Informational Crowding‐Out? Targeted Transparency, Environmental Nonprofits, and Public Concern in China
2026-07-04
Transparency is often assumed to strengthen accountability by reducing information asymmetries between governments and citizens. Yet when transparency is designed primarily for hierarchical monitoring rather than societal oversight, its broader societal effects remain unclear. This study examines how a state‐led targeted transparency reform and the organizational strength of environmental civil society jointly shape public concern about pollution in China. Exploiting the staggered rollout of the National Air Quality Monitoring Stations and drawing on a unique panel dataset on environmental nonprofits and public concern from 2011 to 2019, we find that targeted transparency significantly increases public concern about air pollution, and that cities with stronger environmental civil society also exhibit higher levels of concern. However, the two effects are not additive: once the state becomes the dominant provider of credible pollution information, the marginal effect of environmental nonprofits declines. The findings suggest that transparency can heighten public attention while narrowing the informational role of nonprofit organizations. More broadly, the study shows that targeted transparency can reshape the distribution of informational authority between the state and civil society.