On 15 June at 11:00 Biao He will defend his doctoral dissertation “When e-government meets bureaucracy: incentive structures shaping accessible service delivery in Chinese municipalities” for obtaining the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (in Political Science).
Supervisors:
Associate Professor Mihkel Solvak, University of Tartu
Visiting Professor Vincent Homburg, University of Tartu/Erasmus University of Rotterdam (the Netherlands)
Opponent:
Professor Kim Normann Andersen, Copenhagen Business School (Denmark)
Summary
Many local governments worldwide struggle to provide inclusive e-government services through accessible government websites. Consequently, digitally vulnerable groups continue to face barriers to public services and meaningful participation in the digital era. This dissertation asks why Chinese municipalities respond differently to national accessibility initiatives and how different incentives interact to shape implementation outcomes. Focusing on China’s 2021 “Age- and Disability-Friendly Upgrades on Internet Applications”, the dissertation adopts a multi-method research design that combines a single case study, a comparative case study, and a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to examine how local governments implement accessibility initiatives and deliver accessible e-government services.
Using the developed “Vertical-Horizontal Incentive Structure” framework, this dissertation shows that the implementation of the 2021 accessibility initiative in Chinese municipalities is shaped not only by top-down policy enforcement, but also by local conditions such as organizational resources, leadership support, societal pressure, peer learning, and local cadres’ engagement. It further shows that none of the incentives alone can ensure full implementation. Rather, implementation outcomes emerge from interactions among these incentives operating both across and within the vertical and horizontal dimensions.
In conclusion, this dissertation demonstrates that accessible e-government service delivery is more than just a technical fix; it is a complex policy implementation problem. It provides a framework for understanding how web accessibility and broader e-government initiatives are implemented, while also contributing to wider debates on policy implementation in China and beyond.
