Recently, the paper “Bluer rural skies through digital government transformation: Evidence from a mixed methods study,” independently authored by postdoctoral researcher Wu Jianxian from our School, was officially published online in the internationally renowned Journal of Rural Studies. Shenzhen University is the sole affiliation.
Grounded in the frameworks of information economics and network governance, the paper employs large-sample empirical methods to systematically explain the mechanisms through which digital government transformation improves rural environmental quality. The study finds that digital government generates significant positive effects on rural environmental quality by enhancing monitoring and early warning capabilities, improving law enforcement precision, promoting multi-stakeholder collaborative governance, and optimizing policy coordination mechanisms. The research demonstrates that digital government initiatives in rural areas can unleash substantial synergistic benefits for environmental governance, offering theoretical and practical support for building a beautiful countryside and advancing the digital rural strategy.
Published by Elsevier, Journal of Rural Studies has maintained rigorous academic standards for over forty years since its founding and has become a leading international journal in rural development studies. Indexed in the SSCI database, the journal has a latest impact factor of 5.7 and ranks in JCR Q1.
Author Profile:
Wu Jianxian holds a PhD in Management. He serves as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the School of Government and a Researcher at the Institute of Global Mega-City Governance, Shenzhen University. His research interests include public policy, environmental governance, digital-intelligent governance, and urban-rural public governance. He has published or had accepted over 20 papers in domestic and international journals, including Nature Cities, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Land Economics, Urban Studies, Review of Policy Research, World Development, Studies in Science of Science, China Journal of Economics, and Chinese Journal of Environmental Management. He was awarded the Doctoral Dissertation Scholarship by the Peking University–Lincoln Institute Center for Urban Development and Land Policy and was selected for the “China Public Affairs Governance Research Demonstration Achievements.”
Article Source: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2026.103999
Editor | Liu Weirui
First Review | Wang Yingying
Second Review | Wu Jianxian
Final Review | Gu Zhijun
