From Bulletin Boards to Big Data

Author(s)

Christian Göbel, Jie Li

Abstract

Why do Chinese governments at various levels set up public complaint websites where citizen petitions and government responses can be reviewed by the general public? We argue that it is the result of two factors: strong signals sent by the central government to improve governance, and the availability of new technologies to promote policy innovation. To impress their superiors, local officials adopted newly available commercial technology to innovate existing citizen feedback systems, which presented a developmental trajectory from “openness,” “integration,” to “big data-driven prediction.” Drawing on policy documents and interviews with local politicians and administrators, we provide a chronological perspective of how technical development, central government’s signals and local decision-making have interacted in the past two decades to bring forth today’s public complaint websites. The contingent and non-teleological nature of this development can also be applied to other policies such as the social credit system.

Organisation(s)

Department of East Asian Studies

External organisation(s)

Universität Wien

Journal

China aktuell - Journal of Current Chinese Affairs

Volume

50

Pages

39-62

No. of pages

24

ISSN

1868-1026

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1177/1868102621992144

Publication date

04-2020

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

506002 E-government

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Economics, Econometrics and Finance(all), Political Science and International Relations, Sociology and Political Science

Portal url

https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/from-bulletin-boards-to-big-data(e1ba5ba1-9057-43ee-a3de-05ae01510605).html