Journal of Chinese Political Science
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-025-09916-7
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Local Governments and the Diffusion of Video Surveillance
in China: Evidence from the Public Procurement Contracts
Pinghan Liang1,2 · Xijie Li2 · Yuchen Guo2
Accepted: 10 April 2025
© Journal of Chinese Political Science/Association of Chinese Political Studies 2025
Abstract
China’s surveillance system has proliferated over the past two decades, but much
remains unknown about it. Many researchers have studied central government surveillance, few have examined the role of local governments from a decentralized
perspective. To address this gap, we use local government video surveillance procurement contracts data between 2014 and 2020 from the Chinese government
procurement website, and analyze trends in the video surveillance investments of
local government. We further consider the possible motivations for expanding video
surveillance in localities, and find that directives from superior-level governments,
rather than public pressure or public safety incidents, are the primary drivers of
variation in procurement of video surveillance technology. We further consider the
moderating effect of local leaders’ personal characteristics and find that the age and
tenure of the municipal Party secretary all affect the above results. These results differ from previous research, which has focused on the central government’s planning
for video surveillance and less on local implementation.
Keywords Video surveillance · Local governments · Public procurement
Introduction
We are constantly under surveillance. Authorities across time and countries have
used different types of surveillance tools to strengthen their ability to control social
orders. During the Cold War, East Germany created the Stasi, one of the largest
surveillance systems in the world, to uphold the rule of the Socialist Unity Party
[33]. Modern states also rely heavily on surveillance as an inherited institutional
* Yuchen Guo
guoych53@mail2.sysu.edu.cn
1
Center for Chinese Public Administration Research, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China
2
School of Government, Sun Yat-Sen University, 132 Out Circle East Road, Campus City,
Guangzhou East, Guangzhou, China
Vol.:(0123456789)
P. Liang et al.
convention to govern [36]. New surveillance techniques, such as CCTV and CDC,1
have emerged alongside technological advancements [40, 59, 60]. Today, digital
technologies enable states to construct a larger surveillance system with abundant
functions. These new surveillance systems are now widely applied in areas such as
national defense, public security, transportation, and public health [39, 42, 48].
Surveillance has long been viewed as a holistic state action, meaning that the
strategies of the central government, such as ASA, PRISM, Echelon2, are the core
concerns of traditional scholarship. This is reasonable because, in the past, surveillance was largely done by the central government and a limited number of
agencies. National-level strategies can offer insight into a country’s broader surveillance landscape. However, with the development and diffusion of surveillance
technology, actors such as businesspeople, local governments, and even households have increasingly participated in this process with potentially different motivations [19, 53, 54]. These realities are beyond the scope of previous studies, but
our understanding remains limited due to data constraints. A decentralized perspective is essential for constructing a more comprehensive understanding of contemporary surveillance.
The installation of video surveillance system by Chinese local governments offers
a valuable starting point for analysis. China has implemented a wide range of digital surveillance systems. Nearly all government departments and all levels of government are involved in the installation of video surveillance system. The extensive
involvement of local governments enables us to make a wide range of empirical
observations. On the one hand, local governments play a central role in video surveillance activities within the network of actors. China’s video surveillance policy
mandates the involvement of local governments, from the initial pilot of the 3111
project to the subsequent promotion of the Sharp Eyes project(雪亮工程). According to the Chinese government procurement website, local governments in China
signed 122,835 procurement contracts on video surveillance between 2014 and
2020, averaging 75 contracts per year per prefecture city.3 On the other hand, the
diversity of public settings in China requires different actions by governments and
agencies. First, significant differences exist across cities, such as population size,
1
Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) refers to a system where video signals are transmitted to a specific
set of monitors, typically for surveillance and security purposes. Change Data Capture (CDC) is a technology used to identify and capture changes made to data in a database, enabling real-time data integration and synchronization across systems.
2
The Authoritarian Surveillant Assemblage (ASA) is the outcome of Turkey’s diverse surveillance
systems, including a protest and dissent surveillance system, an internet surveillance system, a synoptic
media surveillance system and an informant–collaborator surveillance system [51]. The Planning Tool
for Resource Integration, Synchronization, and Management (PRISM) is a surveillance program developed by the National Security Agency (NSA) in the United States. It has confirmed the large-scale mass
surveillance of the telecommunication and electronic messages of governments, companies, and citizens,
including the United States’ closest allies in Europe and Latin America [3]. The Echelon is a surveillance
network which is operated by the Five Eyes alliance comprising the United States, United Kingdom,
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Echelon intercepts and analyzes a wide array of communications,
including phone calls, emails, and internet data, eliciting debates over civil liberties and international
privacy issues [69]
3
This data will be introduced in details in the following section.
Local Governments and the Diffusion of Video Surveillance…
local culture,4 etc. [17, 20, 44]. Second, China’s hierarchical government structure implies discretionary action, local governments need to follow the authority
of higher-level authorities, but they also retain some autonomy in local affairs [9].
Local governments’ strategic behaviors vary substantially depending on the specific
task and pressure they face [58]. Therefore, this paper aims to explain the distribution and pattern of video surveillance system installations from the perspective of
Chinese local governments.
The main challenge would be how to collect the proper data to capture the diffusion of video surveillance systems. Previous studies have primarily relied on interviews, government documents, official speeches, and industry research reports to
gather data on video surveillance equipment [45]. Some studies use dummy variables to indicate whether video surveillance equipment is present at a given location [63]. More recently, a few studies have begun to use procurement contracts to
analyze the Chinese government’s surveillance system.5 Compared to policy documents or pilots programs, procurement data more accurately reflects governmental actions rather than stated intentions. This paper draws on detailed procurement
data—including procuring agencies, contract values, and other relevant features—to
provide a more comprehensive picture of video surveillance procurement in China.
We study the Chinese government’s video surveillance procurement by addressing three related questions. First, how much video surveillance equipment has been
installed by local governments? Second, what are the key characteristics of local
governments’ video surveillance implementation in China? Finally, what factors
influence local government’s decisions to implement surveillance systems? We
analyze the time trend, value trend, regional characteristics, and departmental differences in video surveillance implementation. We also discuss local governments’
motivations for installing video surveillance equipment. We propose three hypotheses: that the pressure to comply with higher-level directives, the pressure to respond
to public demand, and maintain social order may lead to greater implementation of
video surveillance systems.
Results show that the total value and average contract value of video surveillance procurement increased steadily between 2014 and 2020, while the number
of contracts initially rose before declining. The monthly procurement pattern also
shows the year-end spike in spending, consistent with the pattern of general public spending and suggesting that the procurement is unlikely a well-planned multiyear project. The developed coastal regions are the pioneers in installing video surveillance system, and gradually the western provinces, finally Xinjiang, Tibet, and
other minority ethnic group regions (Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, and Ningxia). Even
4
In the existing literature, local culture is a broad concept that includes elements such as clan culture
and dialect differences. Local culture can influence governance strategies. For example, in the process of
nuclear power plant construction in China, Shanwei in Guangdong Province is considered a clan-based
society, while Huludao in Liaoning Province is regarded as a unity-oriented society. During the construction of nuclear power plants, propaganda policies oriented toward collective interests were predominantly
adopted in Huludao. In contrast, in Shanwei a risk-averse propaganda strategy was used [17].
5
Jessica Batke ‘State of Surveillance’ (Chinafile, 30 October 2020) < https://​www.​china​file.​com/​state-​
surve​illan​ce-​china > accessed 25 May 2024.
P. Liang et al.
when there were news reports of security incidents, the procurement of surveillance
equipment in the aforementioned regions did not increase.6 Surprisingly, the largest buyers of video surveillance equipment in recent years are not the public security department, but the education departments and environment departments. We
find that the pressure to comply with higher-level directives is the primary driver of
video surveillance implementation, while public pressure and social order concerns
matter only in a few contexts. Older local leaders are more likely to respond to public demands due to considerations of career stability and political reputation, while
newly appointed leaders are more influenced by the need to maintain social control.
This study contributes to the understanding of video surveillance in China in several key ways. First, while previous studies have explored the procurement of surveillance equipment by the police [5, 6], we present some stylized facts about the spatial
diffusion of video surveillance equipment in China, drawing on rich information of the
public procurement contracts, including value, geocoded location, and departments.
The spatial feature suggests the importance of economic development, rather than
the need to repress ethnic groups [4, 63], in the diffusion of public video surveillance
equipment. Second, by disentangling the Chinese government by administrative layers
and functional roles, this study explores the construction of video surveillance system
from the perspective of local governments and highlights the limited local initiative
in procurement activities. The use of procurement data also suggests the limitations
of traditional approaches that rely solely on policy documents to study video surveillance installation. Unlike previous studies [43], we find no evidence that large-scale
video surveillance implementation by local governments is driven primarily by security concerns. Instead, multiple factors—such as political cycles, promotion motives,
and other and non-security functions—appear to influence implementation. Our study
provides a more diverse perspective for understanding surveillance in China.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows: Section "Literature Review" reviews
Chinese government video surveillance policies, and lays out the theoretical analysis of
local government video surveillance procurement, and presents the main hypothesis; Section "Methods and Data" introduces the data and methods; Section "Results and Discussion" presents the regression results and discussion; and Section "Conclusion" concludes.
Literature Review
Institutional Background7
In this section, we review the changes in the role and function of Chinese local governments in the implementation of video surveillance systems. Over the past two
decades, the Chinese government has introduced a series of policies and projects to
6
This is also consistent with the literature that the massive use of surveillance technology in Xinjiang
started after 2016, when Chen Quanguo was appointed as the secretary in Xinjiang [38].
7
‘China Security and Prevention Statistics Industry Yearbook(2002–2022)’ < http://​www.​21csp.​com.​cn/​
njcd/​2021/​index.​html > accessed 30 November 2023 (The content of this section is based on our compilation of the China Security and Prevention Statistics Industry Yearbook from 2002 to 2022).
Local Governments and the Diffusion of Video Surveillance…
promote the installation of video surveillance equipment. Among these policies, the
role of local governments is very different. We observe the four stages from the perspective of local government participation.
In the early days, only a few local governments were selected into the pilot project
to install video surveillance equipment. In June 2004, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Science and Technology jointly issued a notice to carry out
the Construction of the First Batch of Demonstration Cities for ‘Strengthening Police
with Science and Technology’(关于开展首批 ‘科技强警’示范城市建设工作的通
知), and carried out the pilot construction of urban alarm and surveillance system.
The initial group of pilot cities was completed implementation in 2005. Subsequently,
the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and
the General Office of the State Council requested all departments and localities to
actively promote a series of ‘Ping’an project’, such as Ping’an Communities(平安
社区), Ping’an Schools(平安学校) and Ping’an Hospitals(平安医院).8 The Ping’an
Project has been a key initiative promoted by the Chinese government over the past
20 years. The term "Ping’an" carries multiple meanings, including being safe, stable,
and peaceful [46]. Pilot cities such as Beijing, Jinan, Suzhou and Hangzhou set the
goal of becoming Ping’an Cities(平安城市). The Department of Science and Technology of Zhejiang Province drafted the Technical Specification for Social Security
Dynamic Video Surveillance System(社会治安动态视频监控系统技术规范) to
standardize the development of public security dynamic video surveillance systems
within the province. Since then, video surveillance has gradually come to be viewed
as a key tool by local governments.
Encouraged by the central government, local governments in large and mediumsized cities began to install video surveillance equipment. In August 2005, the Ministry
of Public Security launched the ‘3111’ pilot project for the construction of urban alarm
and surveillance systems nationwide. Each province was required to designate one city
to pilot the installation of video surveillance equipment. Governments at the city and
county level were given discretion to decide whether to implement the project locally.
The Skynet project was launched in various regions beginning in 2007.9 For example,
under Jiangsu Province’s Skynet Project (天网工程), the provincial Public Security
Department required pedestrians to be photographed every 10 min in the central urban
area, every 20 min in peripheral areas, and every 30 min in suburban zones. A decade
later, China had installed over 20 million video surveillance cameras.10
In 2014, the new leadership under president Xi Jinping put forward the concept
of Holistic Approach to National Security(总体国家安全观), elevating the priority of
8
‘“平安城市”建设现状与发展趋势[Current situation and development trend of " Ping’an city" construction]’(中国电子政务网[e-Government network],9 February 2017) < http://​www.e-​gov.​org.​cn/​egov/​
web/​artic​le_​detail.​php?​id=​162946 > accessed 25 May 2024.
9
‘长春市建议提案电子政务应用系统正式开通[Changchun City proposed the e-government application system officially opened] (长春市人民政府网站[Changchun Municipal People’s Government Website],4 January 2010) < http://​www.​chang​chun.​gov.​cn/​zw_​33994/​yw/​zwdt_​74/​zwdt/​201612/​t2016​1210_​
15817​01.​html > accessed 15 March 2023.
10
‘ 辉煌中国[Brilliant China]’(CCTV 节目官网[CCTV program Official website], 18 November
2017) < https://​tv.​cctv.​com/​2017/​11/​18/​VIDEN​CISxK​07JDj​zprqM​rNcm1​71118.​shtml?​spm=​C5592​
48711​39.​PiBcP​r7RBv​8W.0.0 > accessed 15 March 2023.
P. Liang et al.
national security. In 2015, the National Development and Reform Commission, the
Ministry of Public Security, and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued a document
called Several Opinions on Strengthening the Construction of Public Security Video
Surveillance Networking Applications(关于加强公安视频监控组网应用建设的若
干意见), which promoted the Sharp Eyes Project across county, township, and village
levels. The document mandated 100% surveillance coverage in key public areas, as
well as in critical zones within essential industries and sectors. The integration rate of
surveillance systems in key public areas reportedly reached 100%, including the full
networking of video resources across essential sectors and public zones.11 A multi-layered security system based on networked public surveillance infrastructure has been
largely completed. In 2019, the Sharp Eyes Project was included in the No.1 Central
Document.12 At the July 2019 Meeting on Deepening Reform in Political and Legal
Sectors, the Central Political and Legal Committee announced that the Sharp Eyes
Project has been fully implemented, with surveillance coverage in key public areas of
demonstration cities and counties reaching 96%. So far, nearly all local governments
have participated in the installation of video surveillance equipment.
In the above three stages, local governments have progressively increased their
involvement in public security video surveillance programs. More recently, video surveillance systems have been applied in a growing number of non-security sectors. The
13th Five-Year Plan(十三五规划)13 proposed the construction of smart cities, calling
for strengthened modern information infrastructure and the promotion of big data and
the Internet of Things. With the advancement of 5G and artificial intelligence, video
surveillance technologies have acquired increasingly diverse functions. The critical role of video surveillance in urban services and environmental engineering was
highlighted in Shenzhen’s announcement of the Overall Plan for the Construction of
a New Smart City­­(新型智慧城市总体规划)[16]. An increasing number of local governments in China have begun to use video surveillance systems extensively in sectors
such as education, healthcare, environmental management, and beyond.
Literature Review and Research Hypotheses
What motivates local governments to install video surveillance systems? At first
glance, the answer is very straightforward. As previous studies suggest, political
11
It should be noted that this document mandates a 100% coverage rate for video surveillance equipment, but this does not mean that 100% coverage has actually been achieved.
12
China’s Central Document No. 1 is an annual policy issued jointly by the CPC Central Committee and
the State Council, focusing on rural and agricultural development. This document is crucial for guiding
rural and agricultural development, shaping policies, fostering socio-economic progress, and achieving
national food security.
13
五年规划 [The Five-Year Plans] of China are comprehensive blueprints outlining the nation’s economic and social development goals over five-year intervals. Initiated in 1953, these plans aim to achieve
sustainable growth, industrialization, and technological advancement. They play a crucial role in guiding China’s economic policies and resource allocation to address key challenges and promote balanced
development across different departments.
Local Governments and the Diffusion of Video Surveillance…
control and the maintenance of social stability are the primary motivations [5, 32,
35, 64]. However, although political control is essential to the survival of regime,
it is usually far beyond the concern of local governments, and local governments
have alternative means of maintaining social stability beyond costly and expansive
video surveillance systems, such as the implementation of welfare programs[8, 21,
28, 31]. Therefore, the motivations behind video surveillance investments require
closer examination.
Fragmented authority provides a key context for understanding local government
behavior in China. In the era of fragmented authority 2.0, fragmented authoritarianism has changed from the traditional dual structure opposition to the tripartite pattern of central government, local government, and civil society [37, 62, 67]. Accordingly, we divide the subjects that affect the behavior of local governments into three
groups: local governments themselves, higher-level governments, and the general
public. These three types of subjects correspond to the three types of pressures that
local governments face, namely the need to maintain social order, the pressure of
following superiors’ directives, and the pressure of public demand.
Existing literature primarily focuses on government security-related pressures
as incentives for video surveillance installation, which is also our first hypothesis.
Local governments would install video surveillance equipment for the purpose of
social control and security. Panoramic feudism, which has been widely used, facilitates the exercise of power by making it more efficient and pervasive [14]. Public
security department uses a large number of surveillance devices to monitor and prevent crime [41]. Episodes of social unrest incentivize local governments to increase
investment in video surveillance [5]. And the literature also finds that governments
would further increase surveillance after some important incidents. For instance, the
U.S. government increased its surveillance of Muslims and airport security checks
after 9/11[1]. In response to ongoing terrorist attacks in France in 2015, the French
police overstepped their original authority and used IBM’s digital surveillance program to collect and analyze a large amount of private data [27]. Social stability and
security have remained paramount concern for the Chinese government in recent
decades, leading to their prioritization of these issues on the national policy agenda
[24]. The concept of a holistic approach to national security encompasses political,
economic, and societal dimensions of security. Local governments have undertaken
both formal and informal efforts to ensure social stability and security. One example
of such efforts is the increase in security spending and citizen participation mobilization to keep social stability [64]. Therefore, we expect that the pressure to maintain social stability and security will lead local governments to install more video
surveillance equipment:
H1a: The greater the need for social order control; the more video surveillance
systems will be installed by local governments.
H1b: Sudden security incidents will prompt local governments to expand their
installation of video surveillance systems.
A body of literature also suggests that pressure on local governments to comply with overarching policy strategies may have contributed to the installation of
P. Liang et al.
video surveillance equipment. The Chinese state consists of a five-level hierarchy
of dyadic principal-agent relationship [57, 68]. Seven dimensions of control—
ideological-normative, institutional, resource-allocative, personnel management,
administrative monitoring, powers over key local departments, and military
force—are the means by which the central government controls local governments[2, 12, 13] The attention and initiative of higher-level authorities are an
important condition for the effective implementation of policies[18]. The implementation of video surveillance systems in China is also characterized by this.
First, the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China emphasized
the central role of national security in the national strategy [61]. In terms of security technology, the Chinese government actively cultivated its domestic security
industry at an early stage to enhance its security capabilities [19]. At the organizational level, the central government has introduced policies such as Skynet and
Sharp Eyes Project to promote video surveillance implementation. Based on this,
we believe that the pressure from the superior government also encourages the
installation of video surveillance equipment by local governments. We therefore
propose the second hypothesis:
H2: The greater pressure from higher-level authorities, the more video surveillance systems local governments will install.
Finally, local governments in China are under increasing pressure to be
responsive to public need [10, 23] and the pressure to respond to people’s security demands may be another incentive for governments to install surveillance
equipment. Although some citizens express concern over privacy and government overreach [15, 49], there is also empirical evidence of public support for
surveillance[26]. Surveillance practices enjoy widespread public support in
China [25, 26, 29]. Public reaction will further influence government behavior
[7]. The Chinese government has been working to establish formal channels
of communication between the government and the public. The first interactive website was the Local Leaders’ Message Board (LLMB), launched by the
People’s Daily website in September 2006.This website is designed to encourage the public to voice their concerns. Subsequently, various local governments
established and refined their own citizen engagement platforms. For example, in
Beijing, a total of 4.956 million calls have been received since January 2019, in
10 months on Beijing’s ‘12345’ citizen service hotline, which officially launched
the ‘receiving and handling’(接诉即办) mechanism. Central government oversight of the response and public stress are the source of pressure on local governments to respond [10]. Therefore, we propose a third hypothesis that people’s
security demands will affect the government’s video surveillance installation
behavior.
H3: The greater the public’s security demands, the more video surveillance systems local governments will install.
Local Governments and the Diffusion of Video Surveillance…
Methods and Data
Data
Measuring Video Surveillance
We extract government procurement contracts from the Chinese Government
Procurement Website(中国政府采购网)14 maintained by China’s Ministry of
Finance, to obtain the data of video surveillance equipment procurement. The
Ministry of Finance issued the Administrative Measures for Government Procurement Information Announcement (政府采购信息公告管理办法) in 2000,
and established a Chinese government procurement website to promote transparency. In early 2001, the Ministry of Finance created sub-sites for provincial
governments. That same year, local governments began uploading procurement
contracts both to their provincial sub-sites and the central platform. However, the
existence of the website does not mean that information is sufficient. In 2001,
only six contracts were published on the central website. Although the number
reached 10,263 by 2003, it remained far below the actual scale of government
procurement in China. With the continuous efforts to improve government transparency, the Ministry of Finance issued the Notice on the Disclosure of Government Procurement Information(关于做好政府采购信息公开工作的通知)
in 2015. This document requires local governments to upload all procurement
contracts value above 1 million RMB to the central platform.15 As a result, the
data obtained from the Chinese government procurement website captures all the
major video surveillance procurement activities.
We have collected contracts that include video surveillance equipment procurement according to the Government Procurement Category(政府采购品分类目录).
We collected 122,835 video surveillance procurement contracts of China’s prefecture-level municipal governments were collected between 2013 and 2020.16 Each
contract record includes title, upload time, buyer names and their addresses, agent
names, contract classification, contract value. Finally, we use NLP technology to
extract the province, city, district, and county information from the buyer’s address.
Stylized Facts
To validate our dataset and get a general understanding of video surveillance in
China, we present several stylized facts in this section. First, Fig. 1 presents the time
trend of video surveillance equipment procurement. Then, we illustrate the regional
characteristics of video surveillance procurement in Fig. 2, and Fig. 3 shows the
departmental differences in video surveillance equipment procurement.
14
中国政府采购网[Chinese government procurement website] < http://​www.​ccgp.​gov.​cn/ >
Confidential procurement by military forces may not be disclosed.
16
Trends and totals of procurement contract uploads were similar between 2014 and 2015, so data from
2014 was also included in the analysis.
15
P. Liang et al.
Figures 1a and b show the trend in per capita spending and per capita procurement contracts counts for video surveillance from 2013 to 2020, respectively, with
the bar graph and curve representing the annual and monthly changes. We include
data from 2013 here and find that after 2013, local governments uploaded significantly more procurement contracts for video surveillance equipment, validating
the effectiveness of the policy of disclosure of procurement information. Figure 1a
shows that per capita procurement spending fluctuated and generally increased,
while the number of procurement contracts per capita in Fig. 1b reached the peak
in 2018. The Chinese government promoted the Sharp Eyes project in 2015, which
required all levels of counties, cities, and villages to install video surveillance
equipment. Most video surveillance procurement during this period involved highdefinition cameras and monitors with relatively consistent unit prices. Accordingly, as the number of contracts increased, total spending also increased. After
that, the Chinese government-initiated preparations for a broader digital transformation. The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in
2017 introduced the concept of a Smart Society(智慧社会), setting higher requirements for video surveillance equipment and analytics platforms. More advanced
equipment with expanded functionalities carried a higher average price. Besides,
spending and contract volume are the lowest in the first quarter of each year, and
reached the highest level in the last quarter, especially in December. This pattern
reflects the well-documented year-end spending surge. The phenomenon is common in countries with modern budget systems, where unspent funds at year-end
are reclaimed and may result in a reduction in appropriations in subsequent fiscal year [34]. In China, the average fiscal expenditure in December accounts for
17.04% of the annual total, significantly exceeding the monthly benchmarks of
8.3% between 2008 and 2018[11]. Figure 1a and b suggest that local governments
are unlikely to engage in well-planned, year-round procurement of surveillance
[52]. Figure 1c depicts the changes in the average value of procurement contracts.
The average contract value has increased from RMB 4 million to RMB 14 million.
These fluctuations may reflect increasing the quality and technical specifications
in local governments’ surveillance procurement.
Figure 2 illustrates the provincial diffusion of video surveillance equipment procurement. Procurement began in the more developed eastern and coastal provinces,
and gradually diffused to the western and inland provinces, and finally the Xinjiang
and Tibet, two regions of substantial share of ethnic minorities.
Figure 3 further categorizes the procurement of video surveillance by the functions of buyers. Public security departments, education departments, environmental agencies, and State-owned enterprises are the main buyers of video surveillance
equipment. Figure 3a depicts changes in departmental investment in surveillance
equipment between 2013 and 2021.17 The public security department has consistently remained a major purchaser. Procurement by the education department,
17
In order to present the most complete picture of purchasing trends possible, we have included data
for 2013 (even though it is incomplete) and 2021 (we did not use 2021 data in the baseline regressions
because we do not currently have access to other data, such as 2021 crime rate data).
Local Governments and the Diffusion of Video Surveillance…
environmental agencies, and state-owned enterprises also increase over the study
period. This trend aligns with broader patterns of surveillance diffusion across government sectors. Public security procurement of surveillance equipment surged after
2016, coinciding with the nationwide implementation of the Sharp Eyes and Brightness Projects. Non-security departments gradually became the new primary buyers after 2019. Overall, the purchase of video surveillance equipment by the public
security department has declined since 2019, while Fig. 3b indicates that the education and environment departments have become the main agencies of video surveillance equipment installations in some provinces before 2019. Huang (2022) argues
that small and medium-sized security companies in China are unable to meet the
technical requirements from public security departments, so they switch to lobby
public agencies such as schools and hospitals, which leads to an increase in procurement by these agencies. This may help explain the rise in surveillance procurement
by education departments. It is worth noting that the environment departments also
have a large spending on video surveillance procurement, highlighting the utility of
video surveillance equipment other than social control.
Dependent Variable
We use annual per capita procurement value (per 10,000 residents) in prefecturelevel cities to measure video surveillance implementation. The value of purchases
per capita contains more information than the number of cameras. While the number
of cameras reflects installation quantity, procurement value per capita offers insights
into functionality, service quality, and other product characteristics. When using the
number of surveillance cameras as a proxy variable, several limitations arise. There
is no difference between a camera purchased by a local government for 10,000RMB
and a camera purchased for 1,000RMB. However, these represent vastly different
levels of government investment. In addition, video surveillance equipment contains
not only cameras, but also other supporting equipment, such as facial recognition
software, command platforms and related infrastructure. Thus, the value of purchases per capita represents a completely different investment attitude on the part
of the local government. We divide the total purchase value of video surveillance
equipment by the total population in a city at the end of the year. We take the logarithm of the per capita purchase amount as the dependent variable. Population data
are from China Urban Statistical Yearbook.
Pressure
We construct two variables to measure the security-related pressure: daily security
pressure and emergencies security pressure. We collect the crime rate data at the provincial level to represent the daily security pressure. In terms of emergencies pressure,
we examine political events, production-safety events, and social security disturbances
to assess their impact on government surveillance installation. All these three events
may entail risk for social stability and threaten the career of local leaders. We choose
the Kunming railway station terrorist attack (昆明火车站暴力恐怖案) 2014 to represent political events, and Tianjin Tanggu explosion (天津塘沽爆炸事故) in 2015
P. Liang et al.
Fig. 1 The trend of video surveillance spending. Note: Fig. 1 displays the trend chart of per capita purchase value, per capita purchase times and average contract value from 2013 to 2020. a is the graph of
the change in the spending of purchases per capita. b shows the change in the number of purchases per
capita. Among them, the annual change of the column chart, the curve represents the monthly change. c
shows the changes in the average value of procurement contracts
to represent the production safety incident.18 In addition, incidents such as medical
disputes and school-related violence have drawn increasing attention from local governments in recent years. We manually collect data on school violence incidents from
2016 to 2017 through Baidu search engine, to represent the social security events.
18
The Kunming railway station incident: On March 1,2014, a violent terrorist attack occurred in Kunming Railway Station, Kunming City, Yunnan Province. The incident caused 29 deaths and 143 injuries, including 73 serious injuries and 70 minor injuries ( https://​www.​china​news.​com.​cn/​gn/​2014/​03-​02/​
58992​55.​shtml); In August 2015, a particularly serious fire and explosion accident occurred in a dangerous goods warehouse in Tianjin. The accident killed 165 people, severely wounded 58 people, lightly
wounded 740 people, and the direct economic loss was 6.866 billion yuan (https://​www.​gov.​cn/​foot/​
2016-​02/​05/​50397​88/​files/​46073​1d8cb​4c448​8be3b​b0c21​8f8b5​27.​pdf).
Local Governments and the Diffusion of Video Surveillance…
Fig. 2 The diffusion of video surveillance equipment. Note: Figure 2 illustrates the variation in per capita
investment in video surveillance equipment by province. The darker the color, the higher the per capita
investment
Superior pressure is measured by counting the number of key words in the work
reports of provincial governments. China’s People’s Congress system requires the
appropriate level of government leaders, such as the Premier of the State Council,
the governor, and the mayor, to report on the governments’ work in the past year and
to put forward the key tasks and development goals for the next year. These reports
have evolved into a highly institutionalized nationwide system with two important
aspects: the autonomy of local elites in setting work agendas and their compliance
with the political priorities of the central government [56]. Consequently, many
studies have considered the number of key words in the government work report
as a proxy variable for superior attention [47, 65]. Moreover, these reports not only
contain the pressure of implementing special policies, but also include the normal
security concerns of higher-level governments. We collect all provincial government
work reports from 2014 to 2020, and aggregate keywords counts at the provincial
year level19 and use the ratio of keywords to the total number of words to denote
superior pressure, which indicates the superior government’s attention to video surveillance equipment.
19
The keywords including 视频监控[video surveillance], 雪亮工程[Sharp Eyes],安防[ security], 数
字城市 [digital city], 智慧城市 [Smart City], 电子警察[Electronic Police], 法治[the rule of law],安保
[peace and security],监控[ surveillance],抓拍[taking a snap]. etc.
P. Liang et al.
As for the pressure from public, the authors take the public safety complaints
on the LLMB.20 The People’s Daily launched the online message board in September 2006. Citizens (including businesses) could write to a local leader about complaints, consultation, recourse, advice, and appreciation, and the local governments
20
领导留言板[Local Leaders’ Massage Board], < http://​liuyan.​people.​com.​cn/ >
Local Governments and the Diffusion of Video Surveillance…
Fig. 3 The diffusion of video surveillance equipment across departments. Note: Fig. 3 illustrates the
changes in the purchasing behavior of surveillance equipment in different public departments in China.
a Shows the trend of total video surveillance equipment purchases by year for the four departments of
public security, education, environment, and state-owned enterprises. b is the trend in departmental purchases by province and year. The four colors in the figure above represent the four purchasing departments, and the color of the province indicates the department that purchased the most video surveillance
equipment in that province in that year. Take the case of Shandong province as an example, the judicial
department of Shandong province procured the most in 2016 compared to the other three departments. In
2017, the education department in Shandong became the largest buyer of video surveillance equipment.
The education department includes primary schools, secondary schools, universities and vocational
schools. SOEs include banks, state-owned enterprises, etc. Environmental departments include environment bureau, hydrological bureau, etc. Public security department include public security bureau etc.
usually respond within 30 days. As of June 2023, 3,904,932 messages had been
addressed, covering various topics such as urban construction, transportation, education, employment and security. The LLMB is the largest citizen petition platform
in China [30]. The LLMB, relying on the party media platform, is more independent
and less influenced by local leaders than the local government portal. This dataset
has been used in prior research on Chinese public opinion and responsiveness [55,
69]. We use the ratio of the number of public security-related complaints to the total
complaints to represent the public pressure.
Controls
We select the control variables from two dimensions: demand and constraint. On
the demand side, we control for urban area because the larger the city, the greater
the need for video surveillance. We also control for per capita investment in education. In terms of constraints, we use GDP per capita to control for the level of
economic development, general public budget expenditure/general public budget
revenue to control for the fiscal pressure of the government. Given that cities with
better internet infrastructure are more conducive to establishing video surveillance system, we also control for the household local Internet broadband access
(per 10,000 households). The above data are from China City Statistical Yearbook
from 2014 to 2020, and the missing data are manually supplemented based on the
local government annual work reports. The descriptive statistics are presented in
Table 1.
Methods
We use the two-way fixed effects model as the baseline. The model is set as follows:
Surveillianceit = 𝛽0 + 𝛽1 Pressureit + 𝛽2 Controlit + 𝜆t + 𝛼i + 𝜀it
(1)
where i is the city and t is the year. Surveillance is the log of per capita local government procurement on video surveillance. Pressure includes the superior pressure,
public pressure, and daily security pressure. Control includes urban area, per capita
education expenditure, per capita GDP, financial pressure, and the number of local
▸
P. Liang et al.
households with broadband Internet access. λt is the time fixed effect, αiis the city
fixed effect, and ε is the error term clustered on the province level.
For the impact of emergencies security pressure on video surveillance purchase
behavior, we introduce an event study model to estimate. The model is set as follows:
Surveillianceit = 𝛽0 + 𝛽1 Afterit + 𝛽2 Beforeit + 𝛽3 Controlit + 𝜆t + 𝛼i + 𝜀it
(2)
Since the emergencies are expected to have immediate effects, the time unit of
model (2) i quarter. After and Before are the lag and lead terms, respectively. For the
Kunming Railway Station incident, since it occurred in a transportation hub, The top
50% of cities based on the total passenger volume in 2014 are set as the treatment
group. For the Tanggu explosion incident, the explosion was caused by hazardous
industrial materials, in 2015 the proportion of the secondary industry output value
in the city’s GDP is used as the criterion. The top 50% of cities were placed in the
treatment group. Regarding school violence, cities where a school violence event
occurred were designated as the treatment group, and vice versa. Other variables
retain the same meaning as in model (1).
Results and Discussion
Table 2 presents the baseline results. Columns (1) and (2) examine the effect of daily
security pressure on video surveillance installment. The results show no statistically significant effect. Columns (3) and (4) reveal the significantly positive effect
of superior pressure on local government video surveillance procurement. Specifically, for every one unit increase in keyword share in the provincial government’s
annual work report is associated with a 22.4% increase in per capita procurement
value. Columns (5) and (6) test the effect of public pressure. The coefficients are
not significantly different from zero, regardless of the inclusion of control variables.
Columns (7) and (8) include all three types of pressure in one model. Once again,
only the superior pressure remains statistically significant in explaining the video
surveillance procurement.
Table 3 presents the heterogeneity analysis. Columns (1) and (2) report the
results from separate regressions for security and non-security department across
the three types of pressures. Superior pressures have a significant effect in both
security and non-security departments. But the security department’s response
to public complaints about security is notable. We also regress again using the
number of criminal cases per capita at the prefecture level as a second proxy for
security pressure which shows in columns (3)-(5). However, we still find no evidence that security pressure affects local government procurement of surveillance
equipment.
We use an event study design to examine the impact of unexpected security incidents on the behavior of local governments in installing video surveillance. Table 4
reports the results, with control variables added at the quarterly level [5]. Columns 1,
3, and 5 report results for the full sample, while columns 2, 4, and 6 report estimates
Local Governments and the Diffusion of Video Surveillance…
Table 1 Descriptive statistic
Variables
Orbs
Mean
Std. Dev
Min
Max
Log-total-per
1253
12.50
2.09
0
16.90
Pressure-superior
1253
3.66
1.10
1.53
9.09
Pressure -public
1253
0.029
0.062
0
0.652
Pressure-security
1253
0.056
0.026
0.011
0.100
GDP-per
1253
6.170
3.544
1.017
21.55
Fiscal pressures
1253
2.807
1.957
0.375
17.51
Area
1253
203.3
250.6
14
1565
Internet
1253
147.4
151.2
5
1424
Education-per
1253
0.183
0.145
0.002
1.440
Log-total-per is logarithm of the purchase amount per 10,000 people. The superior pressure is the proportion of the number of keywords in the provincial government work report to the total number
of words per thousand. Pressure -public is the proportion of public
security complaints to total complaints. GDP-per is GDP per capita
in ten thousand yuan. Fiscal pressures are the ratio of general public finance expenditure to general public finance income. Area is the
built-up area in square kilometers. Internet Indicates the number of
Internet access households (unit: 10 thousand households). Education-per is per capita Education expenditure in yuan
for the procurement by related departments.21 Figure 4 shows that although there
is an upward trend in the purchase of video surveillance equipment during the current or next emergency period, most of the trends are not statistically significant.
It is worth noting that school safety emergencies, such as school violence, have a
clear impact on the education department in the current period. This finding is consistent with institutional procurement framework in China. For example, according
to the Procurement Law of the People’s Republic of China(中华人民共和国采购
法), the procuring agency must issue a procurement notice and allow a minimum of
20 days from the date of issuance of the bidding documents to the bid submission
deadline. Then, the procuring agency must confirm the supplier in accordance with
regulations governing the specific type of procurement. After that, the procuring
agency and the successful bidder should sign a government procurement contract
within 30 days from the date of issuance of the notice of award. Therefore, local
21
Since the terrorist attack at the Kunming Railway Station involved public security departments, transportation departments and transportation venues, the authors have keep the procurement contracts with
the keywords public security, police station, railway, train station, automobile, dock, boat, port, transportation traffic control, airport, etc. (公安 警 派出所 铁路 火车站 汽车 码头 船 港口 交通 运输 交管 飞
机场) in the name of the procuring agency. Since the Tanggu explosion involved chemical enterprises,
transportation departments, fire departments, and public security departments, the authors keep procurement contracts with procurement agency names that included the keywords factory, company, cooperative, firefighter, industrial park, chemical, police, production railroad, train station, car, dock, ship, port,
traffic transportation, traffic control, airports, etc. (厂 场 公司 集团 合作社 行 消防 工业园 化工 警 派
出所 生产 铁路 火车站 汽车 码头 船 港口 交通 运输 交管 飞机场 公安 警 派出所). The keywords
related to campus violence are university, college, school, primary and secondary education, education
and sports,etc. (大学 学院 学校 *中 *小 教育 教体), so the authors keep the procurement contracts with
the above keywords in the name of the purchasing organization.
P. Liang et al.
Table 2 Baseline regression
Pressuresecurity
(1)
(2)
-0.722
-0.649
(3.431)
(3.312)
Pressuresuperior
(3)
0.220***
(0.068)
Pressurepublic
GDP-per
Fiscalpressures
Internet
Educationper
(5)
(6)
0.224***
(0.070)
-0.068
1.595
(0.108)
(1.068)
(7)
(8)
-0.715
-0.710
(3.293)
(3.159)
0.221***
0.227***
(0.068)
(0.072)
0.990
1.679
1.263
(1.390)
(1.085)
(1.412)
-0.030
-0.006
-0.031
(0.114)
(0.082)
(0.116)
(0.109)
-0.009
0.000
-0.004
-0.000
(0.084)
(0.001)
(0.087)
(0.085)
0.000
-0.285
0.000
0.000
(0.001)
(1.705)
(0.001)
(0.001)
-0.168
0.003**
-0.304
-0.552
(1.759)
Area
(4)
0.003*
0.220***
-0.070
(0.002)
(1.943)
(1.764)
0.224***
0.003*
0.003*
(0.002)
(0.068)
(0.070)
12.036***
11.694***
11.436***
(0.002)
12.453***
12.036***
(0.002)
Constant
12.539***
11.683***
11.545***
(64.80)
(16.36)
(0.248)
(0.702)
(407.21)
(16.56)
(0.313)
(0.717)
Observations
1,253
1,253
1,253
1,253
1,253
1,253
1,253
1,253
Number of
cities
179
179
179
179
179
179
179
179
R-squared
0.631
0.634
0.639
0.642
0.632
0.635
0.640
0.643
City FE
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
Year FE
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
Table 2 reports the results of baseline regression. Column 1 and Column 2 report the effects of pressuresecurity on the installation of surveillance. Column 3 and Column4 report the effects of superior pressure
on the installation of surveillance. Column 5 and Column 6 report the effects of pressure-public on the
installation of surveillance. Column 7 and Column 8 report the effects of all kinds of pressure on the
installation of surveillance. Column 2, 4, 6, 8 add all control variables. We control for two-way fixed
effects of year and city. The standard errors clustering at the province level are in brackets. Significance
levels are indicated as follows: *10%, **5%, and ***1%
government procurement processes are subject to procedural delays. In the case of
school violence, schools’ independent financial systems may contribute to sustained
increases in procurement volume.
As stated in the hypothesis, Chinese government has a priority for social stability. However, we find no evidence that unforeseen events directly affect the
video surveillance procurement. Do security incidents influence the installation of video surveillance systems through other channels? We collect the data
Local Governments and the Diffusion of Video Surveillance…
Table 3 Heterogeneity
Pressure-security
Pressure-superior
Pressure-public
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
Department_s
Department_ns
Total
Department_s
Department_ns
-3.910
-1.657
(7.158)
(3.565)
0.331**
0.189**
0.227***
0.335**
0.191**
(0.143)
(0.090)
(0.072)
(0.141)
(0.089)
6.310*
1.018
1.244
6.243*
0.986
(3.430)
(1.512)
(1.440)
(3.506)
(1.524)
0.001
0.033
0.011
(0.016)
(0.042)
(0.019)
Pressure-security2
Observations
1,253
1,253
1,253
1,253
1,253
Number of cities
179
179
179
179
179
R-squared
0.446
0.631
0.643
0.446
0.631
Control
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
City FE
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
Year FE
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
Table 3 reports the heterogeneity results. Columns (1) and (2) present the results of regressions of security department and non-security department on the three types of pressures. Columns (3)-(5) present the
results of regressions that displace the crime rate data into the number of crimes per capita at the prefecture level. The standard errors clustering at the province level are in brackets. Significance levels are
indicated as follows: *10%, **5%, and ***1%
of unrest events from 2015–2019 in the UNREST22 database and the number of
keywords related to video surveillance in provincial government work reports.
Table 5 investigates whether the growth rate of the unrest events influences superior-level pressure and video surveillance equipment procurement by prefecturelevel governments. We include all control variables and the region and year fixed
effects. Similarly, we still find that the unrest events had no effect on the video
surveillance installation of local governments, but they may reinforce the determination of the higher-level governments to promote video surveillance system
implementation.
Here we further examine the moderating effect of the personal characteristics of
municipal leaders on video surveillance procurement. Table 6 focuses on the characteristics of party secretaries. We interact party secretaries’ age, tenure and gender with three normalized pressure variables to test test for moderating effects. The
results show that the newly appointed secretaries are more responsive to the daily
security pressure when procuring video surveillance equipment. Older secretaries
are more responsive to the public pressure. Older local leaders are more willing to
respond to the masses. This may be because, although older local leaders are less
22
The unrest data is from Beraja et al. (2022). The data on instances of unrest was collected from the
GDELT project, which documents these events through news articles from a global collection of news
providers. There are three incident categories—protests, demands, and threats—and aggregated them.
Event is the variable that counts them all up.
P. Liang et al.
Table 4 The impact of emergencies on government video surveillance procurement
(1)
(2)
political events
Before4
(3)
(4)
(5)
production-safety events
social security
events
(6)
0.153
0.419
0.144
-1.061
-0.586
0.369
(0.219)
(1.197)
(0.337)
(0.876)
(0.586)
(0.812)
0.030
0.676
-0.083
-0.675
-0.294
1.417
(0.199)
(0.997)
(0.255)
(0.833)
(0.478)
(0.748)
0.253
0.913
0.035
0.030
-0.473
0.286
(0.237)
(1.102)
(0.263)
(0.895)
(0.461)
(0.834)
0.118
-0.073
-0.068
-1.113
0.315
1.948**
(0.286)
(0.915)
(0.281)
(1.036)
(0.666)
(0.935)
-0.006
0.014
-0.251
-1.281
0.102
0.583
(0.375)
(0.884)
(0.235)
(0.953)
(0.575)
(0.935)
-0.053
0.594
0.133
-0.945
-0.073
1.089
(0.291)
(0.995)
(0.242)
(1.087)
(0.680)
(1.092)
0.120
0.808
0.096
1.874**
-0.068
1.509
(0.248)
(0.763)
(0.307)
(0.880)
(0.751)
(1.170)
0.193
-0.485
0.182
-0.500
-0.380
0.436
(0.356)
(1.242)
(0.223)
(1.003)
(0.580)
(1.189)
Observations
1,356
1,356
1,692
1,692
1,320
1,320
Number of cities
113
113
141
141
165
165
Control
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
City FE
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
Quarter FE
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
Before3
Before2
Current
After1
After 2
After 3
After 4
Quarterly data is used. Column 1 and 2 report the impact of political events, Column 3 and 4 report the
impact of security incidents, and Column 5 and 6 report the impact of school violence incidents. Columns 1, 3, and 5 report results for the full sample, while columns 2, 4, and 6 report estimates for the procurement by related departments. We refer to the methodology of Beraja (2023), which uses annual data
multiplied by quarterly dummy variables to construct control variables. We control for two-way fixed
effects of quarter and city. The standard errors clustered at the province level are in brackets. Significance
levels are indicated as follows: *10%, **5%, and ***1%
likely to seek promotion [66], maintaining public security remains a fundamental
concern for career stability. They may also prioritize political reputation over deference to superiors as they near mandatory retirement. This implies that the local
leaders’ allocation of resources may depend on terms. China has a relatively small
number of female local party secretaries. During the sample period, only 39 female
secretaries. The regression results based on this limited number of observations are
not statistically significant, but there are some clues that the daily security pressure
is more likely to affect the installation of video surveillance equipment by female
local party secretaries. This finding confirms the existing literature suggesting that
female officials are more attentive to social affairs [50].
Local Governments and the Diffusion of Video Surveillance…
Fig. 4 Event study. Note: a, c and e are the results for the Kunming Railway Station incident, the Tanggu
explosion incident and the school violence incident, respectively. b, d and f are the results that retain the
relevant departments mentioned above. The confidence interval is 5%
Conclusion
This paper examines the proliferation of video surveillance in China from a
decentralized governance perspective. We collect video surveillance procurement
contracts from the Chinese government procurement website and extract key
information including purchaser, contract date, and contract value. We document
the temporal, spatial, and departmental patterns of video surveillance equipment
installed by local governments in China. Our results show a consistent increase
in both the total value and average contract value of video surveillance purchased
by the Chinese local governments. Its diffusion process is also consistent with the
implementation of other policies in China, typically characterized by initial adoption in eastern provinces before spreading westward. The public security department, as the first public department to buy video surveillance equipment, used to
P. Liang et al.
Table 5 The impact of unrest event
(1)
(2)
Event
0.013
(3)
(4)
(5)
Protest Demand
Threat
Event
Protest
Demand Threat
0.006
0.037* -0.004
-0.005
-0.001
-0.018
(0.011) (0.008) (0.005)
(0.020) (0.009) (0.004)
(0.007)
(0.015)
Controls
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
Observations
895
895
895
895
895
895
895
895
R-squared
0.492
0.491
0.493
0.492
0.677
0.677
0.677
0.677
Number of city 179
179
179
179
179
179
179
179
City FE
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
Year FE
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
Pressure-superior
Unrest
0.021***
(6)
(7)
(8)
Log-total-per
This table reports the impact of unrest events. Column 1 -4 report the effects of unrest events on superior
pressure, Column 5–8 report the effects of unrest events on the installation of surveillance on prefecturelevel. We control for two-way fixed effects of year and city. The standard errors clustered at the province
level are in brackets. Significance levels are indicated as follows: *10%, **5%, and ***1%
Table 6 The impact of officials’ personal characteristics on local government video surveillance procurement
(1)
VARIABLES
Age
Interaction
0.434
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
Tenure
(7)
(8)
(9)
-0.045
4.012
Gender
-0.018*** 0.312* 2.667** -0.048
-0.010
12.757
(0.716) (0.009)
(0.167) (1.190)
(-0.097) (0.536) (7.722) (0.222) (6.634)
Control
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
Observations
1,253
1,253
1,253
1,253
1,253
1,253
1,253
1,253
1,253
R-squared
0.636
0.792
0.637
0.638
0.645
0.636
0.637
0.644
0.637
Number of cities 179
179
179
179
179
179
179
179
179
City FE
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
Year FE
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
This table reports the effect of officials’ personal characteristics on local government procurement of
video surveillance equipment. Columns 1, 4, and 7 report the interactive effects of age, tenure, and gender with daily security pressure. Columns 2, 5, and 8 report the interactive effects of age, tenure, and
gender with supervisor pressure. Columns 3, 6, and 9 report the interactive effects of age, tenure, and
gender with public pressure. We control for two-way fixed effects of year and city. Standard errors clustering at the province level are in brackets. Significance levels are indicated as follows: *10%, **5%, and
***1%
be the largest purchaser of video surveillance equipment. However, as surveillance functions expanded, the education and environmental departments emerged
as key procurers.
This study broadens the traditional surveillance research by focusing on
the incentives of local governments, instead of considering the government as
a whole. Furthermore, by examining how local governments respond to three
Local Governments and the Diffusion of Video Surveillance…
distinct types of pressure, we move beyond the conventional explanation of
surveillance as merely a tool for social order. We analyze the behavior of local
governments by examining the pressure they have. Hence, it leaves the spatial
competition among local governments, which is considered as an important feature of local government behavior, aside. It is worthwhile to put Chinese local
governments into the social network of governments to consider the peer pressure in the construction of video surveillance equipment. Although we find no
direct evidence that security pressure drives the installation of video surveillance
equipment, we show that the social unrests could attract the attention of superior
governments, consequently promote the installment of video surveillance system
among lower-level governments.
Instead of focusing on the national-level surveillance strategy, we concentrate
on the actual implementation of video surveillance from the perspective of local
governments. This approach enhances our understanding of modern surveillance
systems in two ways. On the one hand, we attempt to broaden the scope of surveillance analysis. The security department has been the major focus of surveillance research. With the upgraded functionality of video surveillance equipment,
more public agencies have begun to purchase surveillance equipment. However,
limited attention has been paid to new entrants, such as education and environmental departments. On the other hand, we have divided the process of video
surveillance deployment into two phases. At the national level, maintaining security and stability has long been recognized as the main motive for governments
to install video surveillance equipment. However, in practice, security concerns
have only occasionally motivated local governments to install video surveillance
systems. Instead, it is the attention and encouragement from higher levels authorities that drives local governments action.
The dynamics among public attitudes, social unrests, and video surveillance
system is complicated and waits for further study. Moreover, understanding the
social impacts of video surveillance system—such as the public trust, perception of
safety—is essential for evaluating its costs and benefits. Additionally, we find that
the education and the environmental department are the major buyers of video surveillance equipment, it is worthwhile to understand the inter-department relations
in the use of surveillance equipment. Whether these independently operated by the
respective departments for separate goals, or merely extensions of public security
infrastructure.
Acknowledgements The authors thank the comments from Xiang Gao, Jingyang Huang, Shenghua Lu,
Rachel Murphy, and the audience in the seminars in Oxford, Southampton, and Zhejiang University. All
remaining errors are by ourselves. This work was supported by the National Office of Philosophy and
Social Science [number 22AZD033].
Data Availability The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding
author upon reasonable request.
Declarations
Competing interests The authors declare no conflicts of interests.
P. Liang et al.
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Pinghan Liang Professor in the School of Government, Sun Yat-sen University. He receives PhD in Economics from the Universitat of Autonoma de Barcelona. He was the Swire Visiting Scholar in the University of Oxford, and visiting scholar in the Northwestern University. His research interest includes Public
Economics, Political Economy, Behavioral Economics, state-business relations, social impact of digital
technology, etc..
Xijie Li Doctoral student in the School of Government, Sun Yat-sen University.
Yuchen Guo Doctoral student in the School of Government, Sun Yat-sen University.