Automating Governance in China?

This book is due to be released in May 2025, now available to backorder.

This book considers the interplay between the affordances of technologies, the experiences and processes of technological systems, and the process of learning and adaptation by state actors as part of governance reform in China. It offers detailed studies of specific projects and applications that are automated or quasi-automated in organising and governing social, economic, and cultural lives in the world’s largest techno-authoritarian regime. Written by scholars from six countries across four continents, case studies illustrate new modes of digital governance employed by the Chinese government, as it interacts and collaborates with technology companies, ordinary citizens, and other key stakeholders. They offer new insights on the deployment of automated decision-making in authoritarian governance, and on its application and implementation in real-life scenarios. In a broader sense, the book contributes to global debates about the integration of decision-making technologies in governmental practices.

Haiqing Yu is a Professor of Media and Communication and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow at RMIT University, Australia. She is a critical media studies scholar with expertise on Chinese digital media, technologies and cultures, with a focus on their sociopolitical impacts in China, Australia and the Asia Pacific.

Rogier Creemers is an Associate Professor in the Law and Governance of China at Leiden University. His research investigates China’s domestic technology policies, as well as China’s participation in global cyber affairs. He is a founding member of DigiChina, a project run in cooperation with New America, as well as a frequent contributor to international news media.