From data silos to data pools : data integration challenges in China's smart cities

Abstract

Data silos in the government bureaucracy are traditionally associated with political structures that keep power decentralized and promote internal competition, but are they also present in highly centralized regimes like China? The applications of E- governance and mass surveillance under the Xi era have created a vast amount of public data belonging to various functional departments. This dissertation uses the Data Management Bureau (DMB) as a vehicle to understand how China’s local governments try to tackle data silos across the bureaucratic organizations and develop their smart city strategies. In particular, it seeks to examine the roles of public and private stakeholders in digital governance practices and public service delivery in China from the perspective of collaborative governance.

The first empirical chapter analyzes two different mechanisms of data integration drawing on extensive field research across eastern and southern China conducted between 2022 and 2023. The collaboration among local government agencies, private and state-owned high-tech companies, research institutes, and civil society has been achieved through large-scale digitalization projects in the past decades. While identifying both technical and political barriers to efficient data integration, this study also investigates local governments’ relentless attempts to strengthen centralized control from the top down by expanding collaborative governance theory in an authoritarian context. The increasing tension embedded in the ‘tiao- kuai’ system requires policy innovation for inter-agency collaborations.

Then the second chapter explores the organizational configurations of Data Management Bureau. Why does data integration become a political issue for Chinese local governments? How can the government agencies benefit from the prospective data pool? This study collects empirical data from a national petition forum which serves as a platform for citizens to communicate with local government agencies. Employing content analysis and difference-in-differences design, the findings reveal that Data Management Bureau can reduce the growth of petitions on government through data sharing and predictive responsiveness.

Overall, this dissertation contributes to our understanding of digital governance in authoritarian regimes with a focus on data integration. By leveraging campaign- style enforcement and institutional reform, a new vertical functional department has been established to manage public data and implement smart city strategies. It also adds to the literature on collaborative governance by introducing the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in collective decision-making. Furthermore, it helps us to unpack the dynamics of the Chinese government’s digitalization process and understand how local governments utilize ICT to improve responsiveness and realize a new form of ‘networked authoritarianism’ while maintaining the social order.