Dissertation

Trust is good, control is better: technopolitical visions and realities in China's social credit system

On Friday 7 March 2025 Adam Knight successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Author: A.D. Knight
Date: 07 March 2025
Links: Leiden Repository

This dissertation explores the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) vision for technology as a tool of governance, focusing on the imagination, implementation, and implications of China’s social credit system (SCS). The SCS was formulated as a response to a perceived moral crisis across all corners of society, setting out to institutionalise trustworthiness through data-driven mechanisms. Its development underscores the CCP’s technopolitical vision for information communication technologies (ICTs) as essential not only for economic modernisation but also for ideological governance. Just as elsewhere in China’s governing system, this vision has often clashed with the reality of implementation at scale. The fragmented and experimental nature of Chinese governance has played a crucial role in shaping the evolution of the SCS. While often perceived as a monolithic, centralised initiative, the system has been shaped by complex central-local dynamics, resulting in diverse local implementations and competing bureaucratic interests. This thesis reveals the myriad influences on the conception and construction of the SCS, serving as a case study on the complexity of Chinese policymaking. Ultimately, it reframes the study of digital governance, demonstrating that technological systems are never neutral but deeply shaped by historical legacies, ideological goals, and institutional dynamics.

Supervisor: Prof.dr. F.A. Schneider
Co-supervisor: Dr. R.J.E.H. Creemers