Marianne von Blomberg’s Post

✍ 💅 👉 5 days left to submit your abstracts on digital standards 👈 ⏳ ✒

I used to point to China's online database of court decisions as a great example of China's judicial reforms that Germany and other countries could learn from.

Two years ago during my dives through the norms and rules that constitute the Social Credit System project in China, I stumbled across the often invisible but immensely powerful world of technical standardization. Two grant approvals later, Daniel Sprick, Daniel Fuchs and I are happy to share the Call for Papers for our workshop "China and the Standardization of Digital Technologies". Submit your abstracts & join the debate from 10-11 June 2024 at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin! Technical standards and standardization shape the digital world we live in. They define details of designs and practices, in products, services but also governance techniques, creating path dependencies. The conflicts and dynamics of setting and enforcing standards, however impactful, unfold in the background, often overlooked by scholars ("no binding effect 🤷♀️") and other observers ("too technical"). With this workshop, we want to tackle the growing powers of standards heads-on, zooming in on China which has moved from standard-taker to standard-maker within only a few decades. https://lnkd.in/gUyFwESm

Now out in ZChinR - Jingyi von Strasser and I took a deep dive into the 2023 amendment to the quasi-extension of China's Constitution, the Legislation Law. The paper introduces, contextualizes, and carefully evaluates the changes. It is in German (bc juggling legal vocabulary in Chinese & English just wasn't complicated enough 😆), for the non-German-speaking crowd, here come some 🔥 points: In March 2023, China's parliament - the National People's Congress (NPC) - passed an amendment to its Legislation Law. Our German abbreviation, GeGe, somewhat captures the law's role in the system as the older brother 哥哥): It stipulates which state organs may pass what kinds of law and the procedures they are to follow. 🔎 Importantly, it also lays down the procedures for constitutional review. Given that China's Constitution is not directly applied by courts, constitutional review is one major field where the Constitution comes into action. The amendment (in rather unspecific terms) codifies the long-standing practice of reviewing legislative drafts for constitutionality. It also lowers the threshold to apply for constitutional review of already passed legislation for government organs, not however for citizens and social organizations. (A recent case of constitutional review: Citizens have requested the 2022 Law against Telecom Network Fraud to be reviewed for its provisions on collective punishment of fraudsters - with success. https://lnkd.in/edJ629xc) 🔎 Experimental legislation to the fore: To implement economic reform projects, since 2012, the NPC's Standing Committee has been temporarily authorizing legislation that is at odds with higher-level laws, so-called "beneficial law violations" 良性违法. Among other relaxations, the realms in which this practice is lawful are now no longer limited. 🔎 Ideology update: The introductory paragraphs have been changed to align with the current official framework. Besides the inclusion of the ideological contributions by China's recent leaders (incl Xi Jinping Thought), legislation is declared to serve a core function for building a modern socialist state. Ideological innovations such as the "whole process people's democracy" (official English announcement: Democracy that Works https://lnkd.in/ej5PT3sY), "socialist core values" and the "law by virtue" are stipulated. Overall, the amendment offers a feast of ideas for further theoretical and empirical inquiries: How is the ideological mission realized in future legislation? Will the elevation of constitutional review lead to an increase in applications, and what does the success of such applications depend on? ... https://lnkd.in/e-YEsxjW A free draft is available at https://lnkd.in/eiY3udMy. 🙏 to Knut Benjamin Pissler for a meticulous translation of the amended Legislation Law into German (https://lnkd.in/emZFz74h). We drew on the sharp analyses by Changhao Wei and Taige Hu. Do check out their wonderful blog: NPC Observer.

Had the pleasure of reviewing Vincent Brussee's work on China's social credit system(s), the first facts-based inquiry into this widely misunderstood governance project in book form. Vincent isn't trying to theorize, and that is what makes the book so valuable. Instead, he seeks to “reconstruct the jigsaw-puzzle of the SCS”, attending to all its facets, including financial credit reporting, food safety regulation, surveillance, scoring technologies and CPC theory of governance. In a nutshell: "Given that social credit research to date is scattered across multiple disciplines with little reciprocal engagement, often building on different presumptions about the very core of the project, the book’s account of the SCS serves as an invaluable starting point for future research." Also, it is a very entertaining read. Drop me a message for an access code to the review.

Finally out It feels a bit strange to share this article that builds on fieldwork from late 2019, can't wait to be back in Hangzhou in October and check what has happened since. Wessel and I introduce the workings of the banks of virtue 道德银行, lending arrangements between village committees and local banks to unlock cheap loans for residents who do good. More importantly, we call for more research into their potential, long-term feasibility and actual powers. I stumbled across the banks of virtue when looking for rural social credit system pilot projects. The banks of virtues were propagated in provincial government documents as model social credit projects, but in conversations with the local initiators I learned that they had intentions largely unrelated to central-level governance projects such as social credit. 🙏 to Yanfei Sun, Chuncheng Liu, Marco Meyer, Haiqing Yu, Rachel Douglas-Jones, Jesper Zeuthen and Yuk Hui

Come join us to discuss the role of tech infrastructure for governance next week. Many fundamental and fascinating questions behind the techy veil, I promise