e-Participation in Government Decision-Making in China (ITA-manu:script 12-01)

With the supreme political authority’s endorsement, an e-participation movement, namely “online enquiry politics” is developing vigorously in China. Among the variety of local e-participation experimental practices in China, the study deals with the Guangdong e-participation system as a microcosm of this regime in China to explore what actually happens in e-participation practices and its dynamics. This system has developed an advanced online e-participation platform and a suite of official supporting mechanisms, e.g. the cyber-spokesman and the assignment conference. These mechanisms organically integrate the system’s functions of voice, replies and handling. Citizens on this system do take full advantage of the flexibility and anonymity of the Internet to enjoy a free low-risk space. Besides the immediate functions above, e-participation fosters policy debate, plays a supervisory role for government agencies, and creates a variety of ad hoc virtual communities focusing on specific policy-making issues. As the state has to increasingly adopt a series of soft and proactive adaptive strategies to make the Internet serve its purpose, e-participation has a special survival status in China.