Abstract
Planning, in its reinvented form, is an important tool for government macro-steering, but the role of the Internet in planning has been overlooked by researchers. Educational reforms are illustrative of the planning processes that characterize policy-making in China. Through a case study of educational policy in Qingbaijiang District in Chengdu, this paper examines how the Internet changes the limits of planning in educational equalization. The trial-site status of the district allows us to see how pragmatic adaptation of the new technology works on the ground, enabling an overall improvement in quality. However, at the same time, this strengthens elite schools, thus, paradoxically, creating inequality on a different level. Hence, this is a unique case to understand the limits of planning in China, and the key implication for research is that the Internet – and indeed techno-science as a social order – should be included in future analyses of planning.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Ralph Schroeder, Elisa Oreglia, and two anonymous reviewers for constructive comments on previous versions of this paper. All remaining mistakes are the sole responsibility of the authors.
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Jesper Schlæger
Jesper Schlæger (PhD, University of Copenhagen) is an Associate Professor in the School of Public Administration at Sichuan University. He is currently also Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies at Lund University. His research interests include e-government, policy implementation, and collaboration in public service production.
Qian Wang
Qian Wang (PhD, Southwest Jiaotong University) is the Executive Director of the National Cadre Training Base of Sichuan University. He is also Professor in the School of Public Administration at Sichuan University. His research interests include e-government, crowd-sourcing, and education informatization.