Can public opinion persuade the government to strengthen the use of environmental regulation policy tools? Evidence from policy texts

Haze pollution caused by particulate matter such as PM2.5 and PM10 significantly affects public health. Confronted with haze pollution, people have increasingly taken to expressing opinions online to demand restrictions on pollution discharge by enterprises to protect their health rights. However, are such public demands met by the government and incorporated into policy agenda relating to environmental regulation policies? To investigate this question, this study employed text content analysis to examine the role of public opinion as an intermediary in the relationship between haze pollution and the formulation of environmental regulation policies, using a dataset of 460 environmental regulation policy documents and over 800,000 public opinions on environmental issues spanning from January 2011 to December 2021. We found that public opinion exerted a significant intermediary effect by linking haze pollution and environmental regulation policy tools. Further analysis revealed heterogeneity in the influence of public opinion on environmental regulation policy tools. Public opinion exhibited the most substantial intermediary effect on command-control policy tools (with a 6.68% intermediary effect), followed by economic incentive policy tools (4.65%) and social autonomy policy tools (4.58%). Additionally, there was a notable time lag in the impact of public opinion on environmental regulation policy tools. It took approximately 7-10 months for the government to respond to the disseminated public opinions. This study may shed light on how the government can encourage public engagement, respond to, and guide public opinion.