legislation functions and is complied with. It has ten Chinese PhD candidates at the moment, some of them with a scholarship from the China Scholarship Council “They come from the London School of Economics, Harvard, and King’s College,” says Professor Van Rooij. “I apply very strict selection criteria and I scout out talented researchers when they are still doing their Master’s degree.” The NCLC is located in the heart of the old part of Amsterdam, but the atmosphere is decidedly Chinese, with photos on the walls and souvenirs on the desks. When they drink tea, it’s in the proper Chinese manner: loose green leaves directly in the cup. But Professor Van Rooij is not just a sinophile. “For me,” he says, “China is above all an extremely interesting case study. I find large countries and large systems fascinating. Legal theory about compliance with legislation comes from the WEIRD countries – Western Educated Industrialized Rich and Developed – but much of the world is very different to those countries. In emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil, regulation is crucial in order to make risks manageable.” Conceptual framework Together with Chinese researchers, Professor Van Rooij is studying enforcement and compliance in relation to environmental, work, food safety, and tax rules. In recent years – partly with CO-REACH funding – they have studied cases involving farmers and pesticide use, occupational safety in the building industry, and lawyers and the payment of taxes. PhD and Master’s degree students accompanied labour and food inspectors in both China and the Netherlands. Research was also carried out in the field, including in a Chinese village, the site of a large factory, which was suffering environmental damage. Rather than pressing for prevention, the local residents were satisfied receiving financial compensation for the damage they had sustained. “You zoom out from actual practice to a conceptual framework,” says Professor Van Rooij. “We are examining at the fundamental level whether people respect the law. It turns out that it is not the government or social norms that determine things, as is often thought, but the market, the customers, and the organisational culture.”
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