Comparing Smart Governance Projects in China: A Contextual Approach

Abstract

Smart governance has been increasingly gaining momentum to deal with the challenges of fast urbanization in China. However, only limited English literature is available to enhance our understanding of Chinese smart governance. In this chapter, special emphasis is put on our transformative understanding of smart governance in China by identifying the impacts of urban context on smart governance arrangements from an urban planning perspective. As such, we concentrate on smart governance projects in different Chinese cities, foremost based on Chinese literature. We aim to investigate: (1) what smart governance means in Chinese urban planning settings, and (2) how urban context influences the smart governance projects in different Chinese cities. On the basis of an intensive review of Chinese literature on smart governance, we find that smart governance in China varies significantly. Therein, we can identify four types of smart governance in China, including: (1) constructing a pilot area, (2) improving government performance, (3) building trust in government, and (4) encouraging innovation. A comparative exploration of four Chinese projects representing these four types of smart governance shows that the urban context affects the interaction between technology and urban actors. Moreover, it shows that this interaction has a feedback effect on the urban context itself. From this we can conclude that knowledge on the urban context is vital to understand the expected outcomes of intended smart governance arrangements.

Avoiding the planning support system pitfalls? What smart governance can learn from the planning support system implementation gap

“…Rather than allowing for urban cybernetics, local innovation and stakeholder participation are badly needed in handling wicked problems (Goodspeed, 2015). As some authors urge, a socio-technical approach to smart governance is needed in practice (Jiang et al, 2019a(Jiang et al, , 2019bMeijer and Bol ıvar, 2016). Given that this discussion of and focus on the socio-technical development has been going on for a long time within the earlier-mentioned debate on the PSS implementation gap, we now turn to that field of research.…”

“…Another criticism is that smart cities are promoting a set of uniform technological solutions for city problems worldwide while grossly neglecting the particularities of the local socio-political processes (Verrest and Pfeffer, 2019). As a consequence, in academic literature, scepticism arises about how smart cities are planned, who plans them and for whom they are planned (Hollands, 2015;Jiang et al, 2019a;Kitchin, 2019;Sennett, 2012). As Barns (2018) argues:…”

“…However, in practice, no straightforward relationship between technological innovation and improved governance processes and/or outcomes has been shown. According to some authors, while the widespread use of ICTs ranging from urban data analytics to mobile media, the internet and information management systems provides governmental organisations or ordinary people with even greater convenience, this well-funded private-led approach with a focus on technological supply often results in a failure to account for the mundane demands of citizens (Goldsmith and Crawford, 2014), discrimination against 'non-smart' people (Vanolo, 2014) or the prioritisation of ICT infrastructure over other imminent needs on the policy agenda (Jiang et al, 2019a).…”

Smart urban governance: an alternative to technocratic “smartness”

“…The previous subsections show that smart urban governance should start from urban challenges and be attuned to the wider group of involved urban actors. As for the role of technology in smart urban governance, it means that technological innovation should satisfy the real needs of the actors within governance practices to be able to deal with pressing urban challenges (Jiang et al 2019a , 2020a , b ; Meijer and Thaens 2018 ).…”

“…Therefore, many authors urge that more transformative and sociotechnical governance approaches are needed to transform the current form of smart governance (Jiang et al 2019a , b ; Dano et al 2019 ; Joss et al 2019 ; Webster and Leleux 2018 ; Ruhlandt 2018 ). For instance, Meijer and Bolívar ( 2016 ) argue that smart governance should promote new forms of human collaboration through the use of ICTs to obtain better outcomes and more open governance processes.…”