China has developed a technological Social Credit System that monitors, collects, and analyses behavioural data from citizens and enterprises. The system categorises them trustworthy or untrustworthy according to their behaviour. This paper aims to investigate the technological elements of China’s Social Credit System and analyse its social functions. In doing so, I will address the human rights implications following from the system. The thesis uses a content analysis method and draws on three theoretical studies, including, dataveillance, social sorting and neoliberalism and subjectivity. The study shows that China intends to continue investing in immoral technological elements; might succeed to govern citizens in self-governing; and prioritises the system in front of scarce human rights regulations. The conclusion holds that China intends to continue developing and strengthening the Social Credit System to enhance the behaviour of their society, regardless of some human rights implications, to reach their desired outcome.

The international governance discourse has seen radical changes in both trends and understandings in recent years, from the global dominance of liberal democracy after the Cold War, to the current movement towards authoritarianism. The modern autocracy has progressed its reach by the use of new applications in technology, which has resulted in a digital authoritarianism, also known as E-governance. In China, a system known as the “Social Credit System” represents these changes in modern governance. It aims to improve civic governance by incorporating the social contract into a digital platform. The system has been described as both a technological salvation and Orwellian Panopticon, with approximately 900 million individual records whilst assigning each user with a social credit score depending on how well they perform on different areas, such as education, prosocial behavior, financial services and much more. “Trustworthy” users are given opportunities in life such as improved; welfare, housing, social status, employment, and mobility in society. Meanwhile, “trust breakers” are placed on a blacklist and face a variety of sanctions and restrictions.   This qualitative case study analyzes the overall functioning of the system in terms of social control, in order to open up the (currently) rather dualistic debate on the system in current academic literature since the system is usually presented rather simplistically as either a threat or a benefit. The thesis, furthermore, analyses the domestic governance implications of the Social Credit System and the changes it suggests to how social control might be operationalized by other societies in the future. Lastly, the study will investigate the effect of social labelling in the “Blacklist” component and discuss the consequences for minority groups, polarization, governance advances, legal improvements, and rule of law.

No description available.

Climate change is an enormous challenge which, if not addressed will have detrimental impacts across the globe. This problem is largely produced by human behaviour. Therefore, strategies aimed at influencing behaviour are necessary in addressing this issue. Governments are currently utilising informational campaigns, rewards, penalties, nudging and structural changes to influence pro-environmental behaviour. Although these methods are creating change, it is far from sufficient to address the massive and urgent issue of climate change. Therefore, alternative strategies should be considered. As such, this thesis aims to explore the effectiveness and the extent to which the Social Credit System, as it is being developed in China, can be considered an alternative strategy for producing pro-environmental behaviour. A framework to analyse and describe the SCS was developed by executing a literature review of key environmental behaviour models and intervention strategies aimed at producing pro-environmental behaviour. It concludes that the Social Credit System utilises a variety of methods similar to the behaviour models and interventions reviewed in this thesis, especially as far as rewards and punishments are concerned. However, surveillance stands out as a distinct means of intervention that is not utilised outside China to produce pro-environmental behaviour. The discussion suggests that this aspect of the system might be effective in contributing to address the challenge of climate change due to its coercive nature.