Why Chinese farmers obey the law: Pesticide compliance in Hunan Province, China

While China’s legal system has been increasingly perfected, the implementation of laws in China remains challenging. Simply strengthening law enforcement is not sufficient to improve compliance. It is necessary to bring in a regulatory compliance perspective. This book intends to explore compliance in China through a case study of pesticide compliance. It seeks to understand why compliance with pesticide law is so disappointing in China. To do so it studies the pesticide compliance motivations of farmers in Hunan province in Central China. It mainly examines eight compliance variables and their influences on farmers’ pesticide compliance: operational cost-benefit calculation, deterrence, descriptive social norms, morals, general duty to obey the law, procedural justice, ability to obey the law and legal knowledge. Building on the crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA) logic and tools, it continues to explore all the variables in path or ideal types, and reveals interactions among compliance variables and their combined effects on compliance. The results serve to refine theories of regulatory enforcement and compliance, with implications for improving compliance in China and elsewhere.