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Politics & Government

The complicated relationship between Chinese Internet users and their government

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by David Herold

Chinese citizens are being encouraged by the government to engage and complain online. Is the Internet just a space to blow off steam, or is it really capable of ‘changing’ Chinese society, as many have assumed?

by David Herold

David: For our research, we surveyed postgraduate students from all over China who had come to Shanghai to study. We asked them five questions to which they provided mostly rather lengthy answers. Despite them being young university students and being very active online, their answers managed to surprise us. Notably, the young Chinese who took part in our research felt very ambiguous about the Internet and its supposed benefits for individual people in China. They appreciated the greater freedom the Internet offered when compared to offline China, but were very wary of others abusing this freedom to their detriment. Ed: In your paper you note that the opinions of many young people closely mirrored those of the government’s statements about the Internet—in what way? David: In 2010 the government published a White Paper on the Internet in China in which they argued that the main uses of the Internet were for obtaining information, and for communicating with others. In contrast to Euro-American discourses around the Internet as a ‘force for democracy,’ the students’ answers to our questions agreed with the evaluation of the government and did not see the Internet as a place to begin organising politically. The main reason for this—in my opinion—is that young Chinese are not used to discussing ‘politics’, and are mostly focused on pursuing the ‘Chinese dream’: good job, large flat or house, nice car, suitable spouse; usually in that order. Ed: The Chinese Internet has usually been discussed in the West as a ‘force for democracy’—leading to the inevitable relinquishing of control by the Chinese Communist Party. Is this viewpoint hopelessly naive? David: Not naive as such, but both deterministic and limited, as it assumes that the introduction of technology can only have one ‘built-in’ outcome, thus ignoring human agency, and as it pretends that the Chinese Communist Party does not use technology at all. Given the intense involvement of Party and government offices,…

Politics & Government

How are internal monitoring systems being used to tackle corruption in the Chinese public administration?

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by Jesper Schlæger

China has made concerted efforts to reduce corruption at the lowest levels of government, as a result of dissatisfaction from both the business communities and the general public.

by Jesper Schlæger

China has made concerted efforts to reduce corruption at the lowest levels of government. Image of the 18th National Congress of the CPC in the Great Hall of the People, Beijing, by: Bert van Dijk.

Ed: Investment by the Chinese government in internal monitoring systems has been substantial: what components make it up? Jesper: Two different information systems are currently in use. Within the government there is one system directed towards administrative case-processing. In addition to this, the Communist Party has its own monitoring system, which is less sophisticated in terms of real-time surveillance, but which has a deeper structure, as it collects and cross-references personal information about party-members working in the administration. These two systems parallel the existing institutional arrangements found in the dual structure consisting of the Discipline Inspection Commissions and the Bureaus of Supervision on different levels of government. As such, the e-monitoring system has particular ‘Chinese characteristics’, reflecting the bureaucracy’s Leninist heritage where Party-affairs and government-affairs are handled separately, applying different sets of rules. On the government’s e-monitoring platform the Bureau of Supervision (the closest we get to an Ombudsman function in the Chinese public administration) can collect data from several other data systems, such as the e-government systems of the individual bureaus involved in case processing; feeds from surveillance cameras in different government organisations; and even geographical data from satellites. The e-monitoring platform does not, however, afford scanning of information outside the government systems. For instance, social media are not part of the administration surveillance infrastructure. Ed: How centralised is it as a system? Is local or province-level monitoring of public officials linked up to the central government? Jesper: The architecture of the e-monitoring systems integrates the information flows to the provincial level, but not to the central level. One reason for this may be found by following the money. Funding for these systems mainly comes from local sources, and the construction was initially based on municipal-level systems supported by the provincial level. Hence, at the early stages the path towards individual local-level systems was the natural choice. A reason for why the build up was not initially envisioned to…

China has made concerted efforts to reduce corruption at the lowest levels of government. Image of the 18th National Congress of the CPC in the Great Hall of the People, Beijing, by: Bert van Dijk.

Politics & Government

Chinese Internet users share the same values concerning free speech, privacy, and control as their Western counterparts

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by Gillian Bolsover

Many people—even in China—see the Internet as a tool for free speech and as a place where you can expect a certain degree of privacy and anonymity.

by Gillian Bolsover

There are now over half a billion Internet users in China, part of a shift in the centre of gravity of Internet use away from the US and Europe. Image of Pudong International Airport, Shanghai, by ToGa Wanderings.

Ed: You recently presented your results at the OII’s China and the New Internet World ICA preconference. What were people most interested in? Gillian: A lot of people were interested in our finding that China was such a big online shopping market compared to other countries, with 60% of our survey respondents reporting that they make an online purchase at least weekly. That’s twice the world’s average. A lot of people who study the Chinese Internet talk about governance issues rather than commerce, but the fact that there is this massive investment in ecommerce in China and a rapid transition to a middle class lifestyle for such a large number of Chinese means that Chinese consumer behaviours will have a significant impact on global issues such as resource scarcity, global warming, and the global economy. Others were interested in our findings concerning Internet use in ’emerging’ Internet countries like China. The Internet’s development in Western Europe and the US was driven by people who saw the technology as a platform for freedom of expression and peer-to-peer applications. In China, you see this optimism but you also see that a lot of people coming online move straight to smart phones and other locked-down technologies like the iPad, which you can only interact with in a certain way. Eighty-six percent of our Chinese respondents reported that they owned a smart phone, which was the highest percentage of all of the 24 countries we examined individually. A lot of these people are using those devices to play games and watch movies, which is a very different initial exposure to the Internet than we saw in early adopting Western countries. Ed: So, a lot of significant differences between usages in emerging versus established Internet nations. Any similarities? Gillian: In general, we find that uses are different but values are similar. People in emerging nations share the same values concerning free speech, privacy, and control…

There are now over half a billion Internet users in China, part of a shift in the centre of gravity of Internet use away from the US and Europe. Image of Pudong International Airport, Shanghai, by ToGa Wanderings.

Politics & Government

Is China changing the Internet, or is the Internet changing China?

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by Bill Dutton

By 2015, the proportion of Chinese language Internet users is expected to exceed the proportion of English language users.

by Bill Dutton

The rising prominence of China is one of the most important developments shaping the Internet. Once typified primarily by Internet users in the US, there are now more Internet users in China than there are Americans on the planet. By 2015, the proportion of Chinese language Internet users is expected to exceed the proportion of English language users. These are just two aspects of a larger shift in the centre of gravity of Internet use, in which the major growth is increasingly taking place in Asia and the rapidly developing economies of the Global South, and the BRIC nations of Brazil, Russia, India—and China. The 2013 ICA Preconference “China and the New Internet World” (14 July 2013), organised by the OII in collaboration with many partners at collaborating universities, explored the issues raised by these developments, focusing on two main interrelated questions: how is the rise of China reshaping the global use and societal implications of the Internet? And in turn, how is China itself being reshaped by these regional and global developments? As China has become more powerful, much attention has been focused on the number of Internet users: China now represents the largest group of Internet users in the world, with over half a billion people online. But how the Internet is used is also important; this group doesn’t just include passive ‘users’, it also includes authors, bloggers, designers and architects—that is, people who shape and design values into the Internet. This input will undoubtedly affect the Internet going forward, as Chinese institutions take on a greater role in shaping the Internet, in terms of policy, such as around freedom of expression and privacy, and practice, such as social and commercial uses, like shopping online. Most discussion of the Internet tends to emphasise technological change and ignore many aspects of the social changes that accompany the Internet’s evolution, such as this dramatic global shift in the concentration of…

Collective Action, Politics & Government

Presenting the moral imperative: effective storytelling strategies by online campaigning organisations

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by Ariadne Vromen

Existing civil society focused organisations are also being challenged to fundamentally change their approach, to move political tactics and communications online, and to grow their member lists.

by Ariadne Vromen

Online campaigning organisations are on the rise. They have captured the imagination of citizens and scholars alike with their ability to use rapid response tactics to engage with public policy debate and mobilise citizens. Early on Andrew Chadwick (2007) labeled these new campaign organisations as ‘hybrids’: using both online and offline political action strategies, as well as intentionally switching repertoires to sometimes act like a mass mobilisation social movement, and other times like an insider interest group. These online campaigning organisations run multi-issue agendas, are geographically decentralised, and run sophisticated media strategies. The best known of these are MoveOn in the US, internationally focused Avaaz, and GetUp! in Australia. However, new online campaigning organisations are emerging all the time that more often than not have direct lineage through former staff and similar tactics to this first wave. These newer organisations include the UK-based 38 Degrees, SumOfUs that works on consumer issues to hold corporations accountable, and Change.Org, a for-profit organisation that hosts and develops petitions for grassroots groups. Existing civil society focused organisations are also being challenged to fundamentally change their approach, to move political tactics and communications online, and to grow their member lists. David Karpf (2012) has branded this “MoveOn Effect”, where the success of online campaigning organisations like MoveOn has fundamentally changed and disrupted the advocacy organisation scene. But how has this shift occurred? How have these new organisations succeeded in being both innovative and politically successful? One increasingly common answer is to focus on how they have developed low threshold online tactics where the risk to participants is reduced. This includes issue and campaign specific online petitions, letter writing, emails, donating money, and boycotts. The other answer is to focus more closely on the discursive tactics these organisations use in their campaigns, based on a shared commitment to a storytelling strategy, and the practical realisation of a ‘theory of change.’ That is, to ask how campaigns…

Collective Action, Methods, Politics & Government

Investigating the structure and connectivity of online global protest networks

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by Sandra Gonzalez-Bailon

The new networks of political protest, which harness these new online technologies are often described in theoretical terms as being ‘fluid’ and ‘horizontal’, in contrast to the rigid and hierarchical structure of earlier protest organisation.

by Sandra Gonzalez-Bailon

How have online technologies reconfigured collective action? It is often assumed that the rise of social networking tools, accompanied by the mass adoption of mobile devices, have strengthened the impact and broadened the reach of today’s political protests. Enabling massive self-communication allows protesters to write their own interpretation of events—free from a mass media often seen as adversarial—and emerging protests may also benefit from the cheaper, faster transmission of information and more effective mobilisation made possible by online tools such as Twitter. The new networks of political protest, which harness these new online technologies are often described in theoretical terms as being ‘fluid’ and ‘horizontal’, in contrast to the rigid and hierarchical structure of earlier protest organisation. Yet such theoretical assumptions have seldom been tested empirically. This new language of networks may be useful as a shorthand to describe protest dynamics, but does it accurately reflect how protest networks mediate communication and coordinate support? The global protests against austerity and inequality which took place on May 12, 2012 provide an interesting case study to test the structure and strength of a transnational online protest movement. The ‘indignados’ movement emerged as a response to the Spanish government’s politics of austerity in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. The movement flared in May 2011, when hundreds of thousands of protesters marched in Spanish cities, and many set up camps ahead of municipal elections a week later. These protests contributed to the emergence of the worldwide Occupy movement. After the original plan to occupy New York City’s financial district mobilised thousands of protesters in September 2011, the movement spread to other cities in the US and worldwide, including London and Frankfurt, before winding down as the camp sites were dismantled weeks later. Interest in these movements was revived, however, as the first anniversary of the ‘indignados’ protests approached in May 2012. To test whether the fluidity, horizontality and connectivity often claimed for…

Methods, Politics & Government

How accessible are online legislative data archives to political scientists?

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by David Leal 1 Comment on How accessible are online legislative data archives to political scientists?

Government agencies are rarely completely transparent, often do not provide clear instructions for accessing the information they store, seldom use standardised norms, and can overlook user needs.

by David Leal 1 Comment on How accessible are online legislative data archives to political scientists?

A view inside the House chamber of the Utah State Legislature. Image by deltaMike.

Public demands for transparency in the political process have long been a central feature of American democracy, and recent technological improvements have considerably facilitated the ability of state governments to respond to such public pressures. With online legislative archives, state legislatures can make available a large number of public documents. In addition to meeting the demands of interest groups, activists, and the public at large, these websites enable researchers to conduct single-state studies, cross-state comparisons, and longitudinal analysis. While online legislative archives are, in theory, rich sources of information that save researchers valuable time as they gather data across the states, in practice, government agencies are rarely completely transparent, often do not provide clear instructions for accessing the information they store, seldom use standardised norms, and can overlook user needs. These obstacles to state politics research are longstanding: Malcolm Jewell noted almost three decades ago the need for “a much more comprehensive and systematic collection and analysis of comparative state political data.” While the growing availability of online legislative resources helps to address the first problem of collection, the limitations of search and retrieval functions remind us that the latter remains a challenge. The fifty state legislative websites are quite different; few of them are intuitive or adequately transparent, and there is no standardised or systematic process to retrieve data. For many states, it is not possible to identify issue-specific bills that are introduced and/or passed during a specific period of time, let alone the sponsors or committees, without reading the full text of each bill. For researchers who are interested in certain time periods, policy areas, committees, or sponsors, the inability to set filters or immediately see relevant results limits their ability to efficiently collect data. Frustrated by the obstacles we faced in undertaking a study of state-level immigration legislation before and after September 11, 2001, we decided to instead  evaluate each state legislative website—a “state of the states” analysis—to…

A view inside the House chamber of the Utah State Legislature. Image by deltaMike.

Collective Action, Politics & Government

Why do (some) political protest mobilisations succeed?

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by Sandra Gonzalez-Bailon

Mobilisation paths are difficult to predict because they depend on the right alignment of conditions on different levels.

by Sandra Gonzalez-Bailon

The communication technologies once used by rebels and protesters to gain global visibility now look burdensome and dated: much separates the once-futuristic-looking image of Subcomandante Marcos posing in the Chiapas jungle draped in electronic gear (1994) from the uprisings of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. While the only practical platform for amplifying a message was once provided by organisations, the rise of the Internet means that cross-national networks are now reachable by individuals—who are able to bypass organisations, ditch membership dues, and embrace self-organisation. As social media and mobile applications increasingly blur the distinction between public and private, ordinary citizens are becoming crucial nodes in the contemporary protest network. The personal networks that are the main channels of information flow in sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn mean that we don’t need to actively seek out particular information; it can be served to us with no more effort than that of maintaining a connection with our contacts. News, opinions, and calls for justice are now shared and forwarded by our friends—and their friends—in a constant churn of information, all attached to familiar names and faces. Given we are more likely to pass on information if the source belongs to our social circle, this has had an important impact on the information environment within which protest movements are initiated and develop. Mobile connectivity is also important for understanding contemporary protest, given that the ubiquitous streams of synchronous information we access anywhere are shortening our reaction times. This is important, as the evolution of mass recruitments—whether they result in flash mobilisations, slow burns, or simply damp squibs—can only be properly understood if we have a handle on the distribution of reaction times within a population. The increasing integration of the mainstream media into our personal networks is also important, given that online networks (and independent platforms like Indymedia) are not the clear-cut alternative to corporate media they once were. We can now…

Collective Action, Politics & Government

Online collective action and policy change: shifting contentious politics in policy processes

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by Andrea Calderaro

The Internet can facilitate the involvement of social movements in policymaking processes, but also constitute in itself the object of contentious politics.

by Andrea Calderaro

Research has disproved the notion held by political elites—and some researchers—that collective action resides outside of policy-making processes, and is limited in generating a response from government. The Internet can facilitate the involvement of social movements in policymaking processes, but also constitute in itself the object of contentious politics. Most research on online mobilisations focuses on the Internet as a tool for campaigning and for challenging decision-makers at the national and international level. Meanwhile, less attention is paid on the fact that the Internet has raised new issues for the policy making agenda around which activists are mobilising, such as issues related to internet governance, online freedom of expression, digital privacy or copyright. Contemporary social movements serve as indicators of new core challenges within society, and can thus constitute an enriching resource for the policy debate arena, particularly with regards to the urgent issues raised by the fast development of the Internet. The literature on social movements is rich in examples of campaigns that have successfully influenced public policy. Classic works have proved how major reforms can start as a consequence of civic mobilisations, and the history provides evidence of the influence of collective action within policy debates on environmental, national security, and peace issues. However, as mentioned above and argued by Giugni (2004), social movement research has traditionally paid more attention to the process rather than the outcomes of mobilisations. The difficulty of identifying the consequences of collective action and the factors that contribute to its success may lie behind this tendency. As Gamson (1975) argues, the notion of success is elusive and can be most usefully defined with reference to a set of outcomes; these may include the new advantages gained by the group’s beneficiaries after a challenge with targets, or they may refer to the status of the challenging group and its legitimacy. As for the factors determining success, some scholars believe that collective action is likely to…

Collective Action, Politics & Government, Publications

Online collective action and policy change: new special issue from Policy and Internet

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by Anastasia Kavada

The internet has provided citizens with a greater capacity for coordination and mobilisation, which can strengthen their voice and representation in the policy agenda.

by Anastasia Kavada

The Internet has multiplied the platforms available to influence public opinion and policy making. It has also provided citizens with a greater capacity for coordination and mobilisation, which can strengthen their voice and representation in the policy agenda. As waves of protest sweep both authoritarian regimes and liberal democracies, this rapidly developing field calls for more detailed enquiry. However, research exploring the relationship between online mobilisation and policy change is still limited. This special issue of ‘Policy and Internet’ addresses this gap through a variety of perspectives. Contributions to this issue view the Internet both as a tool that allows citizens to influence policy making, and as an object of new policies and regulations, such as data retention, privacy, and copyright laws, around which citizens are mobilising. Together, these articles offer a comprehensive empirical account of the interface between online collective action and policy making. Within this framework, the first article in this issue, “Networked Collective Action and the Institutionalized Policy Debate: Bringing Cyberactivism to the Policy Arena?” by Stefania Milan and Arne Hintz (2013), looks at the Internet as both a tool of collective action and an object of policy. The authors provide a comprehensive overview of how computer-mediated communication creates not only new forms of organisational structure for collective action, but also new contentious policy fields. By focusing on what the authors define as ‘techie activists,’ Milan and Hintz explore how new grassroots actors participate in policy debates around the governance of the Internet at different levels. This article provides empirical evidence to what Kriesi et al. (1995) defines as “windows of opportunities” for collective action to contribute to the policy debate around this new space of contentious politics. Milan and Hintz demonstrate how this has happened from the first World Summit of Information Society (WSIS) in 2003 to more recent debates about Internet regulation. Yana Breindl and François Briatte’s (2013) article “Digital Protest Skills and Online Activism Against…

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