Conscious entrapment: how institutional modalities produce response–resolution decoupling on a Chinese online governance platform

Purpose This study aims to examine how institutional modalities produce and sustain the response–resolution decoupling on a Chinese online governance platform, addressing the gap between quantitative findings on what correlates with responsiveness and qualitative understanding of how it operates. Design/methodology/approach This paper involves a qualitative single case study combining document analysis with semi-structured interviews with practitioners involved in platform-based responsiveness, analyzed through structuration theory’s three modalities (signification, domination and legitimation) and their recursive interplay. Findings Three modalities jointly produce response–resolution decoupling (RQ1). Interpretive schemes construct demands through power-laden priority logics. Through power relations, scarce resources are channeled toward response production. Normative justifications, meanwhile, reward procedural compliance over resolution. Their recursive interaction reproduces the decoupling (RQ2), an unintentional structural emergence where actors recognize the gap yet cannot escape it (“conscious entrapment”). Case-grounded conjectures derived from the analysis are offered for further testing. Practical implications Partial reform risks are absorbed by the unreformed dimensions of the system. Breaking the recursive cycle requires action across all three modalities simultaneously. Social implications By showing that rapid, visible replies can coexist with unresolved problems, the study helps citizens and oversight institutions read platform performance more critically: what platforms count as responsiveness is not what citizens experience as resolution. Originality/value This study specifies “conscious entrapment” as a subtype of institutional decoupling, identifies tri-modal closure as the mechanism producing response–resolution decoupling and demonstrates that the decoupling is sustained by recursive interaction among the three modalities rather than by one-time policy failures.