Multilevel power structure and local compliance with government transparency mandates: evidence from China's environmental transparency reform

Despite the ample literature on government transparency, our knowledge about how the vertical power structure of governments shapes local compliance with government transparency mandates is still limited. This study sets out to address this gap. Specifically, we investigate how the central government's environmental information disclosure (EID) signal and provincial governments’ conflicting signal of economic growth affect, independently and interactively, city governments’ compliance with central EID mandates in the center-province-city hierarchical structure in China. We argue that the central EID signal positively affects city compliance, while the provincial signal of economic growth reduces it. Moreover, the provincial signal of economic growth negatively moderates the impact of the central EID signal. Empirically, with a panel dataset for city-level governments from 2008 to 2018, we found robust evidence strongly supporting our theoretical hypotheses. This research reveals the influences of the complex dynamics among governments at different levels on local compliance with government transparency mandates. The findings suggest that the maneuvers of middle-level governments in a multilevel power structure and the interactions among multiple conflicting policy goals should be taken seriously by practitioners when designing policies to promote government transparency reforms.