Technical thinking: how does e-land administration system promote the efficiency of cross-sectoral collaborative land governance in China?

Abstract

The involvement of multiple stakeholders complicates urban land governance. The e-Land Administration System (e-LAS) is expected to help decision-makers cope with this challenge. The aim of this research is to explore the mechanism through which e-LAS promotes efficient cross-sectoral collaborative land governance (CSCLG) and to test its effectiveness in a Chinese city through an empirical case study. The results of interview and documentary analysis show that the mechanism encompasses three parts: the technical tools of e-LAS, the subgoals of CSCLG, and CSCLG’s technical requirements on e-LAS. These technical tools work together to speed up the process of inputting and outputting information, building relationships, facilitating communication, and assisting collaborative decision-making among both internal and external stakeholders. However, our study of the e-LAS in the case city reveals that specific technical tools for collaborative decision-making are not well-developed, suggesting that China is still in the early stage of implementing functional e-LAS for CSCLG.