How to make the perfect citizen?

• Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies
• GGP: Global Governance Programme
• GlobalCit: Global Citzenship Observatory

A Global Governance Programme seminar on how the Chinese Social Credit System redefines the institution of citizenship and warns against similar patterns that are mushrooming in liberal democracies

‘How to make the perfect citizen?’ This has been one of the questions driving the construction of the Chinese Social Credit System: a technology-driven project that aims to assess, evaluate, and steer the behaviour of Chinese citizens. After presenting social credit systems in China’s public and private sectors (Part A), the article that will be presented at the seminar provides normative standards to distinguish the Chinese system from comparable systems in liberal democracies (Part B). It then discusses the concept of civic virtue, as implemented by the Social Credit System, claiming that it creates a new form of governance, ‘cybernetic citizenship’, which fundamentally changes the essence of citizenship and the political role of the state (Part C). On the whole, the article demonstrates how the Chinese Social Credit System redefines the institution of citizenship and warns against similar patterns that are mushrooming in liberal democracies.

To receive the ZOOM link to attend the webinar please REGISTER ONLINE by 11 May.