From the analytical perspective of historical institutionalism, a comprehensive review of the tortuous historical process of the environmental impact assessment system can be found: since the formal establishment of China's environmental impact assessment system in 1979, it has gone through three phases: the system initiation period, the system standardisation period, and the system diversion period, and it is currently in the system equilibrium period. Accompanied by the transformation of China's ecological and environmental concepts, the transformation of the mode of economic development and the process of administrative system reform, the development of the system is characterised by path-dependence; top-down changes are still achieved under the impetus of the Party's conceptual innovation and self-revolution, as well as the EIA storm in 2015. In the new equilibrium stage, the EIA system should focus on strategic EIA and further seek to connect with other environmental protection systems, such as the sewage licensing system, to achieve institutional development; at the same time, by strengthening industry self-regulation, the system should avoid falling into vicious path dependence.

Huang Linzhu. Environmental Impact Assessment System: Historical Institutional Analysis of Trail, Logic, and Evolutionary Dynamics. The Frontiers of Society, Science and Technology (2024), Vol. 6, Issue 4: 39-47. https://doi.org/10.25236/FSST.2024.060406.

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