Poster #120 - Seeing Like a Sensor: Subnational Variations in Environmental Responsiveness Within the Surveillance Halo

• In Event: Friday Poster Reception

Abstract

Centralized systems increasingly rely on top-down monitoring infrastructure to standardize local policy implementation and enforce compliance. However, does centralized surveillance effectively eliminate subnational variations, or does it merely displace them geographically? This paper engages with the critical need to measure local policy variations and their impacts on citizen well-being by examining whether transparency and monitoring reforms lead to uniform improvements in government responsiveness, or if they generate spatially selective patterns of administrative attention.Focusing on the tension between centralized mandates and local implementation discretion, we examine China’s nationwide Auto-Monitoring Stations (AMS) program-a system requiring real-time environmental data transmission to the central government with limited spatial coverage. To measure this state-level variation in policy impact, we apply a multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) design using a large-scale, high-resolution dataset spanning 16 years (2008-2023). By compiling millions of geocoded online public appeals and AMS site locations, we systematically unpack the spatial heterogeneity of local government responsiveness, assessing the breadth, speed, and substantive quality of problem-solving.Results reveal a pronounced, visibility-centered halo effect that creates sharp sub-jurisdictional policy variations. After AMS activation, environmental complaints located within a 0-4 km radius of a station are significantly more likely to be addressed, and resolved faster, than comparable grievances just outside the halo. This gap is not merely performative: high-visibility areas experience larger increases in institutionalized responses that feature specific responsible units, concrete actions, and time-bound commitments, alongside enhanced cross-sector coordination. Furthermore, these spatial disparities in responsiveness widen during periods of intense vertical scrutiny, such as central environmental inspections.These findings offer a novel comparative perspective on subnational policy variation. We demonstrate that in the digital monitoring era, local policy variations are driven not only by political ideology or capacity, but by the strategic allocation of state resources to areas where performance is most visible to the central government. By showing how metric-driven accountability can inadvertently produce micro-level inequities in citizen well-being, this study underscores the limitations of fixed-sensor surveillance. To mitigate these spatial blind spots, policymakers should move beyond fixed sensors by integrating mobile monitoring and random audits, while incorporating spatial equity as a core criterion in performance evaluation.

Author

• YIQI TANG, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics
  Presenting Author