Supervised By: Alyssa Battistoni, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Barnard College
Research Question (Tentative): How do the divergent models of state intervention under capitalism in the United States and China shape their respective approaches to environmental policy, and what do the political shifts in environmental legislation since 2020 reveal about the evolving role of the state in addressing the climate crisis?
Project Background: The year 2020 marked a pivotal shift in global climate politics. With President Xi Jinping announcing an ambitious new goal of China reaching carbon neutrality by 2060 and President Biden winning the US presidential election by running on a campaign with the climate crisis at its forefront, 2020 signaled the beginning of a climate revolution. Over the following four years, both countries implemented landmark legislation aimed at steering the world toward a greener future, such as the Inflation Reduction Act and the inclusion of climate legislation in the 14th Five-Year Plan. This era represented a departure from traditional market-based approaches to climate action, which framed climate change primarily as a negative externality to be corrected through mechanisms like carbon pricing. Instead, policymakers embraced an investment-driven model that positioned climate policy as a catalyst for job creation, industrial renewal, and long-term economic growth. However, the election of Donald Trump in January 2025 has triggered a dramatic reversal of course in the United States, unraveling many of the policies enacted in the previous administration. This rollback has not only diminished the United States’ role in addressing the climate crisis, but has also triggered significant economic and political ripple effects that undermine global efforts to combat climate change. In contrast, China appears to have doubled down on its climate commitments, raising important questions about the shifting balance of global climate leadership. My research seeks to examine these recent shifts in climate action by probing why the United States was able to revert so rapidly to fossil fuel dependence, and how China has maintained political continuity in its environmental agenda. In doing so, it emphasizes the importance of understanding each country’s historical trajectory and the institutional logic of its state apparatus—such as liberal capitalism in the U.S. and state capitalism in China—to explain the resilience or fragility of climate commitments.
Methodology:
- Literature Review: With the guidance of Professor Battistoni, I will be conducting a literature review on relevant political theory and climate policy articles. I will also be compiling sources on the evolution of Chinese politics using a reading guide from Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Political Science, Professor Lü.
- Policy Analysis: I will be compiling a database of relevant environmental legislation from the US, China, and bipartisan agreements between the US and China and applying a political theory framework to analyze overarching political trends within the policies.
Week 1 Updates: In this first week, I have focused on establishing a strong theoretical framework in political theory and historical background through readings and frequent meetings with my mentor, Professor Battistoni. Most of my political theory research has been centered on state capitalism in articles such as “What is New State Capitalism?” and “The ‘wicked trinity’ of late capitalism” by Ilias Alami, which has expanded my understanding of the interactions between the state and capitalism, particularly in the US and China. For more historical background, I’ve been reading Governance and Politics of China by Tony Saich and reviewing materials from the syllabus for Professor Lü’s class, Intro to Contemporary Chinese Politics. I have also begun compiling a database of all major environmental legislation in the US and China, which I have completed up to around 2021. I hope to finish that by next week, so I can begin to delve deeper into more specific policies.