IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v11y2022i6p229-d822768.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social Control in the Digital Transformation of Society: A Case Study of the Chinese Social Credit System

Author

Listed:
  • Mo Chen

    (Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich, 85748 Garching, Germany)

  • Jens Grossklags

    (Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich, 85748 Garching, Germany)

Abstract

The Chinese social credit system (SCS) is a digital sociotechnical credit system that rewards and sanctions the economic and social behaviors of individuals and companies. This article uses classic social-control theories—the shaming theory and the labeling theory—to analyze the SCS, thereby contributing to a better understanding of the Chinese social-control approach to the digital transformation of society. Our research relies not only on government documents and media reports, but also on first-hand data collected from in-depth interviews conducted in China. We found that the perceived effectiveness of the shaming and labeling mechanisms is enhanced by the design of the SCS framework and the assistance of digital technology but weakened by a lack of transparency and questionable justification criteria, as well as privacy and fairness concerns.

Suggested Citation

  • Mo Chen & Jens Grossklags, 2022. "Social Control in the Digital Transformation of Society: A Case Study of the Chinese Social Credit System," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-23, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:11:y:2022:i:6:p:229-:d:822768
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/11/6/229/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/11/6/229/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Geof Wood, 1985. "The Politics of Development Policy Labelling," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 16(3), pages 347-373, July.
    2. Samuel C. A. Pereira, 2021. "On the precision of information," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3), pages 569-584, August.
    3. Furukawa, Ichiro & 古川, 一郎, 2016. "Empirical Study Of Personal Relationship Classification Effect Among Group-Oriented Countries," Hitotsubashi Journal of commerce and management, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 50(1), pages 47-60, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mo Chen & Kristina Bogner & Joana Becheva & Jens Grossklags, 2023. "On the transparency of the credit reporting system in China," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-10, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Khalied Albarrak & Yonis Gulzar & Yasir Hamid & Abid Mehmood & Arjumand Bano Soomro, 2022. "A Deep Learning-Based Model for Date Fruit Classification," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-16, May.
    2. Ernane M Lemes & Breno N R Azevedo & Matheus F I Domiciano & Samuel L Andrade, 2021. "Improving Soybean Production Using Light Supplementation at Field-Scale: A Case Study," Journal of Agricultural Studies, Macrothink Institute, vol. 9(3), pages 259-275, September.
    3. Amine Saddik & Rachid Latif & Abdelhafid El Ouardi & Mohammed I. Alghamdi & Mohamed Elhoseny, 2022. "Improving Sustainable Vegetation Indices Processing on Low-Cost Architectures," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-29, February.
    4. Haavio, Markus & Laine, Olli-Matti, 2021. "Monetary policy rules and the effective lower bound in the Euro area," Research Discussion Papers 5/2021, Bank of Finland.
    5. Robert E. Mazur, 1987. "Linking Popular Initiative and Aid Agencies: The Case of Refugees," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 18(3), pages 437-461, July.
    6. Hafiz Suliman Munawar & Hina Inam & Fahim Ullah & Siddra Qayyum & Abbas Z. Kouzani & M. A. Parvez Mahmud, 2021. "Towards Smart Healthcare: UAV-Based Optimized Path Planning for Delivering COVID-19 Self-Testing Kits Using Cutting Edge Technologies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-21, September.
    7. Arslan Waheed, 2021. "“I Will Obey Whatever Orders Will Be Given to Me …”: A Critical Discourse Analysis of an Affidavit from a Slum Upgradation and Rehabilitation Project in Islamabad, Pakistan," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-12, May.
    8. David Slater, 1989. "Territorial Power and the Peripheral State: The Issue of Decentralization," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 20(3), pages 501-531, July.
    9. Cui, Yuanyuan (Gina) & van Esch, Patrick & Das, Gopal & Jain, Shailendra, 2022. "“Surge price precision and political ideology”," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 214-224.
    10. Honkapohja, Seppo & McClung, Nigel, 2021. "On Robustness of Average Inflation Targeting," CEPR Discussion Papers 16001, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Jie Hu & Yi Peng & Xueliang Chen & Hangyan Yu, 2021. "Differentiating the learning styles of college students in different disciplines in a college English blended learning setting," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(5), pages 1-26, May.
    12. Fairouz Mustafa & Suman Lodh & Monomita Nandy & Vikas Kumar, 2022. "Coupling of cryptocurrency trading with the sustainable environmental goals: Is it on the cards?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 1152-1168, March.
    13. Molle, François & Rap, Edwin & Al-Agha, Doaa Ezzat & El Hassan, Waleed Abou & Freeg, Mohammed, 2019. "Irrigation improvement projects in the Nile Delta: Promises, challenges, surprises," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 425-435.
    14. Marion McAfee & Mandana Kariminejad & Albert Weinert & Saif Huq & Johannes D. Stigter & David Tormey, 2022. "State Estimators in Soft Sensing and Sensor Fusion for Sustainable Manufacturing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-33, March.
    15. Anh, Vu Ngoc, 2017. "Civil society activism in authoritarian contexts : (re)structuring state-society relations in Vietnam," OSF Preprints rh9cg, Center for Open Science.
    16. Joana Colussi & Eric L. Morgan & Gary D. Schnitkey & Antônio D. Padula, 2022. "How Communication Affects the Adoption of Digital Technologies in Soybean Production: A Survey in Brazil," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-24, April.
    17. Liu, Qizhi, 2022. "Identifying and correcting the defects of the Saaty analytic hierarchy/network process: A comparative study of the Saaty analytic hierarchy/network process and the Markov chain-based analytic network ," Operations Research Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 9(C).
    18. Gustavo Henrique Dalposso & Miguel Angel Uribe-Opazo & Fernanda De Bastiani, 2021. "Spatial-temporal Analysis of Soybean Productivity Using Geostatistical Methods," Journal of Agricultural Studies, Macrothink Institute, vol. 9(2), pages 283-303, June.
    19. Mohannad Alobid & Said Abujudeh & István Szűcs, 2022. "The Role of Blockchain in Revolutionizing the Agricultural Sector," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-15, April.
    20. Mariia Shaidrova, 2023. "Performing a ‘Returnee’ in Benin City, Nigeria," Journal of International Migration and Integration, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 503-520, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:11:y:2022:i:6:p:229-:d:822768. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.