Online Political Participation in China: Local Government and Differentiated Response

Chinese citizens commonly take to the internet to voice complaints concerning their daily lives. The political hierarchy in China dictates that local governments are primarily responsible for addressing such grievances. This study investigates how local governments deal with online complaints and finds that they respond in a variety of ways and that their choice of a particular form of response is shaped by the pressure generated by the complaint and the cost of resolving it. This study contributes to the understanding of government responsiveness in China by directly assessing the quality of governmental responses and by measuring the pressure and costs faced by the government when dealing with online complaints. It also explains how the Chinese government, without having to rely on censorship, shields regime legitimacy from media exposure.