Smart Governance in China’s Political-Legal System

Abstract The belief in quantitative indicators based on standardized data as an effective tool has become more entrenched than ever before, in both public and corporate governance, because of a drive to achieve more efficiency and accountability. The power of automated computation systems and the ubiquitous availability of big data have magnified the potential and capacities for quantification. The People’s Republic of China ( prc ) has enthusiastically embraced these advanced technologies. The rapid digitization and automation of social governance in China, called “smart governance,” entail new approaches to social and political control, driven by innovations in algorithmic systems, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence. This article seeks to reveal the ideological foundations of the prc ’s push for the digitization and automation of social governance. Drawing on international scholarship on Chinese Marxism and Leninism, it argues that the positivist organizational and ideological principles of Marxism-Leninism help explain why technology and automation are embraced so enthusiastically by the Chinese party-state: they provide a way to achieve the dream of rational Marxist governance. Through an empirical analysis of 120 articles from 2014 to 2021, this article illustrates that these ideas are, or may be, a vital part of shaping academic discourse around smart governance in China today. An analysis of Chinese academic discourse is an essential part of understanding the ideological foundations of Chinese Communist Party ( ccp ) governance and statecraft and how these commitments shape the embrace and deployment of smart technologies. The way in which scholars discuss the transformative power of smart technologies demonstrates a similar ideological understanding of social governance.