From Click to Boom: The Political Economy of E-Commerce Growth in China

The global rise of e-commerce has unleashed a surge of innovation and entrepreneurship not only in cities, but also in geographically distant, less developed areas. China is now the world’s biggest online market. The past five years has even witnessed the emergence of 212 “e-commerce Villages,” where many peasants were able to reverse their fortunes by selling agricultural products and handicrafts online. What are the social and political effects of the rise of online entrepreneurs in even the most remote areas? How does e-commerce affect local governance or vice versa? I propose a general model of clientelism and connectivity to study the impact of e-commerce on state-business relations. I will employ a multi-method approach, combining case studies and large-N quantitative analysis, to empirically test the implications of my theoretical framework. I thus request funding for completing fieldwork in China, building two datasets and implementing two surveys, one on local officials who appropriate resources for the development of e-commerce, and another on a nationally representative sample of online entrepreneurs.