Chen, D., & Zhan, J. V. (2025). The Social Foundation of Digital Control: A Comparative Analysis of Grassroots Surveillance in China.

China’s use of digital technologies for mass surveillance has intensified scholarly debate on digital authoritarianism. However, focusing on state-level capacity overlooks crucial variations in grassroots implementation. This study addresses this gap by examining grassroots authorities’ surveillance strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic, a period of unprecedented state control and intensive deployment of digital tools such as health and travel codes. Drawing on in-depth fieldwork and comparative case studies of four urban and rural communities, we find that grassroots control necessitates integrating digital technologies with human-based surveillance. The success of this hybrid approach is not determined by technology but by the strength of community social networks. Whereas communities with robust networks achieved effective control despite digital limitations, communities with tenuous networks struggled despite advanced digital infrastructure. Challenging assumptions about linear technological progression, our findings suggest that social infrastructure and human agents remain indispensable for grassroots surveillance, highlighting the social foundation of authoritarian control in the digital age.