Digital Participation and Crisis Governance: Administrative Responsiveness and Early Warning in the Chinese Context

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study examines the institutionalization of digital participation mechanisms in local governance. It is designed as a conceptual and literature-based analysis rather than a statistical test and situates e-participation within the literature on differentiated responsiveness and crisis management. Digital platforms, including mayoral mailboxes, 12345 hotlines, petition portals, and social media reporting, provide channels through which citizens communicate service requests, grievances, and local risk signals. The study argues that these mechanisms can function not only as participation channels but also as tools for early warning, information aggregation, and crisis detection when citizen input reveals administratively actionable problems. At the same time, they operate within established institutional arrangements that shape how governments process and respond to public demands. By conceptualizing e-participation as an information infrastructure for crisis governance, this study explains how digital participation may enhance administrative responsiveness and support a more information-rich and differentiated mode of governance.