| Over the last decade,with the widespread popularity of Internet by the public and the rapid development of the digital government,the Chinese government has developed a variety of online platforms for the public to submit appeals online.Netizens are allowed to log in these platforms to submit complaints,suggestions,inquiries,or to seek help from the government.Since 2016,the central government has required the government at all levels and agencies to make concerted efforts to be connected to the public through the Internet.Following the policy,local authorities have released or updated their working mechanism of online platforms,and the increasing online platforms have led to the opulence of online appeals.For example,the Leadership Message Board of People's Daily received appropriately 150,000 appeals in 2015,which,however,doubled in the first half year of 2020.Similarly,the Qingdao Mayor's mailbox received more than 90,000 emails in 2019 while it was appropriately 40,000 in 2015.These online interactions between the public and the government serve as ideal,tangible records for probing into contemporary state-society relations.The objective of the dissertation is to investigate the detailed patterns of online citizen appeals and interactions,as well as influencing factors,instead of superficial descriptive analysis only.This dissertation focuses on four dimensions of online appeals,namely the scale pattern,channel preference,publicity of the contents,and the evaluation of the government' s response to these appeals.In depth,scale refers to the size of online citizen appeals in a region;channel preference represents the channels preferred by citizens to submit the appeals;publicity indicates whether a citizen's appeals are publicly available to others,while evaluation implies a citizen's degree of satisfaction with the government's response to the said appeals.These four dimensions closely relate to political trust,information collection,information disclosure,and political support,therefore this study uses these dimensions to explore the contemporary state-society relations.Furthermore,political factors like the willingness,motivation,and capacity of government and officials,technological factors such as the development and application of information and communication technologies,and issue factors such as the specific topic and objective contents of the appeals,are included as potential influencing factors.Therefore,in this dissertation,the mechanisms of public appeals in the four dimensions are analyzed on the basis of three clusters of factors,and the three clusters of variables referred as political logic,technological logic,and issue logic,respectively.Digital trace data of online appeals from Leadership Message Board and Qingdao Government Mailbox,combined with a national survey,Chinese City Statistical Yearbook,Baidu Index,and Government Hotline Assessment,were collected for a comprehensive analysis.Regression analysis and Structural Topic Models were conducted as data analysis strategies,with the findings displayed as follows:(1)The scale pattern of online citizen appeals in prefecture-level cities is affected by political,technological,and issue factors.A higher degree of the public's perception of the local government's responsiveness is followed by a larger scale in prefecture-level cities.Regarding technology,technological factors play an indirect role in moderating the connections between political factors and appeals scale.In terms of issue factors,a worse local environmental situation due to pollution is correlated with a more prominent environmental protection and then to a larger scale of appeals.(2)Channel preference is directly influenced by technological factors.The popularity of mobile phones and applications has led to the public's preference for mobile online channels rather than the desktop-based internet.Moreover,easier to be the netizens who use mobile phones to access the Internet,rural residents depend more on mobile Internet channels.(3)Publicity is primarily affected by issue factors.The appeal-makers are more likely to make an issue public knowledge if it has a higher degree of commonality.In this study,the commonality of an appeal is assessed in three ways,namely,its type,domain,and the object of complaint.Concerning types,appeals of suggestions and complaints are easier to be publicly available than those aiming at seeking consultations or help.Regarding domains,compared with topics about personnel management,family planning,and labor security,appeals to transportation,public utilities,and urban management,are more likely to be publicized.In terms of complaints object,it is more likely for complaints about government agencies to be publicized than those regarding to a specific individual official.(4)Citizens' evaluations of the government's response to these appeals are primarily influenced by political factors.Regarding response speed,the faster the government responds,the more likely the citizens will be satisfied.Regarding response mode,citizens are easier to be satisfied when governments respond with concrete actions.This dissertation can make new contributions to current knowledge on citizen input institutions,cyber-governance capacity,digital governance,and responsiveness politics.First,it facilitates the understanding of the Chinese government' s strategy and response mechanism to maintain political stability within the Internet era and cyberspace.The state-initiated online appeal platforms are convenient for the public to engage in daily political processes.Second,this dissertation facilitates current understanding of how the Chinese government applies information technology to governance effectively in the Internet era.Represented by the Internet,Information Communication Technologies(ICTs)were initially seen as liberating technologies;however,it is possible for the state to mobilize orderly political participation to enhance political stability via the Internet,thus making the Internet a consolidation technology.The state is increasingly able to tame the Internet,and has developed strong cyber capabilities,with daily politics of "orderly participation through the Internet" a conspicuous example of how the state exerts such power.Third,it facilitates the understanding of the states' conditions and processes of information collection.A huge chunk of information is required for the state to achieve good governance,the public's sustained feedback to the government is the most important source of governance information.More importantly,information carried by citizen appeals helps the state in public policy-making,supervising lower-level governments,assessing social conditions and public opinions.Finally,it contributes to the understanding of the current transition from contentious politics to responsiveness politics.In detail,contentious politics implies that citizens' demand,if not able to be expressed through institutionalized channels,are bound to erupt in disruptive forms,whose solution is a shift to responsiveness politics.Thus,this dissertation includes government responsiveness to examine online citizen appeals,consistent with the current transition from contentious politics to responsiveness politics,thus providing constructive suggestions for the foundation of a responsive governmentOverall,this dissertation can enrich current knowledge innovatively from four aspects.First,it develops an integrated theoretical framework including the political,technological and issues factors,to understand the online citizen appeals from the perspective of state-society relations.Second,it provides valuable lessons and practice implications for cyberspace governance and responsive government building.Finally,it makes methodology contributions to future public administration studies by integrating the online big data with the traditional statistical data,and the developments of data analysis strategies. |
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