Does Self-Legitimacy Mediate the Link between Technology Utilization and External Procedural Injustice in Chinese Policing

• In Event: Procedural Justice, Media, and Technology in Chinese Policing (Sponsored by Division of Policing)

Abstract

In the contemporary digital landscape, the pervasive adoption of digital technologies, encompassing big data, artificial intelligence, and the Internet, has engendered notable enhancements in policing effectiveness alongside difficulty. Previous research indicates that technology efficacy positively impacts policing, while technological difficulty has negative impact. However, there remains a gap in the literature concerning the correlation between technology efficacy/difficulty and external procedural injustice and the mediating role that self-perceived, along with public-defined legitimacy, can play in that correlation. Relying on survey data collected from Chinese police officers, our structural equation modeling analysis results show that technology efficacy has negative total and direct effects on external procedural injustice. In addition, it exerts a negative, indirect effect on external injustice through self-legitimacy. Technology efficacy helps increase perception of self-legitimacy, which in turn lowers external injustice. In contrast, public defined legitimacy has a direct, positive effect on external injustice, and it also plays a positive linking mechanism between technology efficacy and external procedural injustice. Technology efficacy relates higher perceived public-defined legitimacy, which further connects to higher external injustice. Technology difficulty, meanwhile, has positive total and direct effects on external procedural injustice, and a negative effect on external procedural injustice through lowered public-defined legitimacy.

Authors

• Yunan Chen, Beijing Foreign Studies University

• Yuning Wu, Wayne State University