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Digital Technology in Rural Governance: the Governance Paradox and Adaptive Pathways

Author(s)

Xiaorong Gong

Affiliation(s)

University of Jinan, Jinan, China

Abstract

The rapid diffusion of digital technology into rural governance has become a central component of digital rural development and grassroots governance modernization in China. Government service platforms, village WeChat groups, grid-based management systems, the 12345 Government Service Hotline, mini-programs, and data platforms can improve information transmission, public service delivery, citizen voice, and administrative oversight. Yet the same technologies may also generate digital exclusion, data-driven formalism, grassroots administrative burden, platform fragmentation, and relational detachment. This article calls this built-in conflict a governance paradox. While digital tools can help boost how well governance works, at the same time they also bring new administrative problems and cost more to run. This study uses China's scholarship programs, its national policy papers, and also international research about the digital divide, the extra work that administration has to do, and digital government, to build a four-part analysis framework. It centers on technical common sense, what people who work in the system can do, how different organizations work together, and how well things fit into the existing institutional environment. This analysis shows that negative results caused by digitalisation do not come from technology itself. Actually, these problems come up when digital systems are put into place within existing administrative incentive setups, organizational borders, and many different kinds of rural social environments. To make these governance conflicts less of a problem, the paper pushes for a governance strategy that puts people first and adapts to local needs. This strategy brings online and offline service delivery channels together, helps villagers and local grassroots workers build up their digital skills, cuts down on unnecessary reporting work, stops platforms from expanding without checks, makes data sharing rules and accountability methods work better, and ties digital infrastructure back to local rural governance practices that are rooted in the community. This study does not just use the too-simple split judgement that you have either digital empowerment or digital burden. It connects the repeated problems in governance to how these problems might come about, and also looks at the matching institutional changes that can help fix these issues.

Keywords

Digital Technology; Rural Governance; Digital Rural Development; Governance Paradox; Digital Divide

References

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