With the advent of the fourth wave of the information technology revolution, the internet is increasingly becoming a key force in empowering the public and promoting political participation. The inherent characteristics of the internet as a rational tool suggest that it has a number of impacts on political participation, driven by its technological logic. Whereas previous studies have clarified how the internet may promote political participation, their exploration of the underlying mechanisms is limited. They rely on traditional mediation models, which weaken their power to test the mechanisms, and they neglect the deeper technological logic behind such mechanisms as well as both their positive and negative effects.

To explore the causal relationship between internet use and political participation, along with the underlying mechanisms, this paper distinguishes between institutionalized and non-institutionalized forms of political participation. A theoretical framework of technological empowerment is constructed, and two mechanisms—information incentives and community-driven engagement—are proposed. Using data from two waves of the Chinese Social Survey (CSS), the study provides empirical evidence supporting our research hypotheses. The findings reveal that: (1) Technological empowerment significantly impacts political participation, with internet use enhancing in particular the institutionalized forms of political participation; (2) The information incentives mechanism is confirmed, as information dissemination via the internet reduces information constraints by broadening and deepening public exposure and thereby promoting political participation; (3) The community-facilitation mechanism is validated, with internet-based social interactions improving community engagement by increasing both the quantity and quality of community participation.

The main contributions of this study are as follows: First, at the theoretical level, the study extracts the information incentive and community-facilitation mechanisms based on the technological logic of the internet, constructs a technological empowerment framework, and clarifies the causal mechanisms between the internet and political participation. Second, at the empirical level, by using moderation effect testing models, the study provides strong empirical evidence for the existence of information incentive and community-facilitation mechanisms, thereby providing insights into identification of the causal mechanisms. Third, regarding the study population, use of multi-wave mixed cross-sectional data based on a national sample provides both cross-sectional representativeness and longitudinal validity, ensuring high internal and external validity of the research conclusions.

In the context of a digitally-driven network society, this study reveals the “double-edged sword” effect of the internet's technological tool on political participation. It contributes to a deeper theoretical understanding of how the internet promotes political participation and provides policy insights for the government to leverage the positive effects of the internet, thereby aiding in the advancement of socialist democratic political development in China.

“Hierarchical escalation” is a recurrent organizational phenomenon in policy implementation by Chinese bureaucratic organizations. On the one hand, this phenomenon strongly drives local development; on the other hand, it often exceeds reasonable limits, attracting public attention as well as dissatisfaction. Based on the concept of “hierarchical escalation”, there are many differences between different organizational behavior and organizational consequences. Decisions related to “hierarchical escalation” encompass both the “escalation” of policy goals and the “escalation” of policy instruments, with the grassroots implementers responding differently to various “hierarchical escalation” tasks. However, existing research has not effectively clarified the distinctions and relationships between the organizational process of “hierarchical escalation” decision-making and the organizational consequences of opportunistic behavior by grassroots implementers. Our research questions are: Under what circumstances does “hierarchical escalation” occur? How are different “hierarchical escalation” decisions linked to opportunistic implementation behavior?

Adopting an integrative perspective, this paper proposes a typological explanation for “escalation” and “reception”. First, based on a three-level “principal-manager-agent” framework, we propose that the manager represents the intermediate government, which is the decision-maker in terms of “hierarchical escalation”, while the agent represents the grassroots government, which is the perpetrator of opportunism. Our analysis suggests that strong incentives and high-risk tasks are the necessary conditions that trigger “hierarchical escalation”. The combination of positive or negative incentive structures and the two types of task risks, namely the implementation risks and the acceptance risks, jointly shape the forms of escalation by managers and moderate the reception behavior by agents. Incentive distortions and the amplification of risks positively moderate an agent's opportunistic tendencies, producing opportunistic behavior, such as inflated performance, over-execution, performative governance, and the hiding of information. Furthermore, through information and authority mechanisms a principal's inspection and acceptance methods adjust the strategic choices under specific incentives and risks.

Our research contribution lies in categorizing and discussing the phenomenon of “hierarchical escalation” from an integrative perspective, enriching the dialogue between Chinese phenomena and classic theories and enhancing our understanding of the complex patterns in Chinese government policy implementation. Additionally, clarification of the inherent differences among the different types of “hierarchical escalation” is helpful in the formulation of targeted corrective policies.