E-Government in China: Keeping Up with the Joneses?

This paper discusses the development of e-government in the People's Republic of China (PRC). The paper conceptualizes a political economy framework for evaluating the development of e-government in the PRC by integrating socio-economic approaches for the study of state in terms of maximizing s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of e-government 2006-07, Vol.2 (4), p.15-38
Main Authors: Lau, Tuen-Yu, Fung, Anthony, Ji, Michael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
China
Civil Society
E-Government
Government
Internet
Peoples Republic of China
Political Development
Political Economy
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Summary:This paper discusses the development of e-government in the People's Republic of China (PRC). The paper conceptualizes a political economy framework for evaluating the development of e-government in the PRC by integrating socio-economic approaches for the study of state in terms of maximizing service quality and enhancing economy and cost-efficiency, as well as using a model of democracy which sees political deliberation and participation as the potential for the development of a civic society. It argues that while researchers actually aim at capturing a picture of politico-economic development of the states through a close examination of their digital arms, e-governments, their frameworks to examine the latter, are out of the political or economic focus: that is, these conceptual frameworks are simply a mismatch to what they would like to explicate. With a new model applied to the PRC's e-government of the central authorities, we find out that the PRC's e-government is highly tinted toward a service model, and if any political function that a certain e-government of a certain bureau has to carry out, it is an ideological propaganda or its equivalence.
ISSN:1542-4049
DOI:10.1300/J399v02n04_03