Infrastructures of Control and Service

CSC International Research Webinar

This webinar critically explores the transformation of grassroots governance in Beijing, focusing on recent reforms that promise greater responsiveness but also heighten surveillance and control. As the Chinese Communist Party seeks to address the complexities of urban governance, it has introduced new mechanisms that integrate service provision with increased oversight of both citizens and local officials. These reforms, while enhancing the efficiency of public service delivery, also tighten the Party’s grip over grassroots cadres, reducing their autonomy and embedding them within a framework of digital monitoring and direct reporting.

By analyzing these changes, the webinar highlights the dual role of Beijing’s evolving governance infrastructure: improving service access on the one hand, while deepening the Party’s surveillance capacity on the other. It interrogates how these shifts are part of a broader strategy to maintain stability and central control in a rapidly changing socio-political environment, raising questions about the balance between responsiveness and control in China’s urban governance.

About the speaker

Sabrina Habich-Sobiegalla: Professor, the Institute of China Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. Her research focuses on China’s rural and urban governance, as well as central-local and state-society relations in China. She is the author of the book, Dams, Migration and Authoritarianism in China: The Local State in Yunnan, published by Routledge.

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