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The Techno-cadre’s Dream

Administrative Reform by Electronic Governance in China Today?

Department of East Asian Languages, Lund University, Sweden

In this article the views and agenda of China’s techno-cadres, that is, the top-level advisors planning and implementing e-government projects, are scrutinized. Their goals for Chinese e-government not only focus on electronic service delivery to business—the ambition is to make the authoritarian governing process less opaque to citizens. Just as the former Premier Zhu Rongji used the WTO agreement to push overall reform, reform-minded techno-cadres utilize the expansion of e-government to further promote zaizao, that is, the restructuring to a more effective bureaucracy and a more transparent governance process. Nevertheless, China’s electronic government projects at various levels are still driven by a top-down approach and consequently electronic services are not helping Chinese people to hold government accountable. In the short run, the government seems more likely to be a winner than the Chinese population in the introduction of e-government projects. The documents analyzed in this article show that there are limits that even the techno-cadres do not wish to, and cannot, transcend.

Key Words: e-government • transparency • political culture • accountability • political reform • good governance

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China Information, Vol. 19, No. 2, 189-216 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0920203X05054681


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This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Lagerkvist, J. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?