Online Civic Participation and Governance in China

• In Event: Governing Civic Engagement in China

Abstract

The expansion of Internet in recent years gives birth to virtual civil society, which plays increasing role in advocating public issues and organizing civic participation in different areas. Such participation could help the government to resolve the problem of information shortage and supervision difficulty, but also challenges the hierarchical structure of “maintaining stability”. In this study, I will analyze three cases, online anti-corruption, children kidnaps and free school lunch, to discuss how governments respond to expanding online civic participation related to different issues and how such participation would change the existing hierarchical governance structure.

The study finds in different areas and issues, the governments may have different responses to online civic participation. While some participation may be restricted or even banned, some may be encouraged and even state-society cooperation established. The types of official response and state-society relationship are mainly decided by two factors: is the issue politically sensitive? And does the online civil society have autonomous action force in the area? So we get a theoretical framework similar to the 4C framework in NGO theory: cooperation, co-optation, complementarity or confrontation.

Author

• Jun Yin, National Sun Yat-Sen University