Introduction

A paradoxical process of creating a service-oriented authoritarian government is unfolding in China, and e-government — the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in public administration — plays a key role in this. In fact, the Leninist administrative system that delivers the service is permeated by e-government to the extent that it is hard to imagine any reforms without some kind of ICT involved. Inside government the technologies have been prioritized to a level where it has become formally organized in the informatization offices (xinxihua bangongshi). Likewise, where citizens receive services from government the process is most likely at some point mediated by ICT. For instance, administrative approvals are taken care of in pleasant surroundings in the one-stop-shop government affairs service centres (zhengwu fuwu zhongxin). There, the client is greeted by the state in the shape of a computer connected to the case-processing system operated by a young, well-educated, female employee and monitored by surveillance cameras. Even the mundane task of changing broken manhole covers in the streets is completed by the aid of smart phones and Internet-based command centres. Changes to service provision are taking place, however it is a question of whether the party-state is able to increase transparency, efficiency, and effectiveness and reduce corruption within the local state bureaucracy. Such improvements would be important as they could lead to better governance. Indeed, an explanation for the service creation paradox could be that the party-state needs legitimacy to support the current system. In the long term it could legitimize the regime vis-à-vis the new middle class, as government shows its ability to deliver what this group demands of the state (Shue 2010).