| By: |
Nele Noesselt (GIGA Institute of Asian Studies) |
| Abstract: |
This paper reflects the adaptation and transformation of the Chinese
party-state’s governing strategy in the digital era. Through a discourse
analysis of the current Chinese debate on the role of microblogs in China, it
argues that China’s political elites have revised their social management
strategy. They now tend to base their political decision-making on strategic
calculations that reflect online public opinion in order to increase the
system’s efficiency and to generate a new kind of performance-based
legitimacy. This turn to a more responsive mode of governance has been driven
by the findings of Internet surveys and reports provided by Chinese research
institutes and advisory bodies. A close reading of these documents and reports
helps to answer the question of why authoritarian states such as China do not
prohibit the spread of new communication technologies, even though these are
said to have triggered or at least facilitated the rebellions of the Arab
Spring. |
| Keywords: |
governance in China, e-government, e-governance, deliberation |
| Date: |
2013–02 |
| URL: |
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gig:wpaper:214&r=ict |