生态环境问题不仅是技术和经济问题, 也是一个政治问题。政治经济学视角下的环境治理问题研究的文献, 大体上可以划分为地方政府治理能力的视角、地方政府竞争的视角、“政企合谋”的视角、权力均衡的视角等四类。这四类文献总体上呈现出由仁慈政府假说向自利的政府转变, 由以地方政府为分析单位的整体主义方法论向以官员个体为研究对象的个人主义方法论的转变, 由对政府单一主体行动能力和制度有效性等表层原因的关注向社会多元主体权力结构等深层原因转变。本文认为, 生态环境保护涉及多元主体的利益, 但权力在各主体之间的分布与利益格局失衡, 地方政府拥有过大的话语权而社会公众参与能力不足, 导致环境保护制度在执行上被扭曲。这也是为什么近年来国内重大环境污染事件背后都有地方政府影子, 也是为什么几乎所有环境污染问题都是对已有法律法规的明显违反, 而不是制度缺失的问题。利益格局、权力结构与制度安排之间是一个相互联系彼此促动的系统整体, “利益-权力-制度”均衡的视角为全面理解生态环境损害的防治提供了一个有力的理论框架。

The issue of ecology and environment is not only a technical and economic issue, but also a political one. The literature on environmental governance from the perspective of political economy can be divided into four categories: the perspective of governance capabilities of local government, the perspective of local government competition, the perspective of “government-enterprise collusion”, and the perspective of power balance. These four types of literature generally show a change from the benevolent government hypothesis to a self-interested government, from a holistic methodology that takes local governments as the unit of analysis to an individualist methodology that takes individual officials as the object of research, a change from a focus on the superficial reasons such as the government's ability to governance and the effectiveness of the policy to deep-seated reasons such as the power structure of the pluralistic subjects of society. This paper argues that ecological environmental protection involves the interests of multiple subjects, but the imbalance in the distribution of power and the pattern of interests among the subjects, and the excessive power of local government to speak and the insufficient ability of the public to participate in society, has led to the distortion of the environmental protection system in its implementation. This is why there local government has been behind all the major environmental pollution incidents in the country in recent years, and why almost all environmental pollution problems are obvious violations of existing laws and regulations, rather than a lack of institutions. The “interest-power-institution” equilibrium perspective provides a powerful theoretical framework for a comprehensive understanding of the prevention and control of ecological damage.