From Bulletin Boards to Big Data

Autor(en)

Christian Göbel, Jie Li

Abstrakt

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(en)

Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften

Journal

China aktuell - Journal of Current Chinese Affairs

Band

50

Seiten

39-62

Anzahl der Seiten

24

ISSN

1868-1026

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1177/1868102621992144

Publikationsdatum

04-2020

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

506002 E-Government

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

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

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/e1ba5ba1-9057-43ee-a3de-05ae01510605