聂辉华 中国人民大学经济学院教授

The political economy of the digital age: A literature review on the interaction between citizens, enterprises, and the state

ABSTRACT: Information plays an essential role in state governance. Digital technologies have transformed the process of collecting, utilising and disseminating information in the digital age, leading to changes in state governance and the content of political economy. This paper tries to comprehensively summarise the impact of digital technologies on state governance, with a focus on three questions: First, how does social media influence the relationship between the state and citizens? Second, how do platform companies influence the relationship between the state and businesses? Third, how does the digital government influence the relationship between the state and society? Generally, the existing literature reaches consensus on the following three points: First, although digital technologies enhance citizens’ ability to supervise the government, they overall benefit the government by consolidating its power. Second, platform companies have an information advantage that easily places them in a monopolistic position, therefore regulation should be strengthened in order to protect citizens’ privacy, promote market competition, and safeguard national security. Third, digital technologies are widely adopted in government departments, but that has also raised concerns among scholars about algorithmic discrimination and the possibility that the government may turn into a digital leviathan. In the concluding section, we put forward four suggestions for the future research.

以下是中文翻译。

《数字时代的政治经济学：一个关于公民、企业和国家互动的文献综述》

摘要：信息在国家治理中起着至关重要的作用。数字技术改变了数字时代收集、利用和传播信息的过程，导致了国家治理和政治经济内容的变化。本文试图全面总结数字技术对国家治理的影响，重点关注三个问题：第一，社交媒体如何影响国家与公民之间的关系？其次，平台公司如何影响国家与企业之间的关系？第三，数字政府如何影响国家与社会的关系？总体而言，现有文献在以下三点上达成了共识：第一，尽管数字技术提高了公民监督政府的能力，但它们通过巩固政府权力，使政府整体受益。其次，平台公司具有信息优势，容易处于垄断地位，因此应加强监管，以保护公民隐私，促进市场竞争，维护国家安全。第三，数字技术在政府部门被广泛采用，但这也引起了学者们对算法歧视的担忧，以及政府可能变成数字利维坦的可能性。在结论部分，我们对未来的研究提出了四点建议。

引用来源：Nie, Huihua, Ning Yang, 2025, “The Political Economy of the Digital Age: A Literature Review on the Interaction between Citizens, Enterprises, and the State”, Economic and Political Studies, forthcoming, https://doi.org/10.1080/20954816.2025.2450107.

来源：聂辉华