Constructing legitimacy: how do Chinese NGOs become legitimate participants in environmental governance? The case of Environmental Protection Law revision

摘要

Within the analytical framework of governance, this paper mainly discusses three aspects including the constructing approach of NGOs’ subject legitimacy in environmental governance participation, the legalization of participating approaches, and the effectiveness of participating result. The article will take the revision processes of the Chinese Environment Protection Law as a case study for thick description, which represents the latest features of Chinese NGOs’ participation in policy advocacy. It shows that “self-identification practice” (in Chinese: zizhengshi shijian) is an effective approach for NGOs to construct its subject legitimacy to participate in environmental or even state governance, and the practice field of multi-subjects would be or has already been a testing experiment field of “good governance” in China.