Economics, Law and Policy 
ISSN 2576-2060 (Print) ISSN 2576-2052 (Online) 

Vol. 5, No. 1, 2022 

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28 
 

Original Paper 

Research on the Governance Mechanism of Information Poverty 

in Ethnic Border Areas from the Perspective of Relative Poverty 

Zhai Haomiao
1
, Gao Fuxia

1*
 & Xu Xinpeng

1
 

1
 College of Finance and Economics, Sichuan International Studies University, Chongqing 400031, 

China 

*
 Gao Fuxia, E-mail: gaofuxia@sisu.edu.cn 

 

Received: May 1, 2022           Accepted: May 24, 2022          Online Published: June 8, 2022 

doi:10.22158/elp.v5n1p28                          URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/elp.v5n1p28 

 

Abstract 

The elimination of poverty as the primary goal has always been an important content that the 

governments of all countries pay great attention to. Over the past few decades, China has made 

remarkable achievements in poverty alleviation. The targets of poverty alleviation in the new era have 

been fulfilled as scheduled. However, it should not be ignored that with the resolution of absolute 

poverty in China, poverty control in the new era has become more strategic and long-term. Many 

problems have become the focus of poverty management in the “post-poverty era”, such as relative 

poor group replacing absolute poor group as the main body of poverty, preventing the group that has 

been lifted out of poverty from returning to poverty and preventing the occurrence of new poverty. This 

paper takes Chongqing southeast “national long-term governance mechanism of the border region 

information poverty” as the research object, focusing on poverty after the crucial information poverty 

on “the new absolute poverty and has Chinese out of poverty group”, the influence of the ultimate goal 

is to block Chinese border region phenomenon caused by poor information, strengthen poverty crucial 

achievement, realize common prosperity. 

Keywords  

Relative Poverty, Southeast Chongqing, Information Poverty, Governance Mechanism 

 

Funds Supporting: Scientific research project of Sichuan Foreign Studies University-“Research on the 

development strategy of rural financial services in the process of urbanization in Western China” (SISU 

201773); Study on long-term governance mechanism of information poverty in ethnic border areas 

from the perspective of relative poverty (KJQN202100904); “Research on long-term governance 

mechanism of information poverty in Southeast Chongqing under the background of rural 



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revitalization” (2021PY33). Science and Technology Project of Chongqing Education Commission 

“Research on identification and Governance of New Labor relations under gig economy” 

(KJQN202000905)/(KJQN202100901); “Research on the governance mechanism of new Labor 

Relations from the perspective of new Business Forms”, No.21SKGH141; “Innovative research on the 

Precise governance mode of community led by Party Construction under the vision of Co-construction, 

Co-governance and Sharing” (21SKGH134). Research on harmonious labor relations thought of 

socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era (2021YBCS39). Research on the path of 

Ideological and political construction of grass-roots party construction leading curriculum in Colleges 

and universities from the perspective of great ideological and political construction (SISU202157). 

 

1. Introduction 

On the basis of the millennium development goals, the United Nations adopted the 2015-2030 

sustainable development agenda with 17 sustainable development goals as the core. Poverty eradication 

as the primary goal has always been an important content of great concern to governments all over the 

world. Over the past few decades, China’s achievements in poverty eradication have attracted 

worldwide attention. The goal and task of poverty alleviation in the new era were completed on 

schedule. Under the current standards, all rural poor people were lifted out of poverty, all 

poverty-stricken counties were removed, and the task of poverty alleviation and relocation in other 

places was fully completed. Absolute poverty and regional overall poverty were eliminated, which 

played an important role in promoting China’s economic development, political stability, national unity 

and social harmonious development. However, it can not be ignored that with the solution of the 

problem of absolute poverty in China, the poverty governance in the new period is more strategic and 

long-term. It is still facing many problems, such as the relative poor groups replacing the absolute poor 

groups as the main body of poverty, preventing the groups that have been lifted out of poverty from 

returning to poverty and preventing the occurrence of new poverty. It has become the focus of poverty 

governance in the “post poverty relief era”. At present, the material poverty in ethnic border areas has 

been effectively eliminated and alleviated, but the disadvantages such as lack of information and 

unimpeded information already exist. In this regard, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC 

Central Committee clearly proposed to “resolutely win the battle against poverty, consolidate the 

achievements of poverty eradication, and establish a long-term mechanism to solve relative poverty”. 

Therefore, taking the Southeast Chongqing Ethnic Border Region as the research sample, this paper 

studies how to consolidate the achievements of poverty alleviation and build a long-term governance 

mechanism to solve information poverty, which is of great significance to China’s anti-poverty strategy 

in the new era. 

 

 

 



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2. Literature Review  

2.1 The Concept of Information Poverty and Its Influencing Factors 

Poverty is usually divided into absolute poverty and relative poverty. Relative poverty refers to a living 

state in which individuals are excluded from the normal level due to the lack of ability or resources to 

participate in social activities under specific social constraints, which makes it difficult for them to 

reach the living standard recognized by the society (Townsend, 1962). According to Townsend, in a 

society that eliminates absolute poverty, there will still be a gap between the rich and the poor, and the 

greater the gap between the rich and the poor, the more obvious the difference in relative poverty. 

Oscar Lewis put forward the concept of “poverty culture” in 1956. The theory holds that, compared 

with other social strata, the poor follow significantly different habits in family maintenance, living style 

and upgrading choice. Although they lose their status in key social institutions, they still hold the 

consciousness of being willing to poverty and lack of resistance, and lose the motivation and 

willingness to struggle. Information poverty includes two aspects: one is the state of absolute 

information poverty and shortage, and the possession, utilization, infrastructure construction and 

information-based services of information are in the state of absolute poverty; The second is relative 

information poverty, that is, the “digital divide” between urban and rural areas or regions, which 

mainly reflects the information differentiation between different classes or groups. Since the 1970s, 

domestic scholars began to study “information differentiation” and “information poverty”. Foreign 

scholars prefer to study the “digital divide”. While domestic scholars attach importance to the study of 

“digital divide”, they also did some research on “information differentiation”, “information inequality” 

and “information poverty” based on China’s national conditions (Zhou Wei et al., 2021; Tang Peiwen 

et al., 2020; Fan Xiaoyu, 2020). 

The influencing factors of individual falling into information poverty include not only internal factors 

such as the individual characteristics of poor families, but also external factors such as economic 

growth and regional environment. Specifically: (1) internal cause perspective. From the perspective of 

human capital, some scholars have recognized that education level is the key influencing factor for the 

information poor to improve their information literacy (Xie Huichang, 2020); Some scholars also 

analyze the causes of information poverty from the perspective of material capital: due to inconvenient 

transportation and backward infrastructure, information poverty such as information blocking, 

information failure, information lag and information distortion (Feng Xian et al., 2018; Zhu Qiubo et 

al., 2019). Information poverty is coupled and interacted with local industrial development, public 

services, infrastructure construction and grass-roots governance, resulting in path dependence of 

economic and social development and poverty locking. At the same time, due to cross language and 

cross-cultural barriers, extremes and differences in information needs, weak self-development, lack of 

public policies and other factors, ethnic minorities lead to information poverty (Sun Jie et al., 2019; Li 

Gang et al., 2017). (2) External perspective. Affected by their socio-economic status, farmers in poor 

areas are at a great disadvantage in information acquisition and application, resulting in the emergence, 



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expansion, re emergence and re expansion of “information gap”, and information poverty is inevitable 

(P. J. Tichenor, 1970; n. kazman, 1975); The economic conditions of the information poor, such as 

personal information assets and information purchasing power, also directly affect the information 

poverty (Dong Hongpeng, 2013; Zhao Ping, 2015). Other scholars believe that information is shared. 

Without policy intervention, people will obtain corresponding information according to their own 

needs and maintain the original ecological living conditions. If it is not artificially controlled, there will 

be “information island” and other phenomena. Therefore, national institutions should ensure the 

production, transmission, sharing and opening of information resources in the form of law (Shi 

Wenxiang et al., 2019; Zhou Xuan, 2019). 

2.2 Identification and Governance of Information Poverty 

The identification of information poverty is the premise of governance. Wathmanel seneviratne (2004) 

investigated the information needs of farmers in Sri Lanka and concluded that farmers’ information 

needs are divided into two main aspects. In addition to providing farmers with information in time, 

farmers should also have a reliable official channel to upload information. May J D (2012) and others 

innovated the standard of digital poverty, considered it from multiple dimensions, and compared it with 

traditional economic poverty and asset poverty. According to different participants, the governance of 

information poverty can be divided into three categories: government governance, social organizations 

and farmers themselves. (1) Government governance. Ophuls (1973) believed that since poverty is a 

public affair, it should be governed by a mandatory government. The ideal form of government 

governance corresponds to the bureaucratic structure proposed by Weber, which is manifested in the 

weak incentive of higher-level government to lower-level government. However, due to the 

information asymmetry between the superior and subordinate governments, problems such as 

“inspection and response” and “grass-roots collusion” may occur to delay the process of poverty 

governance (Wang Gang & Bai Haoran, 2018). The dissemination of information must require a certain 

carrier. The lack of rural information dissemination equipment and insufficient construction funds lead 

to the lack of information dissemination channels. In view of this, the government should give 

sufficient financial support to rural development and construction, focus on strengthening the 

construction of rural independent communication facilities and provide diversified information 

dissemination media (Zhou Wei & Wang Xinrui, 2021). (2) Social organizations. Ostrom (1990) put 

forward the theory of autonomous governance and polycentric governance, which is different from the 

traditional government governance and private governance. Olson put forward the theory of collective 

action. Sandel proposed communitarianism. (3) Farmers’ self-governance. Rural information 

dissemination should continue to increase investment in rural education, improve farmers’ sense of 

participation and acquisition in the process of information dissemination, and make them become 

practitioners of information dissemination (Zhou Wei, 2021). 

 

 



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3. Evaluation of Existing Research 

In general, domestic and foreign literature provides a good theoretical reference and logical starting 

point for the research of this paper, and provides methodological reference for the paper. However, the 

research on poverty at home and abroad mainly focuses on the identification and governance of 

absolute poverty, while the identification and governance of information poverty do not touch much; 

From the perspective of research, scholars’ research on poverty mainly focuses on universal problems, 

while there are few studies on Poverty Governance in ethnic border areas; In terms of research methods, 

it mainly focuses on randomized controlled trials and field investigation, and there are few quantitative 

research methods by constructing evaluation system. Based on this, the paper intends to break through 

the above limitations and propose a long-term governance mechanism for information poverty in 

relatively poor areas by using evaluation methods, which is of great practical significance for solving 

the “three rural” problems, promoting agricultural and rural modernization, strengthening grass-roots 

social governance, implementing the Rural Revitalization Strategy and improving farmers’ income and 

living standards. 

 

4. Research Design 

Taking “the long-term governance mechanism of information poverty in Ethnic Border Areas” as the 

research object, this paper focuses on the impact of information poverty on “the occurrence of new 

absolute poverty and the return of poverty-stricken groups” after poverty alleviation, mainly involving 

the following research contents: 

(1) Current situation research: investigation and governance of information poverty in Ethnic 

Border Areas from the perspective of relative poverty. 

① Investigation on the current situation of information poverty in Ethnic Border Areas from the 

perspective of relative poverty. Investigate the current situation of relative poverty in ethnic border 

areas, analyze the possible return to poverty and the risk of new poverty due to information poverty, 

and explore whether the cause of this phenomenon is accidental or structural poverty. ② Field 

investigation, case analysis and comparative study on the current situation of information poverty 

governance in Ethnic Border Areas from the perspective of relative poverty. Conduct field 

investigation on the relative poverty governance in ethnic border areas, such as returning to poverty and 

new poverty due to the obstruction of information access; This paper makes a case study on the 

government's information poverty alleviation ability, the pattern of social organizations participating in 

the joint construction and sharing of poverty alleviation, and the information literacy of the poor in 

ethnic border areas; This paper makes a heterogeneity analysis and comparative study on the ways and 

differences of information poverty governance between the southeast border area of Chongqing and 

different villages in the eastern coastal area and ethnic border area. 

 

 



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(2) Evaluation research: the identification of information poverty and the construction of 

governance ability evaluation index system in Ethnic Border Areas from the perspective of 

relative poverty. 

① Information poverty is identified and measured. Based on theoretical analysis and literature review, 

the identification and measurement method of Multidimensional Poverty, A-F method, is used to 

identify and measure information poverty. On the basis of identifying information poverty, it accurately 

targets the information poor groups, so as to prevent the information poor groups from returning to 

poverty and the occurrence of new poverty. It advocates a multidimensional poverty governance 

system with the participation of the government, social organizations and poor groups, so as to realize 

the new pattern of jointly building and sharing poverty reduction. ② Construction of evaluation index 

system of information poverty governance ability in Ethnic Border Areas from the perspective of 

relative poverty. Combined with the field survey data, build a scientific and reasonable evaluation 

system of information poverty governance level, select the indicators from the three dimensions of 

government level, social organizations and poor groups, and build the evaluation index system of 

information poverty governance in ethnic border areas through entropy weight method, analytic 

hierarchy process, TOPSIS Model and other methods. ③ Analysis on the causes of information 

poverty and governance problems in Ethnic Border Areas from the perspective of relative poverty. 

Through the construction of the evaluation system of information poverty governance level, we can 

identify and find the size of the return to poverty risk and the probability of new poverty risk in the 

poverty-stricken areas in Southeast Chongqing, then identify and analyze the problems existing in 

information poverty governance, and further explore the causes of governance problems. 

(3) Countermeasure research: the construction of information poverty governance mechanism 

and policy support in Ethnic Border Areas from the perspective of relative poverty. 

① Construction of long-term governance mechanism of information poverty alleviation in Ethnic 

Border Areas from the perspective of relative poverty. By tracing the problems found in the governance 

and the causes, build a long-term governance mechanism of information poverty. On the one hand, 

build a blocking mechanism for the return of poverty-stricken groups to prevent structural poverty and 

establish a bottom-up guarantee mechanism; On the other hand, build a blocking mechanism for the 

occurrence of new poverty, narrow the income gap between urban and rural areas, and maintain social 

harmony and stable development. ②  Build a policy guarantee mechanism for the long-term 

governance of information poverty in ethnic border areas. On the basis of combing the policy 

objectives, clarify the policy logic, formulate the policy content, construct the strategic framework of 

diversified and coordinated governance of the government, social organizations and poor groups, and 

design the operation mechanism, management system, system and organizational guarantee of the 

information poverty governance strategy. 

 

 



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5. Research Significance 

Theoretical significance: (1) this paper combines the social governance of sociological research 

paradigm with the relative poverty governance of economic research paradigm, explores the special 

laws of poverty governance in Ethnic Border Areas from a new perspective, and further expands the 

vision of poverty research; (2) strengthen poverty outcomes and rural revitalization of crucial is the 

crucial poverty after the country’s important strategic deployment, prevent has Chinese out of poverty 

group and new occurrence of absolute poverty is to consolidate the inherent requirement of 

anti-poverty engines results, information poverty alleviation management research to provide rural 

revitalization and relatively poor organic fusion theory experience, help to deepen the Xi jinping, 

general secretary of poverty alleviation. 

Practical significance: (1) specific problems of information poverty in ethnic border areas can be 

found in time and the performance of information poverty governance in ethnic border areas can be 

truly measured through field investigation and evaluation system construction of information poverty 

governance level in ethnic border areas; (2) By evaluating the performance of government governance, 

market governance and governance of the poor, policy suggestions are provided to change the current 

problems of government information transparency, market mechanism is not smooth, and the relative 

poor households lack of participation in information poverty governance in ethnic border areas; (3) The 

information poverty governance level evaluation system established in this research can provide a 

measurement standard for the poverty governance level in ethnic minority areas, and popularize the 

results to the relatively poor areas across the country. 

 

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