Between transgressive intervention and transboundary coordination: quasi-meta-governance in China’s environmental public interest litigation for sustainable development

In China’s procuratorate-led Environmental Public Interest Litigation (EPIL) system, the procuratorate has to navigate the dilemma between transboundary coordination and transgressive intervention to achieve effective collaborative governance. To conceptualize this distinctive role, this paper extends meta-governance theory by introducing the concept of the “quasi-meta-governor” to explain how a judicially embedded actor can coordinate fragmented governance networks without possessing fully transcendent authority. Building on this framework, the paper develops a four-party evolutionary game model involving procuratorial organs, administrative departments, polluting enterprises and the public, followed by an empirical examination of its equilibrium dynamics using the institutional evolution of EPIL in Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province. The findings show that quasi-meta-governance strategies, including network activation, resource integration, and agenda cultivation, can promote the transition from fragmented governance toward collaborative equilibrium by reducing coordination costs, integrating governance resources, and reshaping environmental cognition among multiple actors. The paper makes three main contributions. Theoretically, it extends meta-governance theory into the field of judicial supervision through the concept of the quasi-meta-governor and explains how cross-boundary coordination can be achieved under institutional embeddedness without undermining existing authority structures. Methodologically, it introduces a four-party evolutionary game framework into EPIL research to analyze dynamic multi-actor interactions. Empirically, it identifies the institutional mechanisms through which procuratorate-led coordination can transform fragmented environmental governance into a more stable collaborative governance arrangement, offering implications for EPIL institutional optimization.