Title
The Performative State: Public Scrutiny and Environmental Governance in China
Abstract
The Department of Political Science, together with the Center for East Asian Studies presented a talk by University of Pittsburgh Political Science Professor Iza Ding on her forthcoming book, The Performative State: Public Scrutiny and Environmental Governance in China (Cornell University Press, summer 2022).
Based on her doctoral dissertation, the book looks at how the state can shape public perceptions and defuse crises through the theatrical deployment of language, symbols, and gestures of good governance.
The Performative State also explains when performative governance fails at impressing its audience, and when governance becomes less performative and more substantive. Focusing on Chinese evidence, Professor Ding shows that all states, democratic and authoritarian alike, engage in performative governance.
Biography
Iza Ding is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh with a courtesy appointment in Public Policy. She is a scholar of comparative political development who works on environmental policymaking and implementation, environmental attitudes and behavior, bureaucratic organizations, populism, nationalism, democratic erosion, and the rule of law.