The Power of Process: State Capacity and Climate Policy with Professor Jonas Nahm

On May 22nd, 2018, students of the Tsinghua University-Johns Hopkins SAIS master’s degree program met with Jonas Nahm, Assistant Professor of Energy, Resources and Environment at Johns Hopkins SAIS.

过程的力量： 国家能力与气候政策

2018年5月22日，清华 – 约翰霍普金斯大学SAIS双硕士项目的学生与Jonas Nahm教授进行了交流。作为SAIS的助理教授，Jonas Nahm的主要研究方向为能源、资源与环境。

Professor Nahm presented his research on the process of climate policy design and implementation, and in doing so provided applicable lessons for China. The primary objective of Professor Nahm’s study was to uncover the underlying factors that allow some governments to more effectively set and reach their climate change goals than others. To do so, Professor Nahm conducted a case comparison between Germany and the U.S. state of California, two large industrialized economies that adopted ambitious climate policy goals for 2020. Despite these similarities, California is currently on track to meet its targets for carbon emission reduction across all sectors while Germany is struggling to do the same.

Professor Nahm’s findings suggest that state capacity is central to the provision of public goods, including environmental protection. Within this model, the division of labor between the bureaucracy and legislature in policy formulation is a critical source of this state capacity.

In the case of California, the state legislature sets broad policy goals and delegates comprehensive, cross-sectoral, policy design to bureaucracies – a system known as “bureaucratic policy design”. Professor Nahm observed that this division of labor shifts potential distributional conflict to autonomous bureaucracies less prone to interference from special interest groups. The result is a technocratic process in which bureaucrats decide the appropriate burden sharing across industrial sectors based on cost effectiveness. To meet California’s targets, this responsibility fell to the California Air Resources Board (CARB), one of the more independent bureaucracies in the state. As incumbent opposition to economic restructuring takes place at the level of policy formulation rather than implementation, the institutional independence of CARB relative to the state legislature has been critical in yielding the desired results.

In comparison, Germany employs a distribution of labor known as “legislative policy design” – the executive bureaucracy sets emissions reduction goals while the legislature crafts detailed policies, a model that relies on bottom-up support from coalitions for individual measures. In this case, the role of the legislature in policy design has prevented state bureaucracies from leveraging their institutional strengths, leaving the process vulnerable to lobbying from interest groups. Despite significant carbon reductions in the electricity sector, the government’s failure to enact effective climate policies for the transportation sector, an influential constituency, has pushed Germany off track from its broader emissions goals.

Finally, Professor Nahm summed up the key findings of his research. First, a focus on bureaucratic autonomy in policy implementation by itself is insufficient to understand relative levels of state capacity. Second, the division of labor between government bureaucracies and the legislature in policy formulation is critical in conditioning state capacity. Third, within institutional constraints, legislators can strategically strengthen their autonomy in policy formulation against external opposition.

To conclude, Professor Nahm pointed out that aspects of his argument could be applied to China, despite the fact that there is no division of labor between the legislature and bureaucracy within the Chinese political system. Nonetheless, his research findings are relevant in the context of central-local relations. As local governments are more likely to resist central policies that curb growth, the regional policy fragmentation that occurs in China today is therefore not unlike the sectoral policy fragmentation that occurs under a “legislative policy design” model.

首先，Nahm教授向大家展示了自己在气候政策设计与实施方面的研究，并提出了其研究结果对于中国的启示。 他的主要研究目的在于探究促使政府更有效地设定和实现其气候变化目标的潜在因素。为此，Nahm教授对德国和美国加利福尼亚州进行了案例比较，这两个大型工业化经济体都为2020年制定了宏伟的气候政策目标。尽管如此，二者目标实施现状大相径庭：当前，加州在全面实现减排目标的道路上稳步前进，而德国却显得有些心有余而力不足。

Nahm教授的研究结果表明，一国能否有效提供公共物品（如环境保护）的关键就在于其国家能力的强弱。在这一模型中，官僚机构和立法机构在政策制定过程中的分工则是国家能力的重要来源。

加利福尼亚州采用了一种被称作“官僚政策设计”的分工模式：由州立法机构制定广泛的政策目标，再委托官僚机构进行综合性的、跨部门的政策设计。Nahm教授指出，这种分工将潜在的分配冲突转移到了不易受特殊利益集团干扰的自治官僚机构，因而创设了一个技术官僚程序：由技术官僚根据成本效益来决定工业部门之间的责任分担。为了达到加利福尼亚州的减排目标，这项政策设计任务落在了加利福尼亚州空气资源委员会（CARB）上。CARB是该州较为独立的官僚机构之一，其相对于州立法机构的独立性把对于经济转型的阻力从政策执行转移到政策制定上，因此对于实现预期减排目标功不可没。

相比之下，德国则采用了一种被称作“立法政策设计”的分工模式：由行政官僚机构设定减排目标，立法机构则负责制定详细的政策。这一模式依赖于对于各个独立措施自下而上的联合支持。在这种情况下，立法机构在政策设计中的所发挥的作用阻碍了行政官僚机构充分利用其优势规避利益集团的游说。因此，尽管德国在电力行业的减排显著，但政府却未能为交通行业制定有效的气候政策，这使得德国无法达成更广泛的减排目标。

接下来，Nahm教授对他的主要研究发现做出了以下几点总结：第一，要想充分理解国家能力的相对强弱，仅仅局限在政策执行这一方面来研究官僚机构的自主性是不够的；第二，政府官僚机构与立法机构在政策制定上的分工对于调节国家能力至关重要。第三，在制度约束下，立法者可以策略性地加强政策制定中的自主性，以对抗外部阻力。

最后，Nahm教授指出，尽管在中国的政治体制内，立法机构和官僚机构的分工并不明确，但他的论点同样可以适用于中国。此外，他的研究结果还适用于中央与地方的关系。地方政府可能会抵制抑制当地经济增长的中央政策，因此，当今中国正在发生的地区政策碎片化与“立法政策设计”模式下出现的部门政策碎片化有异曲同工之处。