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Chinese society has been thoroughly transformed by digital tools, which private companies have developed for people to shop, chat, entertain themselves. The central and local governments have tried to keep up to date. Jesper Schlaeger explains the intricacies of Chinese eGovernment. Jesper Schlaege is a Specially Appointed Researcher in Sichuan University. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Copenhagen in 2012 and has postdoctoral experience from Lund University. His main field of research is Chinese public administration with current projects covering eGovernment, innovation management, and sustainability governance. He is also a Section Editor on the open-access journal Chinese Public Administration Review (cpar.net). Books & Ideas: Have digital technologies been mobilized during the Covid-19 outbreak? What are your observations and analyses of their efficiency and limits? What lessons can be drawn for other countries?

On parle politique aussi dans les régimes autoritaires, selon Isabelle Thireau : les citoyens y expriment des attentes, évaluent la légitimité des décisions, des politiques publiques et des dirigeants. Ils contribuent à la compréhension de l'acceptable et du bon gouvernement.

La société hongkongaise est en prise avec la rigidité d'un régime autoritaire et menaçant, mais également avec les grands bouleversements sociaux et économiques mondiaux. À propos de : Jean-Pierre Cabestan et Eric Florence, dir., « Twenty years after : Hong Kong's changes and challenges under China's rule », China perspectives, n°3, 2018 https://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/7992 Traduction en français : « Vingt ans après : transformations et défis de Hong Kong sous le régime chinois », https://journals.openedition.org/perspectiveschinoises/8408 Les cinq articles de ce numéro interdisciplinaire émanant de la revue du Centre français d'études chinoises (CEFC) à Hong Kong campent avec rigueur et nuance le contexte du mouvement de protestation déclenché plusieurs mois après leur publication. Les auteurs, forts de leur expérience personnelle et académique à Hong Kong, illuminent par leurs études en sociologie, science politique, anthropologie et économie politique les transformations sociales et politiques de la ville depuis la rétrocession de 1997. L'ensemble a le très grand mérite de donner toute sa place au contexte social et économique de la crise que traverse Hong Kong, et dont l'ampleur ne peut être saisie si elle n'est comprise que sous l'angle de la crise politique, certes majeure, provoquée par le refus des autorités chinoises de céder aux demandes

Lors du XIXe congrès du Parti communiste chinois en octobre 2017, Xi Jiping a révélé une vision ambitieuse et idéologique de l'avenir de la Chine. Juliette Genevaz revient ici sur la particularité de ce modèle politique et sur les objectifs de développement économique et de politique étrangère. Juliette Genevaz est la chercheure Chine à l'Institut de Recherche Stratégique de l'École Militaire (IRSEM). Titulaire d'un doctorat en sciences politiques de l'université d'Oxford (Saint Antony's college), elle a rejoint l'IRSEM après un TransAtlantic Postdoctoral Fellowship for International Relations and Security (TAPIR). Elle a notamment publié « Political Indoctrination In The Chinese Military, Toward A Post-Revolutionary PLA », China Information, septembre 2016 et « Military Professionalization Under Party Control », in Donovan Chau et Thomas Kane (dir.)

Prenant à la lettre les déclarations officielles fracassantes concernant la corruption au sein du Parti communiste chinois, un ouvrage dresse un bilan sombre de la collusion des élites chinoises.

International audience; This paper examines the participation of local residents in local governance using the data from four different surveys ; one ethnography of citizen councils in Seine-Saint-Denis, France (Bondy and Noisy le Sec), a study of Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) and their role in the governance of the city of Delhi (India), and two surveys on participatory budgeting and deliberative assemblies in the Chinese cities of Chengdu (Sichuan) and Wenling (Zhejiang). Though very different in their socio-economic, political and historical contexts, the Indian, Chinese and French cases illustrate a common concern for the participation of “residents” in local governance, albeit with different interpretations. The objective of this paper is thus to show how a global injunction about local governance and the need for public participation is understood and implemented in three different countries and to discuss (and compare) the effect of these choices in the ways residents are framed as participants, representatives or represented in local governance processes. We will show how most of the time, in the three countries under scrutiny, participation turns out to be “assumed representation” (Houtzager and Gurza Lavalleand, 2009) and is used mostly to legitimize (or delegitimize) public action. To do so, we will analyze the figure of the “local resident”, looking at how this figure is constructed, both in public discourses and through policies (the making of participatory schemes, the creation of an association, etc.). We will particularly look at the different devices that have been proposed in the three countries to mobilize local residents (Citizen councils and neighborhood councils in France, Resident Welfare Associations, Bhagidari scheme and Mohalla Sabha in India, kentanhui and yishihui in China). We will show how these devices participate in the constitution of competing representative claims (Saward, 2016) around local “residents” both as a constituency (object of representation) and as representatives (subjects of representation).

International audience

International audience

International audience; Censure, arrestations, hyper croissance, pollution, corruption, instabilité sociale, maintien du Parti unique : la République populaire de Chine est souvent présentée sous les traits d’un pays certes plus puissant et plus prospère, mais aussi plus agressif et répressif que jamais. Cet ouvrage a pour objectif de remettre en cause les paradigmes qui contribuent à cette vision manichéenne de la société chinoise. À travers quelques phénomènes récents – le développement du journalisme d’investigation, l’essor du monde associatif et de la protestation sociale, l’évolution de la politique de l’enfant unique, le rôle joué par Internet –, il donne l’image d’une société complexe, dynamique et néanmoins traversée par des contradictions lourdes d’incertitude. Dans ce cadre, le destin de la Chine ne dépend ni de l’influence d’une culture supposée éternelle, ni de lois historiques supposées incontournables, mais de la façon dont évolueront ces contradictions. (Résumé éditeur)

International audience; How do actors develop entrepreneurial activities to bring about policy change? To what extent do the contexts in which they are embedded shape their behaviors? Relying on three comparative case studies, we use the structure-, institution-and agent-based analytical framework to investigate the complex and dynamic interactions between contexts and actors in the process of policy change initiated by state actors in authoritarian China. We propose a conceptual framework, "policy entrepreneurship under hierarchy", which highlights the influence of power domination during the policy change process. It allows us to offer a renewed definition of policy entrepreneur and to identify a pattern of successful policy entrepreneurship in contrast to the "four central elements" suggested by Mintrom and Nomann. We conclude that hierarchical policy entrepreneurship in China is displayed through two kinds of relationships: the proposal-approval between policy entrepreneurs and their superiors and the instruction-execution between policy entrepreneurs and their subordinates.

International audience; In this paper I conduct a comparative analysis of three Chinese experiments with participatory budgeting (PB), a democratic innovation that has circulated worldwide. Relying on a renewed typology of political representation and ethnographic fieldwork combined with official data collection in Chengdu, Sichuan and Wenling, Zhejiang over seven years, it investigates the expansion and practice of PB and analyzes the relationship between participation and representation. It asserts that in the Chinese context PB cannot be simply reduced to empowering civil society against established representatives or becoming an instrument of legitimization for established elites. In the three investigated cases-which are not representative of Chinese local politics-PB does contribute to opening the decision-making process to formerly excluded participants, who are nonetheless not exactly ordinary citizens but rather local elites and "super residents" bridging the gap between established elites and residents.

International audience

In China, the present modalities of academic research and publication differ considerably from those of European and North American universities. This is particularly true within the field of political science, a discipline that has long languished due to the fact that it is entirely limited to the study of the canonical texts of Marxism-Leninism and the thought of Mao Zedong. The launching of the policy of reform and openness thirty years ago represented a turning point for the humanities and social sciences, which suddenly found themselves holding a place of honor in support of the reformist drive. An initial overview of the situation allows one to better grasp the contours of academic liberty and understand the status presently accorded to Chinese scholars and academics. Some engaged academics (particularly in the area of political reform) are torn between limitations on the liberty of research and publication, official requests to participate in the policy-making process, professionalization, growing market openness and internationalization, patriotism and intellectual commitment. ■

International audience; Les élites intellectuelles du pays s’accordent sur un horizon politique démocratique pour la Chine. Mais la démocratie électorale n’apparaît plus comme le débouché naturel des réformes. Et les élites se divisent sur la nature institutionnelle d’une future démocratie, ainsi que sur le rythme de la marche qui y conduira. Cette démocratie ne saurait au demeurant se résumer à l’avènement institutionnel d’élections multipartites, comme en témoignent déjà les multiples expériences de démocratie locale.