Environmental governance through information: China and Vietnam

In the field of environmental governance information is starting to become increasingly important, not least because of globalization and the information and communication technologies revolution. The notion of informational governance is a recent coinage that acknowledges the (partial) switch from regulatory-based forms of governance to information-based modes. In the information-rich centres and nodes of the network society, where information is widely produced, disseminated and accessible, this might prove analytically useful. But what are the contours of informational governance in information-poor environments? This paper looks into the (limited) emergence of informational governance arrangements in environmental protection in two cases characterizing the informational periphery: China and Vietnam