2017 Volume 57 Issue 1 Pages 51-62
This study examined the factors that influence whether people cooperate with government policies regarding natural resource management. We investigated the psychological processes that promote cooperative intentions towards such policies among rural residents, who tended to be concerned about natural resource management, and urban residents, who were less concerned about this issue. This study focused on grassland management in Inner Mongolia, China. Specifically, a survey was conducted to analyze the effects of procedural justice, confidence in the government, and legality on the subjects’ intention to cooperate with government policies regarding grassland management in Inner Mongolia. The rural residents (n=146) were villagers, mostly herders, whereas the urban residents (n=262) lived in Hohhot city. The results indicated that among the rural residents confidence in the government had a marked influence on their intention to cooperate, whereas among the urban residents legality modulated the effects of procedural justice on their cooperative intentions. Therefore, this suggested that even though various actors contribute to shaping social policy, only the values emphasized by the majority of society have a significant effect on the success of a policy.
