As digital common good, public data is of great importance for digital governance. Data silos in the government bureaucracy are traditionally associated with political structures that keep power decentralized and promote internal competition, but are they also present in highly centralized regimes? This study uses the Data Management Bureau (DMB) as a vehicle to understand how China’s local governments try to tackle data silos across the bureaucratic organizations. It analyzes two different mechanisms of data integration drawing on extensive field research across eastern and southern China conducted from 2022 to 2023. By leveraging campaign-style enforcement and institutional reform, a new vertical functional department has been established to manage public data and build the data pools. The collaboration among local government agencies, private and state-owned high-tech companies, research institutes, and civil society has been achieved through large-scale digitalization projects in the past decades. While identifying both technical and political barriers to efficient data integration, this study also investigates local governments’ relentless attempts to strengthen centralized control from the top down. The increasing tension embedded in the ‘tiao-kuai’ system requires policy innovation for inter-agency collaborations. Specifically, this study contributes to the literature on collective action by illustrating the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in collective decision-making.
