How Digital Technology Enables Consultative Co-governance at the Grassroots Level?A Case Study based on Xiaogucheng Village in Zhejiang Province

In the context of the big data era, digital technology not only breaks through the limitations of traditional grassroots governance models and solves the problems of poor information flow and low decision-making efficiency but also opens up new application scenarios for grassroots consultative governance. This study, through the construction of an “Embedding-Empowering” analytical framework, analyzes the case of Xiaoguocheng Village in Zhejiang Province, where “everything is discussed by everyone”. It finds that from the perspective of external embedding dimensions, technological embedding improves negotiation efficiency through the application of digital tools, institutional embedding provides legal and institutional support through regulations and policies, while relational embedding enhances information sharing and transparency, promoting interactive interaction among negotiating subjects and mutual benefits in decision-making. From the perspective of endogenous empowerment dimensions, organizational empowerment optimizes the organizational structure and process of grassroots consultation through digital transformation, resource empowerment provides material foundation for the widespread adoption of digital technology through infrastructure and resource investment, and data empowerment uses big data technology to analyze governance data, providing support for scientific decision-making.