From Neighbors to Partners: A quantum game model for analyzing collaborative environmental governance in China

Promoting the collaborative governance of regional environmental pollution is a key issue of the "14th Five-Year Plan'' period of China, which has great significance in accelerating the construction of Chinese ecological civilization. Given this, this paper uses quantum game theory to analyze the interaction between two heterogeneous governments in environmental governance and to discuss the impact of heterogeneity difference of local governments on the game system. As an embodiment of the innovation of this paper, an interpretation of entanglement and quantum strategy under the context of environmental governance is presented, and the impact of the heterogeneity difference between local governments on the quantum game system is studied. The results show that the entanglement can effectively prevent the free-riding behavior of local governments, and the heterogeneity difference does not change the equilibrium of the quantum game. As a byproduct, this paper reveals the control effect of the combination of punishment mechanism and information disclosure mechanism on free-riding behavior to a certain extent. Finally, we construct the "Entanglement Agreement'' of regional environmental collaborative governance according to the interpretation of entanglement and quantum strategy. In addition, it is an important guarantee for incentive enthusiasm of local governments to improve their governance capability. This study provides a quantitative basis and decision-making reference for promoting regional collaborative governance in China. The approach used in this paper can also be applied to similar situations in other countries or regions with suitable modifications.