An extensive literature shows that democracies tend to do a better job of protecting the environment than autocracies. Much less work has been done to explain the considerable variation in environmental quality within many authoritarian settings. We help fill this gap with an empirical study of Vietnam – one of the world’s most stable authoritarian regimes as well as one of the most environmentally vulnerable. We focus on the relationship between interest group activity and environmental outcomes (air and water quality) at the district level. While the participation of more actors in civic and political life has the potential to improve outcomes by enhancing scrutiny of government, interest groups may also promote economic interests to the detriment of environmental protection. Our analysis shows that districts characterized by higher levels of local interest group activity tend to have lower air and water quality. This result is consistent across a range of model specifications and estimation strategies. These findings imply that organization of local interests may be detrimental to environmental quality in authoritarian settings and that effective mobilization of actors who would benefit from high environmental quality (i.e., citizens) may be overshadowed by those of pro-business interests. As such, our findings highlight the limits of popular participation related to environmental protection in authoritarian regimes – particularly those that base their legitimacy on economic development.

大量文献表明，民主政体比独裁政体在保护环境方面做得更好。少得多的工作已经做了解释环境质量的相当大的变化范围内许多专制制度。我们通过对越南的经验研究来填补这一空白，越南是世界上最稳定的威权政体之一，也是环境最脆弱的国家之一。我们专注于地区层面的利益团体活动与环境成果（空气和水质）之间的关系。尽管更多的参与者参与公民和政治生活有可能通过加强对政府的审查来改善结果，但利益集团也可能促进经济利益，不利于环境保护。我们的分析表明，以当地利益集团活动为特征的地区往往空气和水质较低。在一系列模型规范和估计策略中，此结果是一致的。这些发现表明，地方利益的组织可能对威权环境的环境质量有害，而那些要从高质量的环境中受益的行为者（即公民）的有效动员可能会被有利于商业利益的行为者所掩盖。因此，我们的发现凸显了威权政权中与环境保护有关的公众参与的局限性，尤其是那些将其合法性基于经济发展的政权。