Shaping science and society through law: Governance logic and public roles in the revised Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Popularization of Science and Technology

Abstract

In this article, the 2002 and 2024 revised editions of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Popularization of Science and Technology (“the Law”) are examined to explore how the state shapes the science–society relationship. Relevant explanatory reports on the revision of the Law, policies, and central/local materials about the implementation of the first “National Science Popularization Month” are reviewed. Based on four dimensions (political–normative, organizational–responsibility, capacity–instrument, and oversight–accountability), the new Law is proposed to promote science popularization from “an educational and cultural activity to cultivate individual scientific quality” to “a basic governance project that serves a powerful country in science and technology, Chinese-style modernization, and high-level self-reliance in science and technology.” Three cases of popularization efforts, urban, rural and mobile, reveal that the Law increases the visibility and organizational density of science popularization. However, the materials also reveal that public participation is defined mainly as visiting, experiencing, volunteering, and cooperating with governance, rather than issue identification, decision-making, or cogovernance. Therefore, two concepts, “legalized science popularization” and a “state-mobilized literacy model,” are proposed, and it is asserted that instead of going beyond a simple deficit model or becoming a participation model, the Chinese case presents a hybrid form of science popularization characterized by law centering, multiorganizational coordination and state mobilization support.