Configurational driving mechanisms of local environmental governance under the institutional pressure-organizational capacity framework: evidence from China

Introduction Under the background of advancing global climate governance and deepening green and low-carbon transition, the Chinese central government has imposed the hard constraints of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality and strengthened supervision of local implementation through the Central Environmental Protection Inspection (CEPI) system. However, some local governments may resort to symbolic and performative governance under strong central regulatory pressure, thereby undermining the effectiveness of environmental policy. This paper focuses on local governments’ environmental governance behavior in implementing policies for coordinated pollution control and carbon reduction and explores the drivers of divergent outcomes. Methods It proposes an integrated institutional pressure–organizational capacity analytical framework and employs fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) and Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA) to analyze 42 CEPI cases from 2018 to 2022, which identifies multiple configurational pathways that lead to either substantive or symbolic governance. Results The findings demonstrate that effective local environmental governance arises from specific configurations of institutional pressures and organizational capacities instead of any single factor. Pollution control and carbon reduction are more likely when regulatory pressure is aligned with local capacity, whereas misalignment tends to produce symbolic compliance, thereby limiting the effectiveness of high-pressure environmental regulation. Notably, even in regions with significant industrial structural constraints, substantial progress in pollution control and carbon reduction can still be achieved through green technology innovation, low-carbon industrial restructuring, and enhanced cross-sector collaborative governance. Discussion This study reveals the mechanisms underlying both the success and failure of pollution control and carbon reduction policy implementation from the perspective of local governance behavior, extends institutional and organizational theory to the domain of carbon governance, and provides actionable policy insights for advancing integrated carbon reduction and pollution control strategies.