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Professor Denise van Kemp will talk about her book 'Clean Air at What Cost? The Rise of Blunt Force Regulation in China' which argues that China’s blunt force regulation is actually a sign of weak state capacity and ineffective bureaucratic control.

China’s green transition is often perceived as a lesson in authoritarian efficiency. In just a few years, the state managed to improve air quality, contain dissent, and restructure local industry. Much of this was achieved through top-down, “blunt force” solutions, such as forcibly shuttering or destroying polluting factories.

Integrating case studies with quantitative evidence, Professor Kemp's book shows how widespread industry shutdowns are used, not to scare polluters into respecting pollution standards, but to scare bureaucrats into respecting central orders. These measures have improved air quality in almost all Chinese cities, but at immense social and economic cost. It delves into the negotiations, trade-offs, and day-to-day battles of local pollution enforcement to explain why governments employ such costly measures, and what this reveals about a state’s powers to govern society.