How Can Digital Empowerment Promote High-quality Supply Of Rural Public Services?

In the context of China’s comprehensive implementation of rural revitalization strategy,rural public services supply has become a key link in enhancing rural governance effectiveness and promoting deep integration of urban and rural public services.However,traditional rural public services supply has long been characterized by asymmetric supply and demand information,top-down decisionmaking,low accessibility of public services and low villager satisfaction.With the rapid development of digital technology,how to improve the quality of rural public services supply by solving the above problems has become a very important issue of the times.At present,academics have paid attention to this issue and have gradually carried out research on rural public services provision and digitalization.However,at this stage,there is a phenomenon of generalizing the concept of rural public services quality,and there is insufficient analysis of the deep-seated and complex reasons for the low quality of rural public services provision.However,little is known about the key issues of "why","for what","what" and "how" digital technology can promote high-quality supply,and further scientific and rigorous research is needed.This paper adopts a single case study in the case study method and selects the process of introducing and promoting the "Wecounty" platform in Taoaba Village,Qionglai City,Sichuan Province to improve the quality of public services provision in the village as the research object.The study also analyzes the mechanism of the relationship between digitalization and the quality of rural public services.At the same time,the study was supplemented by secondary data obtained through multiple channels,including local government websites,policy documents,news media,We Chat and information published on the "Wecounty" platform,to provide triangular corroboration.Based on the services quality gap theory,digital governance theory and empowerment theory,we construct a model of digital empowerment to promote high-quality supply of rural public services,i.e.,"digital empowerment-bridging the quality gap of rural public services-promoting high-quality supply of rural public services",based on the analysis of the case practice of Tao Ba Village introducing the "Wecounty" platform.The logical progression of "digital empowerment-bridging the quality gap of rural public services-promoting high-quality supply of rural public services".Because of its interactive,shared,integrated,agile and disintermediated nature,digital empowerment supports the expression of demand,decision making,matching and evaluation in the supply of rural public services,forming the corresponding expression empowerment,decision making empowerment,matching empowerment and evaluation empowerment.Combining with the case of Taoba village,we can explore the root causes of the quality gap in four segments of rural public services: closed participation path,excessive performance display,monocentric governance pattern and lagging informationization level.In turn,digital empowerment can influence the causes of the quality gap in rural public service segments to narrow the quality gap and ultimately promote the high-quality supply of rural public services.This paper proposes a digital empowerment perspective to explain the quality supply of rural public services,explore the gap composition and causes,and reveal the causal logic relationship between digital empowerment and the quality supply of rural public services,which is new and expansive.At the same time,the theoretical analysis of high-quality rural public service provision based on the service quality gap theory is somewhat unique.This study provides guidelines and references for grassroots governments and rural areas to improve the quality of public services and the effectiveness of rural governance.However,there are limits to the generality of the findings in single-case studies,and the complex and chaotic causal mechanisms in the real world,so the theoretical analysis framework of this paper needs to be further tested and improved by more practice.