Abstract
Amid global climate change and environmental degradation, effective environmental governance has become a central concern for scholars and policymakers. This study proposes a pressure–state–response–environment (PSRE) framework that links external pressures (public and peer pressure), regional states (population, affluence, and technology), and organizational responses (government regulation and environmental fiscal expenditure) to assess environmental performance (EP). Using multi-period fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) on panel data from 31 Chinese provinces (2018–2023), this study provides a replicable model for regional governance research. The results show that no single factor is indispensable for either high or non-high EP; instead, multiple equifinal configurations exhibit distinct temporal patterns. Comparing high and non-high EP configurations shows causal asymmetry, as pathways to non-high EP do not mirror those leading to high EP. For high EP, three dominant models emerged in Period 1: external pressure–regional state, external pressure–regional state–organizational response, and external pressure–organizational response. In Period 2, four models emerged: regional state–organizational response and external-pressure pathways were added, whereas the external pressure–organizational response model disappeared. Among the high-EP configurations, peer pressure is pervasive in both periods, while the dominant policy lever shifts from environmental fiscal expenditure in Period 1 to government regulation in Period 2, consistent with China’s move from financial support to stricter enforcement and institution building. Moreover, China’s eastern, central, and western regions exhibit distinct environmental governance pathways. These findings advance environmental governance theory and offer policymakers actionable insights for designing context-sensitive strategies that account for regional heterogeneity and evolving governance pathways.
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Data availability
The datasets generated by the survey research during and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the Dataverse repository, https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.29197277.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 72174137), Shanxi Province Basic Research Program (Industrial Development Category) Joint Funding Project (Grant No. 202303011222001), and the Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation Project of the Ministry of Education of China (Grant No. 21YJA630060).
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Tan, S., Liu, X., Li, W. et al. Unraveling configurational pathways to regional environmental performance: a multi-period fsQCA analysis of China’s governance dynamics. Humanit Soc Sci Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-06936-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-06936-3
