Bringing in horizontal strategic interactions: Blame avoidance and local governments' bandwagon strategy in prioritizing E-participation

While local governments' ambivalence toward and strategic behaviors in e-participation reforms have recently attracted surging scholarly attention, insufficient scholarly attention has been paid to horizontal strategic interactions among local governments, which have salient implications for the effectiveness of e-participation reforms. This research aims to fill this gap using the case of China's e-participation reform. By examining the complex intra-regime bureaucratic dynamics in e-participation, we assert that local governments are confronted with an e-participation dilemma, making blame avoidance (BA) the primary motivation in implementing e-participation mandates. Furthermore, we argue that local governments tend to adopt a particular BA strategy, the bandwagon strategy, to cope with the dilemma. Additionally, patronage ties, a crucial informal political institution, weaken their tendency to engage in the bandwagon strategy. Using a unique dataset on provincial governments' e-participation policy priorities, our empirical analyses with panel data spatial econometric models obtain robust evidence that supports our theory.