Party Branch Embeddedness and Urban–Rural Environmental Inequality: Self-Regulation or Pollution Shelter?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is well written. Herewith are the reviews to improve the quality.

1.   Underscore the scientific value-added to your paper in your abstract. Your abstract should clearly state the essence of the problem you are addressing, what you did and what you found and recommend. That would help a prospective reader of the abstract to decide if they wish to read the entire article. 

2.   The objectives and scope of the article has been clearly defined at the end of the introduction, including a brief overview of the article structure. Please also include a criteria and method for the selection of references in the introduction and/or in a research design section devoted to explain the organization of the review and the aggregated evaluation of the selected papers (which is lacking). 

3. Discussion and conclusions should establish a strong correlation with sustainability concerns. In your discussion section, please link your empirical results with a broader and deeper literature review. 

4.   Please make sure your conclusions section underscores the scientific value-added of your paper and/or the applicability of your results. Highlight the novelty of your study since the previous studies that you are referring to are clearly discussed. What are the research gaps/contributions and current detailed trends since 2014? Clearly outline the future outlooks.

5.   In your conclusions, please discuss the implications of your research. Discussions and conclusions must go deeper, it would be more interesting if the authors focus more on the significance of their findings regarding the importance of the interrelationship between the obtained results and sustainable development in the sector context (Journal of Sustainability), and the barriers to do it, what would be the consequences, in the real world, in changing the observed situation.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript addresses the asymmetry of environmental investment between urban and rural areas in China and the role of local party organizations in reducing this inequality. The authors present clear research questions and use extensive data analysis to support their findings. The references are relevant and up-to-date. However, it is suggested to incorporate more examples from other countries for comparative analysis and to explore the applicability of the findings to other socio-economic contexts.

Additionally, the following changes are recommended to improve the article:

 Introduction: Add a summary of the main objectives and key findings of the article at the beginning of the introduction. This will help readers understand the context and significance of the research from the outset.

Methodology: Clarify how the industries were selected and include a brief explanation of the data collection and analysis methods.

Results and Analysis: Include graphs to clearly present the data and findings. Use visual elements to highlight the main points of the analysis.

Conclusions: Reframe the conclusions to include clear recommendations for future research. Add a paragraph describing the limitations of the study and potential directions for further research.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Any research seeking answers to questions about how to develop an economy consistent with sustainable development is of particular importance today. Those presented in the article are looking for correlations that take into account economic data and empirical data. Indeed, for decision-makers at both the micro- and macroeconomic levels, not to mention political decision-makers, all algorithmic and mathematical arguments are definitely more convincing than those based on qualitative analyses. Therefore, in this sense, research is interesting and important because its results can be convincing in making strategic and operational decisions in business and politics.

However, after reading the content, I must point out a few issues that raise substantive doubts in my mind or require supplementation. 

First note. There should be no strong connection between the research conducted and political decisions in a scientific article. I understand that the authors are studying the Chinese economy, which, as in every country, is influenced by political decisions, but this means that the research results will be viewed through the prism of politics, not data collected during the research process. Therefore, I believe that any political comments contained in the article should be removed. A political thesis that has been applied by directly influencing the collected data and its interpretation of collected data is, in my opinion, the greatest weakness of the article aspiring to be the scientific one.

Second note. The data concern a quite old period (2006 - 2014), since then the economy has changed so much under the influence of social pressure, new technologies and socioeconomic changes in the world that I am concerned about their reliability in the study.

Third note. The first hypothesis is relatively obvious and, in my opinion, does not require additional verification. This is a thesis, rather than a hypothesis.

However, the second H2 is, in my opinion, too general in the literature review. That is, it is not clear enough for me on what basis the authors hypothesised that the "regional grassroots party organisation". Personally, I think this is a political, not scientific, hypothesis.

Fourth note. It is also not clear to me who were the respondents, when the survey was carried out, what the population was, and what the sample selection was. This aspect should be explained in more detail to understand the results obtained.

I have no doubts about the models developed used to verify the adopted hypotheses.

I agree with the authors' thesis that inequalities between urban and agricultural regions are significant and probably visible in every country.

From the article you can learn a lot about the specificity of the Chinese economy, which is an advantage - the reader can become familiar with these features, but also a weakness, because the analysis is carried out in a specific economy, which means that the results cannot be applied to other economies.

Most of the literature cited is from Chinese sources. This is not a weakness, but rather a limitation. I believe that on the issue of sustainable development or social responsibility, there are many studies described in the non-Chinese literature, which I encourage the authors to read.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

I appreciate that the authors took into account previous recommendations

I believe that the topic discussed is important both from a theoretical and a practical point of view. Therefore, it should be published. However, I would like to draw attention to two issues:

1. The first concerns the role of "party organisation", which means that the proposed model and solutions still have a political nature. Although, of course, I understand that this is influenced by the specificity of China's sociopolitical system. In European countries, nongovernmental organisations would be much more important, so the proposed solutions are limited to a specific system.

2. The article limits the use of research and literature from Asian countries, but the undertaken issue refers to analogous ones in Europe or America. Perhaps this will be a future task for the authors.