A variety of commercial and local government social credit systems (SCSs) are now being implemented in China in order to steer the behavior of Chinese individuals, businesses, social organizations, ...and government agencies. Previous research finds that these SCSs are employed by the Chinese state as “surveillance infrastructure” and for social management. This article focuses on a different angle: the public’s opinion of SCSs. Based on a cross-regional survey, the study finds a surprisingly high degree of approval of SCSs across respondent groups. Interestingly, more socially advantaged citizens (wealthier, better-educated, and urban residents) show the strongest approval of SCSs, along with older people. While one might expect such knowledgeable citizens to be most concerned about the privacy implications of SCS, they instead appear to embrace SCSs because they interpret it through frames of benefit-generation and promoting honest dealings in society and the economy instead of privacy-violation.
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NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
To govern, states collect and evaluate information about citizens. This paper examines a social credit system (SCS) in China, a state initiative aimed at governing trust through the quantification of ...social behavior. Our analysis opens the ‘black box’ of an SCS metric, investigating how trust is translated into numbers and the implications of this translation. We reveal that the SCS is deeply relational and embedded in specific interests, biases, and logics of governance. The system has the potential to reinforce structural injustices and inequalities as it particularly disadvantages rural residents. Meanwhile, it subjects government employees to stricter surveillance, indicating its multifaceted objectives. Our finding uncovers the nuanced ways the system interacts with social stratification in Chinese society and the administrative structure inside the state. We problematize the individualistic, decontextualized, and behavioral assumptions undergirding the metric, and advocate for a critical reassessment of the sociopolitical dimensions of such quantitative governance infrastructures.
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NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Digital technologies used to identify, profile, and supervise are often hailed as the serendipitous results of inevitable progress, while the long-term consequences of their application remain beyond ...the attention of lawyers and politicians. This article tries to close this gap by exploring and discussing probable effects of the application of such technologies for the present model of statehood and legal order. It examines the hypothesis that the ubiquitous digitalisation of governance and the increasing attention to individuals’ reputation in the provision of public services are related to the attempt of contemporary corporate elites to perpetuate their power and resolve the problem of building a new, post-capitalist social order. The article argues that the expansion of social control through digital technologies can lead to a gradual loss of constitutional subjectivity and political power by people.
•The social credit system construction can significantly promote the resource allocation efficiency.•This effect is more pronounced in enterprises without political connections.•This effect is more ...pronounced in private enterprises.
The social credit system plays a positive role in promoting the flow of social resources and enhancing economic efficiency. This paper treats the implementation of the tax credit rating system as an external shock event in the social credit system construction, designing a quasi-natural experiment to empirically test the impact of the social credit system construction on corporate debt dilemmas. The research finds that the construction of the social credit system can effectively alleviate the debt predicaments of enterprises. Further heterogeneity tests indicate that our findings are more pronounced in private enterprises and those without political connections.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Although China’s social credit system (SCS) is widely portrayed by Western media as repressive surveillance, recent studies show that it receives high levels of support among Chinese citizens. ...Previous research suggests that people support the SCS because they lack knowledge about the system. This study further examines the roles of media framing (Western vs Chinese framing) and monitored behaviors (financial vs social behaviors). The results from a survey experiment conducted in China (N = 1600) demonstrate that when exposed to Western framing, public support for the SCS is lower, but only when participants are informed that the SCS monitors social behavior. By contrast, when people are told that the SCS focuses on financial behavior, Western framing exposure is not associated with low levels of public support. The findings suggest that an expansion to social domains and exposure to Western media framing will likely result in decreased support for the system.
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NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Under the social credit system project, China’s government promotes credibility-based regulation (信用监管), a mode of discretionary decision-making informed by quantified assessments of regulatory ...subjects’ credibility. Credibility-based regulation is intended to combat China’s law enforcement problem by activating non-state actors to participate in regulatory work through conducting and sharing credibility assessments. However, little is known about its implementation. This article argues that a yet unexplored series of voluntary national standards provides the technical link between central-level rhetoric on credibility-based regulation and its implementation. Specifically, these standards lay down assessment methods and quantitative indicators for assessing credibility, and are drafted for the use of regulatory agencies, platform companies, industry associations and other state and non-state stakeholders. National standards provide a suitable link for implementing credibility-based regulation because, unlike top–down laws and policies, their creation involves a range of non-state affiliated actors, producing negotiated solutions that co-regulators may be more likely to adopt.
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NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Institution system is an important part of modern social governance. Government, market and social relations within the system, as well as the corresponding institutional arrangements, can be said to ...be the top priority. Corporate social responsibility is an outstanding case that embodies the relationship and institutional arrangement of the three in practice.
Government regulation of social credit system is a good example to analysis it. The research on government regulation of social credit system itself is put forward from the perspective of government, so in the field of government regulation of social credit system, should enterprises play a role? Especially in the era of big data, a large number of data are provided by private enterprises. Without these data, it is difficult to complete the construction of big data system. If enterprises should play their role, what’s the contribution of the government? Academic and industrial circles have been expressing their own opinions on these issues.
Therefore, this paper attempts to build a game model among government, enterprise and society to solve the following problems: how to solve the relationship problem among government, enterprise and society? How to build the corresponding system? What’s the corresponding government regulation of China’s social credit system go from the perspective of business ethics?
Through the game model analysis, the author finds that shareholders can reduce the threat of CEO replacement and collude with the management staff members to make the cake (including the interests of stakeholders) smaller. But on the basis of the loss of stakeholders’ rights and interests, shareholders’ wealth is increasing, which also explains why more and more senior executives are trying to form collusion with stakeholders in the campaign against antitakeover and loose audit system. Shareholders’ rights and interests and stakeholders’ rights and interests present a seesaw phenomenon. The response of the stakeholders and shareholders to a better corporate governance model is consistent. That is to say, the increase of shareholders’ income is not necessarily based on the loss of stakeholders. The game model also shows that the protection of formal laws and regulations is the main factor to increase the benefits of stakeholders. Through the case of the social credit system, we will conclude that the formal laws and regulations cannot fully ensure the increase of stakeholders’ income, but also need to strengthen the transformation of institutional advantages into governance advantages, and strengthen the law enforcement. It will finally promote the further improvement of social credit system.
Technology giants, bolstered by weak regulatory oversight, have expanded capacities for personal data collection and analysis. This has resulted in a new set of power dynamics and logics of ...accumulation collectively referred to as surveillance capitalism. In response, the EU and China have adopted major policies on big data with implications for future social and economic development. Europe's General Data Protection Regulation is a reactive response, asserting individual privacy and placing limits on corporate use of personal data. In contrast, China's social credit system is a proactive response, combining surveillance architectures and AI technologies for purposes of statecraft. Using a comparative approach, this paper analyses the social and economic implications of two societies attempting to move beyond surveillance capitalism.
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BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
This paper investigates the impact of social credit system reform pilots on corporate carbon emissions adopting a quasi-natural experimental approach. We find that the implementation of social credit ...system reform pilots has a statistically significant impact on reducing corporate carbon emissions.
•The social credit system reform pilots reduce corporate carbon emissions.•The transmission pathways including enterprises, governments, and the public.•We examined the heterogeneity of effects at enterprise and regional levels.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
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