in each country. Finally, the
paper indicates that analysis may contribute to a future research on how to effectively
transfer environmental participation policies from one country to another.

Cultural factors
Previous researches indicate that values and beliefs critically influence policy preferen-
ces.17 These cultural factors may impact distinctive cultural worldviews in which cultur-
ally constrained rationalities shape the policy preference, which are interpreted in
terms of preferred institutional arrangements of one country.18
A generally accepted definition of culture is a ‘collective programming of the mind,’
which distinguishes one group from another.19 On the one hand, culture is ‘a group of
individuals who know and share beliefs, values, behaviours, social organization, and rit-
uals,’ and on the other hand it is ‘intellectual material that influences behaviour, par-
ticularly social interaction and institutions’.20 Thus, culture-related factors are group
characteristics—beliefs, values, knowledge, attitudes, and rituals—that represent a col-
lective pattern of interacting with society and institutions. Cultural factors exist at soci-
etal level and co-vary with other relevant factors. Enserink et al. critically noted that it
is important to consider countries’ histories, institutions, and cultures in order to inter-
pret public participation practices in various EU countries. Therefore, history is the one
of the co-variant factors in the study.
Historically, religion is a cultural factor that has played a significant role in most
European countries. Although the Christian population is declining now, its historical
traditions and religious rites still influence political behaviour in many countries world-
wide.21 In the long run, policy preferences are deeply influenced by religious doctrines
on the European continent. Religion is an important aspect of cultural dynamics of
beliefs about the environment22 and is a factor for explaining modernization.23
The Enlightenment in Europe erupted as a dramatic revolution in science, philosophy,
society, and politics. It represented a rift in European history, reducing the power of the
Roman Catholic Church and its religious doctrine and introducing political moderniza-
tion and democratic values to the West. Within the context of the Enlightenment,
‘economic freedom is a salient interpretation of the individual freedom, which was
highly valued in the period’. Afterwards, the democratic ideology started to take root in
general societal principles and mindsets in most European countries. Democratic values
have become one of the primary political ideologies influencing policy preferences.24
According to Merelman,25 ‘culture consists of collective representations which eventually
influence people's subjective dispositions towards conflictive democratic participation.’
Although democratic countries have differing levels of democracy depending on their
own unique histories, democratic values influence countries’ cultural dispositions and
societal orientations. Moreover, according to Martinez and Paolisso, the detailed inter-
views reveal that cultural values are a necessary basis for environmental activities.
According to Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov,26 all human societies can be charac-
terized as either ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’. With reference to the corresponding society,
masculinity is the degree of ‘tough values of assertiveness, success, and competition in
 JOURNAL OF CHINESE GOVERNANCE 393

nearly all societies with role of man,’ and the feminine society is ‘the level of tender
values of quality of life, maintaining warm personal relationships, caring for weak pre-
vailing in nearly all societies are more associated with women’s roles’.27 Hofstede et al.
view tougher and tender religious values as reflections of masculine and feminine soci-
eties. Further, Rubio-Banon and Esteban-Loret28 identified gender dimensions that
strongly interact with other several cultural factors. The gender factors are of major
importance for cultural analysis. Consequently, religious, democratic and gender values
can be regarded as analytical cultural factors.

Cultural theory
This paper uses Cultural Theory (CT) because it is broad enough to operate across
many policy domains, according to anthropologist, Mary Douglas, who first introduced
the typology.29 In the past, CT was mostly used to explain individual opinions across
various policy issues, and was famous for its cultural map, which implies four different
ways of life in various cultural types. In the 1970s, CT was a tool for connecting major
values to social organization,30 and it evolved depending on the complexity of social
structures. Currently, CT is developed as a general model that can be employed in
most contexts (social structures, social practices, and belief systems) and with many
levels of analysis: individual, meso, or macro level.31 It is also a theory of socio-cultural
viability that combines social relations, practices, and institutional arrangements to
help identify groups of people’s own identity.
A central principle of the theory is that the patterns of social interaction within
which individuals prefer to live their lives are expressed in corresponding ‘cultural
biases’. In turn, different types of culture shape people’s beliefs, attitudes, and behav-
iours. More specifically, individual orientation is about two basic social dimensions—
‘group’ and ‘grid’. The group dimension implies the degree to which a person identi-
fies with a social group. Douglas explained this as the extent to which ‘the individual’s
life is absorbed in and sustained by group membership’. The grid dimension indicates
the level of a person’s life—their relationships with others. The CT model in Figure 1
shows four ways of life (hierarchism, egalitarianism, individualism, and fatalism)

Grid
Strong

Fatalism Hierarchism
(Life is luck) (Institutionalized authority)
Group
Weak Strong

Individualism Egalitarianism
(Liberty) (Equality)

Weak

Figure 1. Grid-Group Cultural Theory Framework (source: Song, Silva, and Jenkins-Smith 2014).
394 W. DANG

classified along two dimensions: grid and group. ‘Group’ is the collective cohesiveness:
the extent to which individuals identify with a social group (strong) or are outside col-
lective boundaries (weak). In the model, ‘grid’ depends on the extent to which individ-
uals follow group rules.32 For example, individuals in low grid prefer limited social
rules. Individuals in high grid would prefer to follow social group rules.
The theory is broadly applied in practical research. Research on vaccination shows
that groups with a predominantly hierarchical and egalitarian culture support manda-
tory vaccination policy, but the individualists prefer to propose vaccination policies by
themselves rather than by mandatory standards of governments. Other research
reveals that it is hierarchists and egalitarians who are most likely to engage in the pol-
icy process, whereas individualists do not show statistical impact on engagement.
Fatalists are negatively associated with engagement, which means they are the least
likely group to take part in the policy-making process.

Selection of cases
As a research method, the case study is a strong methodological choice when the phe-
nomenon being considered is complex. The nature of culture is complex because it
hardly utilizes questionnaires or experimental strategies to explore causality in a real-
life intervention. Policies from different contexts with their own preferences are hardly
researched by a single qualitative method. In addition, to answer such a ‘how’ ques-
tion, one needs to explore a full range of evidence. Therefore, we employ case studies
for detailed analysis. Furthermore, case study research can be used to evaluate strat-
egies.33 According to Gerring,34 a case study can be defined as an intensive study of a
single unit with the purpose of understanding a larger class of units. By employing the
case study method, cultural factors and the CT impact on environmental participation
can be analyzed.
For the standards of selection based on the cultural factors, the cases from different
countries have distinct religions, certain degrees of democracy, and rich histories. In
addition, cases are selected according to one common feature, i.e. the public succeeds
in influencing public policy (alternative: fails to influence). Similar results may lead us
to explore what factors may result in a certain phenomenon. In terms of studying
environmental public participation, I chose to focus on one environmental issue: water
management. Different nature issues have their own intrinsic characteristics. Therefore,
the complexities of analysis may be reduced by employing similar topics rather than
different topics. I pay attention to water issues because water issues are common, and
an important issue in a world threatened by climate change. Climate change generally
involves comprehensive policy design rather than public participation. In addition,
water is the most important resource, as it is most closely related with people’s life. In
order to make research more fruitful and comparable, cases with a different ‘culture
basis’ and selected from different countries are compared, so that cultural factors and
culture bases of each country would significantly differ from each other. For the
above-mentioned reasons, I selected the Netherlands, Italy, and China from the exist-
ing database. These three countries have diverse cultural factors. Different levels of
democracy are first established by common sense and then identified on the basis of
a democratic index (Table 3). Moreover, different types of religion and gender factors
 JOURNAL OF CHINESE GOVERNANCE 395

are identified by detailed data (pre-analysis section). In summary, three cases are
chosen according to a similar topic – water issues, common results influencing final
decisions, similar processes – the public participation in interacting with decision-mak-
ing processes, different characteristics of cultural factors and various culture bases.

Common factors of the cases

Issues of cases Water issues
Results of cases Success in influencing the final decisions
The processes The public participate in interacting with decision-making processes

Table common factors of the cases.

According to Yin, cases should be either representative or typical and revelatory.
Dutch governance is famous for its collaborative democracy, meaning that all sectors
collaborate and the public has ample opportunities to express their opinions.35 The
Dutch case in this paper represents a typically collaborative democracy. A characteristic
of Italian politics is that institutions are not very open to the public.36 In addition, the
control of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) from central authorities and the
restricted channels may force people to express their opposition in other ways.37
Environmental consultations after conflicts and a semi-open style of decision-making
are indicative of an Italian style of governance. The situation in China is different from
that in the other two countries. Considerable research indicates that China lacks an
institutional opportunity for the public. As they are hardly able to engage in the pol-
icy-making, they prefer to express their grievances and opinions through activism and
collective actions such as complaints, petitions, protests, demonstrations, violent
actions, etc.38 EIA in China is an official channel for public engagement, but it lacks
the powers that can truly lead to decision-making.39 Therefore, the case study of China
displays a very popular way of public engagement consisting of both individual and
group actions to defend their rights and interests.40
These cases from the three countries are studied separately based on secondary
sources, including a study in the context of a European project (the Dutch case), of
which the details are introduced as follows:

The Dutch case in the research is selected from the HarmoniCOP project

(http://www.harmonicop.uni-osnabrueck.de/_files/_down/WP4SynthesisReport.pdf).

The Italian case is from the public database, PARTICIPEDIA

(http://participedia.net/en/cases/wetland-we-want-ponte-buggianese-italy).

The Chinese case is summarized from two pieces of online news and a published
journal

(http://news.ifeng.com/mainland/200902/0224_17_1030951.shtml)
(http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2008-12-22/154116897429.shtml)
(http://www.usc.cuhk.edu.hk/PaperCollection/Details.aspx?id¼8897)
396 W. DANG

Cases
Environmental Protest, China
In 1988, a battery recycling enterprise was established in Pizhou City, Jiangsu Province.
Its main activity was to recycle lead-acid batteries. In addition to providing local jobs,
the enterprise pays substantial taxes to the Pizhou government. The recycling plant con-
tinued to expand, and in 2006, it built extensive new facilities near the village of Sanhe.
These facilities generated large amounts of dust, and the wastewater containing lead
and other toxic heavy metal elements flowed into the river running past Sanhe and into
the groundwater, contaminating the villagers’ crops. 106 people, including 44 children
under the age of 14, have been diagnosed with lead poisoning, or plumbism, which
causes significant damage to the neural and cognitive development of children.

Process
The villagers of Sanhe embarked on a series of environmental protests. The first three
rounds started in June 2008. One villager sought compensation for his child’s poor
health resulting from plumbism, but the enterprise refused to pay. Then, many other
villagers from neighbourhoods in Sanhe also sought compensation from the enter-
prise, providing medical proof of their pollution-related diseases. Again, the enterprise
denied any responsibility for the villagers’ health problems. Finally, the villagers turned
to the Internet for assistance. In October 2008, reports about the pollution in Sanhe
began to appear on the Internet.
In the second round, the battery recycling enterprise and Pizhou government
reacted to the villagers’ protests by attempting to cover up the effects of pollution
generated by the recycling of batteries. The enterprise bribed local hospitals, which fal-
sified medical reports to state that the children of Sanhe were healthy, when they
were in fact sick. This behaviour motivated the villagers to continue mobilizing and
protesting against the environmental injustices. On 10 November 2008, the villagers
collectively complained about the pollution issues to the local government, and to the
Office of Letters and Calls of Pizhou City.41 Although the government conducted inves-
tigations for three days, it did not order the plant to shut down during the investiga-
tion. This oversight infuriated the villagers, who partially demolished walls of the plant
in an effort to prevent further manufacturing.
During the third round of protests, the villagers were unaware of any responses from
the local government. Then some decided to seek medical treatments in Beijing.
Meanwhile, they continued to complain to the State Bureau for Letters and Calls.
However, the Pizhou Government threatened the villagers and interfered with their seek-
ing medical treatment in Beijing. As a result, the fiercest conflict occurred on 13
December 2008, when black smoke poured from the factory and more than a hundred
furious villagers marched to the building and attempted to demolish the production lines.
Finally, with mounting pressure and increasing reports from the media about this
scandal, the Pizhou Government was forced to relocate the enterprise and offer free
medical treatments to those villagers who were diagnosed with lead poisoning. In the
end, the enterprise was simply relocated to a new site, and it resumed its manufactur-
ing practices under a new name.
 JOURNAL OF CHINESE GOVERNANCE 397

Water storage project, the Netherlands

The ABCDelfand Drainage and Water Storage Capacity was established by the Delfland
Water Board, which is one of the 25 Water Boards across the Netherlands. The Dutch
Water Boards are responsible for managing the quality and quantity of water within a
certain region. Delfland is located in the western part of the Netherlands, between
Rotterdam and The Hague. Half of this area is below sea level and is densely popu-
lated. Land is more expensive here than in any other part of the Netherlands, partly
due to its extensive flower and horticulture companies and greenhouses.
In September 1998, the Delfland Water Board began to notice flooding problems,
caused by increased rainfall. The Water Board started looking for technical and spatial
solutions for water storage. In these efforts, the Water Board had to rely on certain
executive actors in the municipalities and provinces of Zuid-Holland, especially given
the fact that there was almost no unused land in the region. The Water Board hosted
multiple public events for several reasons: (1) to refresh inhabitants’ knowledge about
the area’s drainage and flood protection systems; (2) to prevent lengthy appeals proce-
dures by involving third parties and securing their cooperation; (3) to cooperate with
other institutional bodies, such as the municipalities and provinces.

Process
There were mainly two stages of participation. The first was to review existing prob-
lems and explore plausible solutions. The second was to select available solutions and
examine their potential impact.
First, several interviews were held with major stakeholders—including representa-
tives from local authorities, the Delfland Water Board in the province of Zuid-Holland,
interest groups formed by local farmers, and various technical advisory organizations.
These stakeholders, including those who would have to deal with spatial planning
repercussions, played key roles in implementing solutions. Subsequently, in order to
detect mistakes and create an overview of solutions that could be supported by differ-
ent actors, information on solutions was collected by interviews that were discussed in
series of workshops. All information referring to plausible solutions, implementations
and cooperation was also presented in a series of three workshops, which separately
involved executive members of the Water Board, representatives from the municipal-
ities, and representatives of various stakeholders. During the interval between the
interviews and the workshops, two meetings were held for citizens from two different
communities suffering from flooding. Those meetings were initiated by the municipal-
ities. Furthermore, several bilateral meetings were held for municipalities and the
neighboring Water Boards. The Water Boards also presented drafts of potential solu-
tions to water experts in order to collect technical feedback. Finally, three meetings
were organized for sounding board groups (including representatives from several
municipalities, the province of Zuid-Holland, the Ministry of Transport, the department
for Public Works and Water Management, the neighbouring Schieland Water Board,
and a local farmer interest group). The process, goals and criteria of the project, and
plausible solutions were separately evaluated in these three meetings.
In the second stage of participation, the Delfland Water Board organized three
workshops and seven meetings. All of the alternatives were discussed in these
398 W. DANG

workshops. One workshop was for elected members of the Water Board, one was for
mayors and aldermen of the municipalities, and the third was for the civil servants of
the municipalities and other stakeholders. During these workshops, participants rated
their preferences for each alternative on a scale of 1 to 10 points. In the end, two
alternatives received significantly higher scores than any of the others. Subsequently,
seven meetings were held across the region to provide information about the pro-
posed and final two solutions to the inhabitants. The Delfland Water Board invited all
representatives of networks that had been formed in the participatory process. All citi-
zens and media were invited to the notification meetings, which would also be pub-
lished in local newspapers.

The wetland we want, Italy

The ‘wetland we want’ was a participatory project involving the general public that
lasted over six months from 2009 to 2010 in Ponte Buggianese, a municipality in the
Tuscany region in Italy. The conflict arose in 2003 and involved several stakeholders:
hunters, environmentalists, property owners, committees, and organizations. This par-
ticipatory project was established to reach collective decisions on three issues: deter-
mining the relocation site for a sewage treatment plant; defining water drainage laws
for the Fucecchio Wetland (in particular, the amount of water emitted and the sea-
sonal flooding of the area); and establishing development guidelines for the Fuccechio
Wetland.
Sewage treatment plants in Pescia di Pescia and Pescia di Collodi discharged water
into the Fuccechio Wetland in order to avoid completely draining the wetland, espe-
cially during the summer months. However, in 2003, the Authority of Optimal
Territorial Environment (Autorita di Ambito Territoriale Ottimale) started a project to
improve water quality by reorganizing the civil and industrial sewage treatment plants.
This new plan would close 49 plants in the area, including the plants in Pescia di
Pescia and Pescia di Collodi, and the wastewater would be carried downstream
through two large pipes to purification plants in the Santa Croce area. The proposed
change would not keep the ecosystems irrigated during the drier summer months,
and therefore, the various stakeholder groups disagreed about an appropriate reloca-
tion site for the sewage treatment plant.

Process
During the public engagement process of the ‘wetland we want’ project, the Ponte
Buggianese municipality paid to print information material, send invitation letters to
citizens, and provide refreshments and lunches during the public meetings. The
regional authority for Tuscany contributed 69,275 euros, according to the regional law
67/2007.
The entire process consisted of three phases. In the first phase, officials of the muni-
cipality randomly selected 369 citizens who listened to 23 other people who were des-
ignated as key witnesses. These key witnesses included technical professionals,
politicians, administrative officials, and representatives of local associations. The 369
citizens listened to in-depth interviews conducted with 23 expert witnesses by way of
 JOURNAL OF CHINESE GOVERNANCE 399

a media review. The public was given access to information through a public hearing,
during which they could also express their concerns.
In the second phase, the 369 citizens were invited to form a working group, and
105 accepted the invitation to participate in brainstorm sessions about the develop-
ment of the purification plant. A programme website was created to help disseminate
information to the general public.
During the third phase, 83 citizens participated in 14 public meetings, which
included a series of presentations followed by discussions. The purpose of these meet-
ings was to mediate conflicts between the stakeholders and to reach agreements.
Meeting participants received supplemental reports by experts as well as reports sum-
marizing each meeting.
The ‘wetland we want’ public engagement project identified three possible sites for
the relocated sewage treatment plant, one of which was proposed by the municipality
and the other two by participants. The administration chose the final site, and the
town council of Ponte Buggianese approved the decision of the location on 16
December 2009. In February 2010, new regulations for water drainage for the
Fuccechio wetland were established, and on 27 February, the main development strat-
egies of the Fuccechio wetland were defined.

Pre-analysis
According to Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov, ‘countries with a Catholic tradition tend
to maintain more masculine values and those with Protestant traditions more feminine
values’. Around 71.1% of Italian citizens are Catholic.42 In the Netherlands, Catholics
are the largest religious group accounting for 28% of the total population, while
Protestants come second with 19% (2009). In China, 52.2% of the population are non-
religious and 18.2% are Buddhist (2016). However, the moral doctrines of Confucianism
have been playing a dominant role in China.43 As seen, Table 1 shows how each coun-
try in this paper ranks according to the masculinity index: Italy is the most masculine
of the three countries. It is reasonable to assume that Italian and Chinese aspects of
masculinity reflect on those countries’ environmental politics and religion, as making
the economy grow instead of preserving the environment is a feature of tough reli-
gions, according to Hofstede’s theory.
Table 2 shows various degrees of democratic culture measuring the extent to which
there is a societal consensus on supporting democratic principles in the three coun-
tries from Quality of Government (QOG).44 European countries (which went through
the Age of Enlightenment) have stronger democratic political cultures than China,
which never experienced such a significant historical event that nourished people’s

Table 1. Masculinity index (MAS) values and ranks from 76 countries.

Countries Index Rank from 76 countries
Italy 70 7
China 66 11–13
Netherlands 14 73
Adapted from: Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov (2010) p.141.
400 W. DANG

Table 2. Index of democratic political culture and ranks from 194 countries.
Countries Index Rank from 194 countries
Netherlands 8.13 13–19
Italy 7.5 20–29
China 5 80–110
Source: QOG.

democratic mentality. Hence, the democratic culture of China ranks lower than that of
the Netherlands and Italy.
Environmental public participation is not part of the environmental performance
index.45 But civil participation in politically focussed activities (e.g. protests, demonstra-
tions) can represent the participation of civil society in the QOG, which also includes
environmental participation. In Creighton’s view,46 participation generally requires the
public’s needs to apply to administrative decisions, which further demands organized
processes for involving the public. However, Chinese scholars argue that participation
should refer to any form of participation aimed at influencing the public policies
including protests. In this paper, environmental public participation can refer to both
the policy processes of engaging public and protests for influencing policies. As seen
from Table 3, most religions do not have statistically significant effects on environmen-
tal performance. However, Catholicism and Protestantism are both positively related to
civil society participation and democratic political cultures. Buddhism and
Confucianism have no statistically significant associations with civil society participa-
tion, but they are positively related to democratic political culture. In addition, Table 3
shows that political culture, civil participation, and environmental performance are
positively correlated with each other. Therefore, the two of the selected cultural factors
(religion and democratic political culture) and political activity participation are interre-
lated both theoretically and statistically. Because of the lack of gender data, I would
not make an analysis here, but the relationship between its nature and religion was
demonstrated in the aforementioned paragraph.

How do cultural factors and cultural theory models shape environmental

participation?
China
The villagers of Sanhe began to protest after receiving inadequate responses from the
enterprise. At first, one villager complained to the enterprise, which denied any
responsibility for the family’s health-related issues. This refusal led directly to spontan-
eous collective action by angry villagers. When no one offered solutions, villagers
staged additional protests against the government. The villagers attempted to petition
the upper-level office (State Bureau for Letters and Calls), and this caught the attention
of local officials who were concerned that such protests could negatively affect their
political careers. Although the local officials interfered with the public complaints to
the State Bureau of Letters and Calls, ultimately, the local government was forced to
compromise due to the widespread attention to the scandals raised by social media.
Figure 2 summarizes the whole process. In China’s authoritative decision-making
Table 3. Correlation-spearm’rho.
Christianity: Christianity: Civil society Democratic Environmental
Confucianism Buddhism Roman Catholics Protestants participation political culture performance index
Confucianism: Correlation coefficient 1.00 0.371 0.11 0.02 0.02 0.186 0.156
Sig. (2-tailed) 0.00 0.13 0.79 0.80 0.02 0.04
N 192.00 192.00 192.00 192.00 126.00 164.00 177.00
Buddhism: Correlation Coefficient 0.371 1.00 0.07 0.05 0.04 0.306 0.184
Sig. (2-tailed) 0.00 0.36 0.53 0.66 0.00 0.01
N 192.00 192.00 192.00 192.00 126.00 164.00 177.00
Christianity: Roman Catholics Correlation coefficient 0.11 0.07 1.00 0.410 0.376 0.196 0.14
Sig. (2-tailed) 0.13 0.36 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.07
N 192.00 192.00 192.00 192.00 126.00 164.00 177.00
Christianity: Protestants Correlation coefficient 0.02 0.05 0.410 1.00 0.282 0.270 0.01
Sig. (2-tailed) 0.79 0.53 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.95
N 192.00 192.00 192.00 192.00 126.00 164.00 177.00
Civil society participation Correlation coefficient 0.02 0.04 0.376 0.282 1.00 0.265 0.288
Sig. (2-tailed) 0.80 0.66 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
N 126.00 126.00 126.00 126.00 127.00 126.00 126.00
Democratic political culture Correlation coefficient 0.186 0.306 0.196 0.270 0.265 1.00 0.495
Sig. (2-tailed) 0.02 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00
N 164.00 164.00 164.00 164.00 126.00 165.00 164.00
Environmental performance index Correlation coefficient 0.156 0.184 0.14 0.01 0.288 0.495 1.00
Sig. (2-tailed) 0.04 0.01 0.07 0.95 0.00 0.00
N 177.00 177.00 177.00 177.00 126.00 164.00 178.00
Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).  Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
(Source: data from QOG)
JOURNAL OF CHINESE GOVERNANCE
401
402 W. DANG

Complained to Complained to city Tried to complain to State

the enterprise government Bureau for Letters and Calls

Received refusals Received muddling Received compromise

Figure 2. The Process of villagers influencing decision in the Chinese case.

model, administrations provide limited channels for citizens to influence government

decisions and prevent the public from expressing their opinions. Most importantly, the
initial unresponsiveness of the company and the government motivated the citizens to
mobilize and demand that their government respond more equitably to their needs
and that it act to prevent environmental pollution.
The formation of Chinese environmental participation can be explained by the fol-
lowing cultural factors and corresponding features from the CT model. For several cen-
turies, Chinese Buddhism and Daoism have been the two main religions in the
Chinese empire and society. After a long period of transformation, the philosophical
values originating from these religious doctrines, along with Confucianism, have
greatly influenced the Chinese farming culture and practices. For example,
Confucianism emphasizes loyalty, filial piety, ritual, and righteousness,47 which influ-
ence the way Chinese people treat each other. Further, Confucianism and Confucian
values play an important role in how theorists interpret the morality, discourse and
practice of politics and policy-making in China.48 China has been a centralized authori-
tarian system since the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang (260–210 BC), firstly
implemented this during the Qin Dynasty. In addition, Confucianism enhances ones’
loyalties to superiors, which reinforces paternalistic governance. Moreover, values of
Buddhism encourage people to obey and endure unfair treatment, which could be
viewed as favouring a centralized authority.
Table 2 depicts China’s weak democratic culture. China never went through a pro-
found and lasting democratic process, instead its tradition-bound institutions with their
less democratic culture help people to be aware of their place in the social structure.
Therefore, social relations are ‘top-down,’ and the group and grid of China incline to
hierarchism. In hierarchical societies, experts and authorities make policies and
manipulate citizens. This format of decision-making is coercive and lacks public
engagement, so that citizens have to rely on the government for solving environmen-
tal problems.49 Thus, the cultural factors place China in hierarchism corresponding to
CT model. In this case, villagers were eager to engage with policies, but they were
forced to act in more aggressive ways such as protests and even violent action when
the government rejected their proposals and treated them unfairly. Furthermore, unlike
Western counterparts, China did not experience times like the Enlightenment or mas-
sive democratic movements, but has been heavily influenced by communist values
since the last century. In Zhao’s view,50 communist party culture combined with the
Confucian culture largely explain the absence of public participation, which is regarded
as rational institutional behaviour, in Chinese society. In the Masculinity Index, China
has strong masculine values that prioritize economic development over a sustainable
environment: individuals’ interests are less important than those of the state. As a
result, the hierarchical way of life results in a less democratic political culture that
 JOURNAL OF CHINESE GOVERNANCE 403

makes its citizens absent from the policy-making processes unless they are willing to
fight for their rights.

The Netherlands
Public participation in the Netherlands has received a lot of attention since the 1960s.
Many workshops involving all sectors (levels of government and all related public sec-
tors) are organized in order to achieve agreements and prevent conflicts. Importantly,
full discussions take place and the public’s common wisdom is obtained. Generally, the
Netherlands has two main phases for engaging the public on policy issues. The first
phase identifies and discusses plausible alternatives through organizing workshops for
all stakeholders. The second phase includes public meetings, where information is
shared and final decisions about alternatives are made (Figure 3). Building consensus
and embracing a democratic spirit drive each phase of the participation process. The
whole participation processes show a decentralized participation process featuring
workshops with different goals corresponding to the various stakeholders. In addition,
environmental experts are involved in the early stage of discussion, offering their tech-
nical feedback about the policy alternatives. During the entire processes, all relevant
units are involved in the decision-making process.
Dutch environmental participation can be explained by the following culture fac-
tors and corresponding features from the CT model. In the latter stages of the
Enlightenment in the 17th century, the Netherlands prospered from international
trade and manufacturing of vessels and docks. The increasing demands for free trade
gave rise to liberalism and capitalism, and modern democracy developed alongside
capitalism.51 The commercial activities continued even during the governance of
Louis Napol eon Bonaparte, who promulgated policies to block a trading relationship
between the Netherlands and Great Britain. According to Hofstede, Hofstede, and
Minkov, ‘the weaker the individualism in the citizens’ mental software, the greater
the likelihood of a dominating role of the state in the economic system.’ For the
Dutch, this sentiment works the other way around as well: Dutch individualism is
stronger than the economic goals of the state. Thus, Dutch liberalism and

The first phase: The second phase:

Shaping Problems Voting on alternatives

Presenting problems Interviews Decision on alternatives

and solutions

Bilateral discussion meetings Information (public meeting)

Sounding board meeting

Figure 3. The Process of environmental participation in the Dutch ‘ABCDelfland’ case.

404 W. DANG

individualism facilitate capitalism. Besides free trade, Dutch society was also influ-
enced by democratic values. Historically, wealthy businessmen and interest groups
heavily influenced national policy-making. The Netherlands has a long history of
democratic political culture that further facilitates its democratic political system.
According to the Masculinity Index, Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov indicated that
Dutch society has feminine properties in the areas of religion and politics that mani-
fest as tender religion and coalition-based politics. In the early stage, the Dutch
developed philosophies of coalition, which are demonstrated by the collective invest-
ments of the Dutch East India Company, and by joining forces to defend themselves
against the rising level of the sea and maintain the dikes. Formal development of
Dutch corporatism dates from the postwar period after the Second World War, when
the Dutch rebuilt their economy with Christian-democratic corporatist ideals.52
Consequently, consensus democracy—when a consensus culture exists in the political
system—is characterized by a fragmented culture in which the political elites of the
various subcultures cooperate with each other.53 The necessity of power sharing is
widely recognized by the Dutch political system, thus, each process of environmental
participation follows the consensus logic presented in this case. The consensus cul-
ture further influences the decision-making process by promoting compromise in
order to reach agreements. The rise of a consensus democratic–participatory trend
has not left the Netherlands untouched.54 According to Hendriks,55 ‘The Dutch have
a consensual system not because they always agree about everything, but rather
because they often disagree.’ Reaching political consensus requires giving individuals
and different political parties equal opportunity to express their opinions in the polit-
ical arena, and this philosophy of consensus makes the Netherlands predisposed to
egalitarianism. On the one hand, Dutch society respects individual freedoms such as
economic freedom and human rights. On the other hand, individualist societies have
diverse opinions that require consensus on final agreements. Hence, the Dutch way
of life is both individualist and egalitarian. In this paper, environmental participation
included open debates among all who might be impacted by the final outcomes,
and the process was competitive (e.g. voting on alternatives). These two approaches
fit in with theoretical forms of public deliberation Besides, the Dutch feminine prop-
erty of tender religion values facilitates the preservation of the environment rather
than merely emphasizing economic growth. As seen, although individualism does
not directly impact environmental participation, it does interact with democratic cul-
tures. This observation corresponds to research by Trousset et al.. Though individual-
ism does not have a statistical relation with policy engagement, egalitarians are
most likely to participate. Therefore, egalitarian culture combined with democratic
political culture promotes public participation and efforts to preserve the
environment.

Italy
The degree of public engagement in Italy’s ‘the wetland we want’ project is less pro-
found than in the Dutch case. The new purification project was initiated by the
Authority of Optimal Territorial Environment, which falls under the Italian Ministry of
Environment. It is common in Italy for environmental consultations to be organized after
 JOURNAL OF CHINESE GOVERNANCE 405

The first phase: Collection of public concerns

The second phase: Brainstorming sessions

Presentation and discussion meetings

The third phase: Distribution of reports and decisions

Figure 4. The Process of environmental participation in the Italian ‘The wetland we want’ case.

conflicts arise, rather than as part of a consultation process. The authorities attempted
to represent the inhabitants by proposing the relocation project without consultation
processes. The detail processes can be found in Figure 4. In this case, the purpose of the
listening phase was more to inform the group of randomly selected citizens and partici-
pants about the project rather than to seek their input. Environmental experts were
involved in the first two phases to address public concerns. Ultimately, the local govern-
ment took charge of mobilizing participants and deciding among the final alternatives,
which reflects Italy’s vestige of hierarchic governance.
Italian environmental participation can be explained by the following cultural factors
and corresponding features from the CT model. The majority of Italians (71.1%) belong
to the Roman Catholic Church. In this context, membership of the same faith may
override social differences and cement the organization of the entire group. Although
the influence of the Catholic Church has been weakened comparing in modern times,
the centre of the Catholic Church is still located in the Vatican, at the heart of Rome
and Italian politics. Catholicism continues to dominate social values in Italy, where pol-
itical loyalty is still supported by religious values.56 Catholic tradition has more mascu-
line values, such as the adversarial style of political discourse. Since the unification in
1870, Italy has modelled its administration on Napoleonic France, and the democratic
transformation of its political system only began after the Second World War.57
Compared with the Netherlands, Italy is more centralized and has a shorter history of
democratic culture. Therefore, the index of democratic political culture is lower in Italy
than in the Netherlands. In this case, democratic culture did not have a strong effect
on environmental participation. Consequently, the shorter term of democratic culture
combined with the tough values of Roman Catholicism places Italy in a hierarchic level.
Furthermore, their belief in God seems to make Italians more fatalistic as a group.
Hood58 has pointed out that the fatalist feature of contrived randomness benefits deci-
sion-making structures. In this case, the 369 participants were randomly selected on
the street may be seen as proof of this fatalism. Therefore, I could say that Italy is
both hierarchical and fatalist. According to Trousset et al., fatalists are negatively asso-
ciated with the likelihood of engaging in the policy process, which may explain why
public attendance at subsequent meetings declined over time in the Italian case. The
Italian hierarchism may explain why experts and officials correct alternatives rather
than design an open system in which the government consults with the public before
the project. The Italian case also shows that the adversarial responses to the relocation
policies were initiated by the ‘stated representative’ (Authority of Optimal Territorial
406 W. DANG

Table 4. Summary of all factors and participation.

The way of life
Countries Religion Democratic culture Gender value (group-grid) The participation
China Confucianism Absence of demo- Masculinity Hierarchical No engagement in
Buddhism cratic history policy-making
Daoism processes
The Netherlands Christian Sufficient history of Femininity Individualist and Full engagement in
democracy egalitarian policy-making
processes
Italy Roman Catholic Limited history of Masculinity Fatalist and Semi-engagement
democracy hierarchical in policy-making
processes

Environment) because they did not consult local citizens. Trousset et al. demonstrate
that the hierarchists and egalitarians are most likely to engage in the policy process. In
these cases, both Italians and Chinese show their interest in engaging in the processes,
but citizens behave in a hostile manner when the policy process is not open enough.
Italians, however, seem to be fatalists, which may lead to a decreasing willingness to
participate compared to the beginning of the process. Consequently, Italy—which is
both hierarchical and fatalist and which has less experience with democratic culture—
does not pay enough attention to conserving the environment and promoting public
participation.
In summary, different countries show diverse characteristics and various levels of
participation, which are all summarized in Table 4. China and Italy are both inclined to
be a masculine society, and their people have a hierarchical way of life. The two coun-
tries also have in common that they do not have a long democratic history. The public
in the two countries are unable to fully participate in decision-making due to the lack
of proper institutional mechanisms. By contrast, the Dutch people have been familiar
with democracy much longer than the other two countries. In addition, their way of
life supports the Dutch democratic system, allowing the public to fully engage in the
processes of policy-making. The comprehensive interpretations in the analysis demon-
strate that both religion and democratic political culture are rooted in the history of
each country and connected with the CT model. In the Netherlands, its free trade spi-
rit, consensus-driven democratic culture, and feminine values encourage Dutch people
to cooperate in order to achieve agreements with many actors. Dutch people have a
way of life that is both individual and egalitarian, and its political system is less hier-
archical than in Italy and China. China’s heritage of centralized decision making, loyalty
to superiors, and its aspiration for rapid economic development influence how it deals
with environmental issues. In contrast to the Netherlands and Italy, China is primarily a
hierarchical society. However, due to its strong Roman Catholic, tough masculine val-
ues and its shorter history of democratic culture, the Italian way of life is both hier-
archical and fatalistic. Both China and Italy have a history of strong centralization,
which contributes to more hierarchical models. In Chinese hierarchism, no channel for
providing information was offered to the public. This lack of communication between
the government and the public results in violent conflicts when citizens who desire to
participate in the policy process are more likely to engage in different ways, e.g. pro-
tests and violence. Similarly, citizens in Italy had conflicts with the authority because of
the top-down decision-making and lack of public consultation about the purification
 JOURNAL OF CHINESE GOVERNANCE 407

project. The Dutch way of individualism and egalitarism combined with democratic
culture promotes public participation.

Conclusions and future research

This paper describes how culture shapes environmental public participation. To answer
this question, the paper looks at three cultural factors—religion, democratic culture,
and gender—and analyzes the environmental participation using three cases. The
author explains how certain cultural factors categorize each country according to a
nation being egalitarian, fatalist, individualist and hierarchical in the Cultural Theory
(CT) model and how the features of CT in each country explain their own environmen-
tal participation. Each country has its unique history and characteristics of culture, and
various levels of participation. The paper found that a hierarchical way of life is mainly
found in China and Italy, whereas the Dutch people are more individualist and egali-
tarian. In Italy, public participation is more difficult to implement because of its top-
down inter-institutional relations, as the hierarchical ideology has been consolidated in
the Italian administrative system. Similarly, China has a distinctive top-down and hier-
archical culture that is embedded not only in policy design, but also in intergovern-
mental relations. In the Dutch case, although individualism does not seem to impact
environmental participation, its egalitarian consensus democracy contributes to effi-
cient public participation processes and collective decisions.
The detailed analysis in this paper would contribute to future studies about how to
effectively transfer environmental participation policies from one country (participation
developed countries) to another (participation developing countries). If policy-making,
with uncertain challenges such as cultural factors and social norms, only addresses one
or two ways of life, policy solutions are more likely to reflect the vulnerabilities of
these cultural types. Therefore, similar policy implementations might fail in some coun-
tries but succeed in others. This paper specifically describes these invisible cultural fac-
tors and models in the studied cases. Based on the analysis, the author suggests that
implementing participation policy needs strong support from each level of govern-
ment, in addition to a tough promotion from a powerful government in the hierarch-
ical system. Besides, Italian culture is fatalist (and hierarchic), so that the feeling of
‘what will be, will be’ would be reflected in the participation process. Therefore, the
author suggests a prudential design for the selection of participants and for the means
of overcoming free-riding. Individualism and egalitarianism can be beneficial to demo-
cratic participation, but not every country is born with these philosophies. In some
countries, political ambiguity influences environmental actions, like China.59 The ana-
lysis may further contribute to future research in terms of developing policy recom-
mendations based on learning from other countries with different cultural
backgrounds. Therefore, it is important to evaluate how various forms of public partici-
pation interact with culture before learning from policy experiences in other countries.

Notes
1. Coenen, Van de Peppel and Woltjer, “Inspraak.”
2. Dang, “Public Participation in Environmental Protection,” 61–81.
408 W. DANG

3. Mol and Carter, “China's Environmental Governance in Transition,” 149–170.

4. EEA, Public Participation.
5. Patel and Stel, Public Participation in River Basin Management in Europe.
6. Werksman and Foti, Discussion Paper.
7. Shi, “Cultural Values and Political Trust,” 401–419.
8. Inglehart, “The Renaissance of Political Culture,” 1203–1230.
9. Smith, National Identity.
10. Elkins and Simeon, “A Cause in Search of its Effect, or What Does Political Culture Explain?,”
127–145.
11. Song, Silva and Jenkins-Smith, “Cultural Worldview and Preference for Childhood
Vaccination Policy,” 528–554.
12. Doan and Kirkpatrick, “Giving Girls a Shot,” 295–318.
13. Gerber and Neeley, “Perceived Risk and Citizen Preferences for Governmental Management
of Routine Hazards,” 395–418.
14. Trousset et al., “Degrees of Engagement,” 44–69.
15. Enserink et al., “Cultural Factors as Co-determinants of Participation in River Basin
Management,” 24.
16. Ripberger et al., “Cultural Theory and the Measurement of Deep Core Beliefs,” 509–527.
17. Colcord, “Urban Transportation and Political Ideology,” 9–19; Wildavsky, “Choosing
Preferences by Constructing Institutions,” 3–21; Pereira and Ryzin, “Understanding Public
Support for Time Limits and Other Welfare Reforms,” 398–418.
18. Ferejohn, “Rationality and interpretation,” 393–412; Lockhart, Protecting the Elderly.
19. Hofstede, “Culture's Consequences.”
20. Martinez and Paolisso, “Cultural Dynamics of Adaption to Climate Change.”
21. Meny and Knapp, Government and Politics in Western Europe.
22. Sommer, “Introduction.”
23. Inglehart and Baker, “Modernization, Cultural Change, and the Persistence of Traditional
Values.”
24. Ripberger, Jenkins-Smith and Herron, “How Cultural Orientations Create Shifting National
Security Coalitions,” 715–719; Wiener and Koontz, “Shifting Winds,” 629651; Plutzer, Maney
and O’Connor, “Ideology and Elites' perceptIons of the Safety of New Technologies,”
190–209.
25. Merelman, Partial Visions.
26. Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov, Cultures and Organizations.
27. Hofstede, “Cultural Constraints in Management Theories,” 81–94.
28. Rubio-Banon and Esteban-Loret, “Cultural Factors and Gender role in Female
Entrepreneurship,” 9–17.
29. Douglas and Ney, Missing Persons; Douglas, Thought Styles; Douglas, “Introduction.”
30. Douglas, “Four Cultures,” 411–415.
31. Ney and Verweij, “Exploring the Contributions of Cultural Theory,” 620–643.
32. Shi et al., “Public Perception of Climate Change,” 2183–2201.
33. Yin, Case Study Research Design and Method.
34. Gerring, “What is a Case Study and What Is It Good for?,” 341–354.
35. Woltjer, “Concepts of Participatory Decision-Making in Dutch Infrastructure Planning.”
36. Massarutto et al., Public Participation in River Basin Management Planning in Italy.
37. Del Furia and Wallace-Jones, “The Effectiveness of Provisions and Quality of Practices,”
457–479.
38. Martens, “Public Participation with Chinese Characteristics,” 221–230; Perry, Challenging the
Mandate of Heaven; Alberton, “Water Management and Protection in Italy.”; Enserink and
Alberton, “Public Participation in China,” 1650005; Gilley, “Authoritarian Environmentalism
and China's Response to Climate Change,” 287–307.
39. Chen, Yang and Yang, “Chapter 9.”
40. Yang, “Public Participation and the China’s Reform of Governance,” 18–30; Sun, “An
Analysis of the Types and Effectiveness of Citizen Participation Froms,” 124–129.
 JOURNAL OF CHINESE GOVERNANCE 409

41. The office of letters and calls is Xinfang (信访), i.e. the authority in charge of receiving and
dealing with complaints from the people.
42. Pedrazzi, “Italy and religions in 2016.”
43. Lu, “The Report of Religion In Comtemporary China,” 11–25.
44. Jan et al., The Quality of Government Standard Dataset.
45. Hsu et al., Environmental Performance Index.
46. Creighton. The Public Participation Handbook.
47. Shapiro, China's Environmental Challenges; Runes, The Dictionary of Philosophy.
48. de Jong, “The Pros and Cons of Confucian Values,” 13–24.
49. Wong, “Environmental awareness, governance and public participation,” 169–181.
50. Zhao, “The Form of Character of Power-Capital Culture in China.”
51. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy.
52. Andeweg and Irwin, Governance and Politics of the Netherlands.
53. Aarts, Macdonald and Rabinowitz, “Issues and Party Competition in the Netherlands,”
63–99.
54. Enserink and Monnikhof, “Information Management for Public Participation in Co-design
Processes,” 315–344.
55. Hendriks, Polder Politics in the Netherlands.
56. Smith, Politics in Western Europe.
57. Putnam, Making Democracy Work.
58. Hood, “Can Cultural Theory Give Us a Handle on the Difference Context Makes to
Management by Numbers?”
59. Lo, “Political Ambiguity in Chinese Climate Change Discourses,” 755–776.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor
Wenqi Dang is a PhD Researcher (candidate), Department of Public Administration, University of
Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands.

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