Local interest group activity and environmental degradation in authoritarian regimes

An extensive literature shows that democracies tend to do a better job of protecting the environment than autocracies. Much less work has been done to explain the considerable variation in environmental quality within many authoritarian settings. We help fill this gap with an empirical study of Vietnam – one of the world’s most stable authoritarian regimes as well as one of the most environmentally vulnerable. We focus on the relationship between interest group activity and environmental outcomes (air and water quality) at the district level. While the participation of more actors in civic and political life has the potential to improve outcomes by enhancing scrutiny of government, interest groups may also promote economic interests to the detriment of environmental protection. Our analysis shows that districts characterized by higher levels of local interest group activity tend to have lower air and water quality. This result is consistent across a range of model specifications and estimation strategies. These findings imply that organization of local interests may be detrimental to environmental quality in authoritarian settings and that effective mobilization of actors who would benefit from high environmental quality (i.e., citizens) may be overshadowed by those of pro-business interests. As such, our findings highlight the limits of popular participation related to environmental protection in authoritarian regimes – particularly those that base their legitimacy on economic development.