Social spaces and digital participation: teahouses as deliberative infrastructure in China

Why do similar digital participatory institutions produce divergent patterns of citizen engagement across social contexts? This article introduces the concept of deliberative infrastructure – social spaces and interactional norms that sustain repeated practices of discussion, mediation, and collective reasoning – and argues that such infrastructures condition the effects of digital participation. Drawing on a historical analysis of teahouse culture, spatial data, and survey evidence from digital participatory budgeting reforms in Chengdu, China, the study shows that technologies do not mobilise participation from scratch. Rather, they reconfigure and scale pre-existing deliberative practices, expanding their reach, visibility, and integration into contemporary state–society interaction. By linking civic traditions with digital governance, the article advances a sociological account of digital participation that moves beyond technology- and institution-centered explanations. The effects of participatory technologies thus depend not only on how they are designed, but also on the historically accumulated social infrastructures into which they are introduced.