Source: Social Sciences in China, Feb, 2008

Abstract: Our fieldwork at S Banner in Inner Mongolia reveals that the implementation of the ecological migration policy is a social process involving joint participation of multiple social agents including the central government, local governments, market elites, and farmers and herders. Behind these complex interactions is a network of power and interest constituted by government power, market power and the local people. Local governments function as a node joining different linkages in top-down ecological governance. Their dual role as "agent-managers of political power" and "profit-seeking managers of political power " leads to great uncertainty in the realization of environmental protection goals.

Keywords: local government agent-managers of political power profit-seeking managers of political power dual role