From Entry to Embeddedness: How Urban-to-Rural Newcomers Reshape Development Outcomes in Peri-Urban China

Abstract

Rural digitalisation expands access to information and participatory channels, but greater digital provision does not necessarily produce equal opportunities to participate. Less is known about whether local governing arrangements compensate for digital disadvantage or instead increase the participatory returns to greater digital capability across different governance tasks. Using face-to-face survey data from 616 residents in 19 peri-urban villages in Shanghai, China, this study examines institutional participation, voluntary community service and willingness to participate in village-based economic development. Three differentiated patterns emerge. Intensive face-to-face governance attenuates the negative digital-capability gradient in village-level decision-making, although the evidence remains suggestive; the same governance mode more clearly compensates for limited digital capability in voluntary community service. Most robustly, the regulatory influence of village rules strengthens the relationship between independent online information-search capability and willingness to participate in local economic development. Cross-domain tests reveal no comparable conditioning patterns. The findings show that governance arrangements that facilitate participation need not reduce participation inequality: their distributive consequences depend on the organisational requirements of the participation task. In Chinese village governance, digitalisation therefore operates through, rather than independently of, relational and informal institutional arrangements that shape who can convert digital resources into participation across different governance tasks.