How does the Chinese government's adoption of microblogs affect local governance and social contention it is tasked to manage? This case study explores the extent to which government microblogging could serve as: (1) a battering ram to spearhead reforms; (2) a virus bringing unexpected consequences; and (3) a reinforcer of authorities' existing power, that is, politics as usual. After studying a Chinese municipal government's microblogs (weibo 微博) in depth from the perspective of local governance, we find that official microblogs do not in the short run lead to organizational change. Instead, Chinese local government microblogs function largely as 'beta-institutions' experimenting with ways to interact and negotiate with their microblog publics and microblog service providers and aimed at improving social management and political legitimacy. Local governments are also evolving gradually from service providers to 'service predictors' with enhanced capabilities to deliver individualized services and institute state surveillance via commercial service providers. These developments warrant further studies of the long-term implications of microblogs as part of the government information ecology.

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Coal allocation in China is a seminal case of e‐government in the political economy. The empirical phenomenon of market supporting e‐government has not been systematically analysed. By developing and applying a digital governance model this article examines institutional change in a case of coal allocation reform in China. The case shows how the central state used e‐government to get rid of planning overload. Coal allocation meetings were abolished in favour of an ecology of online market solutions. The findings suggest that further research on Chinese e‐government would benefit from attention to the role of e‐government in the political economy.

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